Do dyslexics make great CEOs?

By BusinessWeek

When Alan Meckler, the chief executive officer of IT and online-imagery hub Jupitermedia (JUPM, news, msgs), was accepted to Columbia University in 1965, the dean's office told him he had some of the lowest college boards of any student ever admitted.

"I got a 405 or 410 in English," he recalls. "In those days you got a 400 just for putting your name down! Yet I was on the dean's list every year I was there, and I won a prize for having the best essay in American history my senior year."

It wasn't until years later, at age 58, that Meckler learned he was dyslexic. He struggles with walking and driving directions, and interpreting charts and graphs. He prefers to listen to someone explain a problem to him rather than sit down and read 20 pages describing it. As a youth, Meckler discovered a unique strength -- baseball -- and cultivated it religiously to compensate for weakness in other areas.

All of these things, according to Sally Shaywitz, a professor of learning development at Yale University, are classic signs of dyslexia.

Shaywitz has long argued that dyslexia should be evaluated as an asset, not just a handicap. She recently co-founded the Yale Center for Dyslexia & Creativity, dedicated to studying the link between the two.

"I want people to wish they were dyslexic," she says. "There are many positive attributes that can't be taught that people are generally not aware of. We always write about how we're losing human capital -- dyslexics are not able to achieve their potential because they've had to go around the system."

Rejection, and a penchant for creativity

Dyslexia is the most common learning disability. An estimated 5% to 17.5% of U.S. schoolchildren have dyslexia, although only 4% have been classified as dyslexic and receive special education services, according to research by Shaywitz and others.

It's not clear whether dyslexics develop their special talents by learning to negotiate their disability or whether such skills are the genetic inheritance of being dyslexic. It's a question Shaywitz plans to explore, along with trying to change the way dyslexia is viewed in the educational system and the business world. One project at the center will be an education series to train executives to recognize outside-the-box thinkers who don't perform well on standardized tests.

Shaywitz recently tested a well-known CEO (whom she declined to identify) for dyslexia. The man confessed that he'd hired an outside company to help identify future leaders within the organization by administering a reading test. "'The irony is,' I told him, 'you're eliminating and sifting out all the people like yourself who might actually be the ones to be creative and make a difference.'"

That kind of rejection, along with a penchant for creativity, may help explain why so many dyslexics are inclined to become entrepreneurs. Julie Logan, a professor of entrepreneurship at Cass Business School in London, believes strongly in the connection.

In a study to be published in January, Logan found that 35% of entrepreneurs in the United States show signs of dyslexia, compared to 20% in Britain. Logan attributes the gap to a more flexible education system in the U.S., versus rigid tracking in British schools, and better identification and remediation methods.

"Most of the people in our study talked about the role of the mentor and how important that had been," Logan says. "The difference seems to be somebody who believes in you in school."

The broader implication, she says, is that many of the coping skills dyslexics learn in their formative years become best practices for the successful entrepreneur.

Children who chronically fail standardized tests must become comfortable with failure. Slow readers learn to extract only vital information, so that they're constantly getting right to the point. Dyslexics are also forced to trust and rely on others to get things done -- an essential skill for anyone working to build a business.

"People really struggle to delegate, and these people have learned to do that already," she says. "If you're bogged down in the details, you're not out there looking at where your business needs to go."

Continued: Daunting on the middle rungs

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