ACADEMIC EXPERTISE vs INTELLECTUAL EXCELLENCE DEDATE

Does academic expertise make better or able leaders without any intellectual excellence?
Do we necessarily need leaders with higher education qualifications as we attempt to stem the tide of the global economic meltdown?
Will politics or economics play any significant leadership role to address the historic financial crisis in the millenium?
Neither Socio-Political Commentators, Economics Buffons and Academics have given a recipe and they differ widely in their intepretation of what 'actually' inform or give rise to the other discipline.
Where, then, would you locate eminent leaders, such as businessman Tony Factor, former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, RSA President Jacob Zuma, and last but not least, Steve Bantu Biko?
Some of these 'once reverred' personalities never had proper formal education, while others did actually receive secondary and tertiary education, though, they never graduated.

Main argument by present-day scholars is that 'making academic expertise a vital requirement for intellectual excellence is a 'misnomer'.
How,then do you place the leadership that was 'inherently' born sharp-minded in the contemporary global political economy.

The greatest thinker of our times, Ali Mazrui, describes an intellectual as 'a person who has the capacity to be fascinated by ideas, and has the capacity to handle them effectively'.
And Richard Hofstadter, in his seminal book 'Anti-Intellectualism in American Life' draws a distinction between intelligence and intellect.
According to Hofstadter intelligence is 'an excellence of mind with an "unfailingly practical quality".

However, in the words of our own young South African Socio-Political commentator, also an 'intellectual of the highest calibre' Xolela Mangcu; the term intellectual in its modern incarnation emerged during the Dreyfus affair in France as a badge of political committment.

Who then can be regarded as an intellectual?
"Intellectualls use 'the contemplative side of the mind to engage in free speculation WHILE academic experts rely on their intelligence to solve problems" explains Mangcu eloquently.