It would be interesting to quantify how influential such people are over the course of years or decades. My field is criminology. I know from one background investigation that my peers said that I think that I know more than the teacher, but that I have no influence with my group. Harsh reality…

I can offer one case study, perhaps not widely known. CYPRESS SEMICONDUCTOR president T. J. Rodgers has grown a successful business by a conscious plan of direct engagement. In their meetings, you are expected to make a strong statement because weak statements have no value. You are then expected to have facts (of course), but then, also to have even more facts because everyone else around the table is going to argue with you on every point. If you can’t take that, then you have not much to offer, certainly not at the management level. CYPRESS and Rodgers have been around for 40 years. It seems to work for them.