From Matthew Tucker, Sydney, Australia
To lead a country, large business or institution, you need people skills, often in a Machiavellian way (5 December 2020, p 34). This means you must be good at understanding other people’s minds – in other words, you need a high degree of empathic ability.
So, if Simon Baron-Cohen is right and there is a biological trade-off between empathy and systemising ability, the best innovators and problem-solvers aren’t the people who have climbed the corporate or political ladders, but the people who are literally unable to do so.
