Natural Selection of Leaders

“When you view leadership and followership through the prism of evolutionary psychology, many peculiarities about the way we choose our leaders look less odd. For example, political scientists have no convincing rational explanation of why taller candidates almost always beat shorter rivals. But hundreds of thousands of years ago, when tribal conflicts were resolved physically, lofty tribesmen would have enjoyed an edge over opponents of modest stature. Our societies continue to insist leaders should look “statesmanlike” without spelling out what this means, which suggests that we have some innate concept of what a leader should look like.”