很多人参加昂贵的管理培训课程来学习如何引导同事朝着一个共同的目标努力，但也许他们可以少花点钱，只需要去观察一下某些鱼类如何在鱼群中发挥领导力。在训练90条黄金鳊(Notemigonus crysoleucas，如上图)如何找到一盘鱼食后，科学家们给这些具备潜力的“领导者们”做上标志，然后将它们分别同八只没有经过训练的鱼一起放回鱼缸，然后等着看接下来会发生什么。在某些情况下，有的有经验的鱼四处游动，好像它以前从来没有在这个鱼缸中呆过，它的“队友们”也同样很迷茫。有的则直奔那潮乎乎的鱼食，而且很可能会吃到鱼食，但因为太急而未能与其它同伴很好地沟通，结果把“队友们”留在了身后，不知所措。科学家们在付印前的《美国博物学家》在线版上报告说，大多数经过训练的黄金鳊表现出了高效的领导力：它们足够确定，能够指出鱼群应该行进的方向;但又不会过于自信而甩掉队伍，失去鱼群的保护。这项研究首次通过实验证明，这样的权衡交换——尽快实现目标还是和群体一同行动——存在于人类以外的动物中，研究人员说，这可能揭示了优秀领导力的一些基本组成部分。所以，下一次你如果需要让你的同事们在截止日期前完成工作的话，不如让自己也尝试一下黄金鳊的策略吧?

    原文链接：Getting lessons in leadership from hungry fish

    原文摘要：Scores of people take expensive management training to learn how to guide colleagues toward a common goal, but maybe they could get less costly lessons by watching how certain fish take the lead in their schools. After training about 90 golden shiners (Notemigonus crysoleucas, seen above) to find a dish of fish food, scientists tagged these potential leaders, released them back in the tank individually with eight untrained fish, and then waited to see what would happen. In some cases, a veteran fish swam around as if it had never been in the tank before, leaving its schoolmates equally confused. Others made a beeline for the soggy fare and were more likely to reach it, but in their haste failed to communicate with fellow fish and left them in their wake. Most of the trained shiners, however, were effective leaders; just assertive enough to indicate which direction the school should travel but not so assertive that they lost the group and the protection it provided, the scientists report online before print in The American Naturalist. The study is the first to show experimentally that such a tradeoff—between achieving a goal as quickly as possible and keeping followers—exists in animals other than humans, possibly revealing some fundamental component of good leadership, the researchers say. So, the next time you need to get your colleagues to meet a deadline, why not give channeling your inner golden shiner a try?