Bipolar Disorder and Leadership Potential

leadershipIs bipolar disorder associated with greater leadership potential? A Swedish study suggests that people with bipolar have both the highest and lowest rates of leadership potential. What does this mean?

Many anecdotes and a few studies have suggested that people in leadership positions have higher rates of bipolar disorder than might be expected by chance. Think of the book The Hypomanic Edge by John Gartner, which argues that most of America’s greatest achievements were done by people who were hypomanic, as just one example.

Swedish researchers used 1973–2009 census registry data for diagnoses and professions of people diagnosed with bipolar disorder and their healthy siblings as well as military recruitment records of IQ and the findings of personal interviews for “officer suitability,” which were done for those with average or higher IQ.

Compared with controls, men with pure bipolar disorder were more likely to be in either the highest or lowest group in terms of ratings of suitability to be an officer in the military. Their healthy siblings were overrepresented at only the highest rank. Patients with pure bipolar disorder were underrepresented in executive professions, but healthy siblings were overrepresented, particularly in political professions (OR, 1.85).

What does this mean? Well, one interpretation is that a little bit of bipolarity is potentially a very good thing in terms of leadership potential (the fact that the brothers and sisters of someone with bipolar had higher rates of being in leadership positions might be explained because they got a small genetic dose of the genes that are linked to bipolar.

Kyaga S et al. Bipolar disorder and leadership — A total population study. Acta Psychiatr Scand 2014 Jun 25; [e-pub ahead of print]. (http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/acps.12304)