Photo: hortulusIn middle school I was taught that in order to be president of the United States, you had to be native-born and at least 35 years of age. My teachers left out the requirement that you be left handed. While not formally a requirement, lately being a lefty has been pretty helpful for becoming president: five of the last seven presidents have been left handed.
Ten to 15 percent of men are left handed, which means, according to my calculations, that this many recent left-handed presidents would only happen by chance one time in 1,000. Adding to the mystery, a number of the losing candidates in recent elections (including John McCain and Ross Perot) have also been southpaws.
My son Nicholas is left handed. For that reason alone, I’ve tried to get him interested in baseball, to no avail. I’ve also heard that lefties are often good at math and art. Those two talents seem to have passed him by as well.
I had resigned myself to the fact that left-handedness would be nothing but a burden for him. I’m cheered by the news regarding presidents
I did a quick search and couldn’t find any systematic evidence that lefties were more likely to be found in leadership positions more generally. Sure, some historic figures like Napoleon are supposed to have been left handed, but there have been a lot of historic figures. Does anyone know whether lefties are overrepresented among C.E.O.’s or world leaders outside the United States?
Meanwhile, I’ve got to run and help my son hone his stump speech.
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5 out of 7 is not a very big sample size. There is not much confidence to that assertion.
Crazy. And did you know that 6 of the last 7 presidents were white? Plus Perot and McCain and Dole!
Quite a sinister bunch, those US presidents…
Are these true left-handers, or people like me who only do certain tasks – such as writing – left handed? Does anyone know exactly how we define someone being right handed or left handed? Is it just which hand you write with, or is there something more?
Left handed people are more likely to be right brain dominant. Right brain dominance lends itself to big picture thinking, rather than a detailed process orientation.
Most leaders are frequently big picture thinkers. Any neuroscience people out there to corroborate my thoughts?
Jon
tracy,
i never read gladwell. I was told to read it along with one book about teamwork and the seattle fishmarket. All i came away with from the fishmarket book was poor fish being thrown around the Seattle market. You know how hard it is to swim against the stream your whole life? Then you get caught and they throw you around a market. So when the next book was gladwell, I read one chapter and found this great master to be rather ordianary in his observations. Didn’t read further. Maybe I am just as smart as he is, but don’t have any publishing friends.
Mike,
as for being trivial… I used to think it was trivial that i couldn’t see the blackboard sitting in the last row in grade school. In a catholic (old school) school you never said “can’t” because you weren’t physically capable. You just dropped you pencil up the aisle, glanced at the blackboard and tried to memorize everything in those two seconds.
Jon – stay tuned, I just invited a Neuroscience Ph.D. over here to tell us the truth.
Comment #10 wins.