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Do left-handed people lead the company in a different way than right-handed people?
Around 11% of the world’s population is left-handed, and people often wonder if there is a psychological difference between left-handed and right-handed. One commonly said idea is that left-handed people can be more creative than right-handed. Although previous research on this question focused primarily on artistic ability, Creativity It can be related in many different situations in life that have nothing to do with creating art. For example, creativity is important in your business when finding new innovative solutions to the problems facing companies and creating new innovative products. A new psychological study focusing on investigating this topic, as the link between left-handedness and innovation and creativity in business contexts has not been understood at all before.
New research focusing on left-handed CEOs and how they affect the success of company innovation
This study is Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Finance It focuses on identifying the CEO of a left-handed company (Chen and colleagues, 2025). To this end, a research team led by Long Chen, a scientist at George Mason University’s Costello Business University, first compiled a list of 500 CEOs of American companies listed on the stock exchange. Scientists then analyzed the CEO’s videos and photos to determine whether they were left-handed or right-handed. They also emailed the company directly to ask about the CEO’s dominant hand.
To measure the success of each company’s innovation, scientists assess how many patents have been granted to the company and how often patents are cited by the company. Additionally, scientists evaluated additional variables that could affect the link between dominant hand and innovation success. sex This is because men tend to be left-handed more frequently than women.
Companies with left-handed CEOs are making innovation success more successful
Overall, 8% of the CEOs surveyed were left-handed, close to the values observed in the general population (approximately 11%). Interestingly, there was a statistically significant effect indicating that firms with left-handed CEOs were granted more patents than firms with right-handed CEOs. Furthermore, patents owned by companies with left-handed CEOs were cited considerably more frequently than patents owned by companies with right-handed CEOs. These effects persisted even after the refined statistical control procedure was shown to be rather robust.
Additionally, scientists analyzed what happened when the company moved from right-handed to left-handed CEOs. Interestingly, the transition from right-handed to left-handed CEO increased the success of innovation measured by patents. In contrast, no such effect was observed when the company switched from left-handed to right-handed CEOs.
When trying to analyze why left-handed CEOs are more successful innovators than right-handed CEOs, scientists identified two related factors: On the other hand, the left-handed CEO was more likely than the right-handed CEO. Meanwhile, they also hired more migrant workers.
Taken together, this study shows that having a left-handed CEO is beneficial for successful innovation. While not the only factor that drives a company’s success, it can certainly be important in some areas, and CEO left-handedness can predict the success of company innovation.
