By now the story is known: a brilliant Harvard president forced out early in his term by repeated faculty votes of no confidence. They couldn't find a way to work with him. Reportedly his “arrogant and imperious” style was the core of the problem, and he refused to change his style even after promising to do so. He accomplished numerous good things for Harvard, but in the end these didn't matter. His comments last year about women possibly being less fit for careers in science simply acted as a flash point for the faculty's anger over his behavior. As is usual with issues of personality, it wasn't the "what" of what he did. It was the "how."

I'm sure it wasn't all Summers' fault. I know very well how difficult and politically correct members of the Harvard community can be. I'll never forget giving a talk at the Radcliffe Institute many years ago, only to have an audience member suddenly erupt into a bizarre, enraged monologue to the effect that I had no right to my opinions, and indeed no right to be there at all.

Nevertheless, the main problem lies with Summers. What goes on with people like this, who turn gold into rocks, and doom themselves to failure as leaders despite their enormous gifts?

One of Summers' old friends said yesterday that he "always had to be the smartest kid in the room." That rang a bell: when you were in school, how well did you like that kid?

Very bright people are sometimes either socially inept, insecure, or feel disempowered around others. Despite their huge intellects, they feel like stupid outsiders. So they may use their intelligence as a club to force others to their will. They often have no understanding that other people need to be respected; at some fairly deep level these other people don't really exist for them. Sometimes, as with several true geniuses I've worked with over the years, the lack of social/political sense was bred into them, in a home rife with paranoia, that gave the basic message that other people had to be finessed or vanquished with a combination of intellect and conviction.

Of course it doesn't work that way. People feel unimportant, bullied, and condescended to. Rage builds, and it's only a matter of time before the genius/leader is either marginalized or, like Summers, chewed up and spit out.

Perhaps it's no accident that Summers' biggest backers in the Harvard community have been the undergraduates, for whom all such issues of power and control are largely non-existent.

The saddest thing is that these people usually have absolutely no awareness that any such problem exists. They are thick as mud in this area, despite their computer brains. If they get so much as a clue, they quickly retroflex into denial: it's simply too emotionally dangerous.

"A strong leader is not just someone who can name a goal or force a change," Mary C. Waters, a Harvard sociology professor, said yesterday, "but someone who can bring out the best in people and find ways to encourage teamwork."

That sounds like a plain vanilla, garden-variety comment, but given Mr. Summers' personality, it's an understatement, and a profound one at that.