In terms of intelligence, it’s an absolute pleasure working with intelligent people. Everything runs smoothly and everything just works. You should always surround yourself by people that are smarter than you are, because it’s really wonderful to have people that you can learn from and count on. Working with less intelligent people is more difficult because they may not easily grasp certain concepts and you will require more patience and management skills to make up for their lack of intelligence i.e. relative to your own intelligence. However everybody can teach you something, and everybody has different sets of skills, and sometimes perhaps for financial or practical reasons you may need to also work with people that are less intelligent than yourself. You should be kind to these people and learn from them too.

Having said that, one must keep one thing in mind that if you’re working with someone that is less skilled/intelligent, you can always teach this person what they need to know, but you cannot change an a**hole.

So the more important question is not whether or not someone is intelligent, but rather what kind of personality do they have … and more importantly, how wise they are. You will find narcissistic people on both sides of the intelligence spectrum and you need to stay away from them at all costs, regardless of whether they are geniuses or idiots.

1. First prize: intelligent people that have empathy and wisdom.
2. Second prize: less intelligent people that have empathy and wisdom.
3. Third option: intelligent people that do NOT have empathy and/or wisdom. Work with these people only if you’re forced into it, in which case try to limit your interactions with them as well the power you give them. If you cannot limit their power or limit your interactions with them, then rather don’t bother.
4. Fourth option: less intelligent people that have no empathy and/or wisdom. This shouldn’t really be an option. It’s best to stay clear of these people for the sake of your own mental health.

All of the above “options” should be relative to your own intellectual and emotional intelligence.