What happened to Denny (Trillin, 1994)? Roger “Denny” Hansen was a classmate of author Calvin Trillin. He was a Rhodes Scholar who had all the markings of early success. But life did not prove kind to him, and after a series of failures, Denny committed suicide at the age of 55. Of course there are other examples of spectacular failures, such as William James Sidis, who never lived up to the potential he had shown as an intellectual child prodigy.

THE WICS MODEL

The WICS model is a possible common basis for identifying gifted individuals (Sternberg, 2003c). WICS is an acronym standing for Wisdom, Intelligence, Creativity, Synthesized. According to this model, wisdom, intelligence, and creativity are sine qua nons for the gifted leaders of the future. Without a synthesis of these three attributes, someone can be a decent contributor to society, and perhaps even a good one, but never a great one.

In the remainder of this chapter, each of these attributes is discussed, although for didactic purposes, they are not discussed in the order in which they are stated in the acronym. The discussion starts with intelligence, which is a basis for creativity and wisdom and so should be discussed first. Then, creativity is discussed, which is essential in wisdom, as well. Finally, wisdom is discussed, which builds on but goes beyond intelligence and creativity. Then, methods are described for measuring the attributes. Finally, some general conclusions are drawn.