Video games and leadership might not seem like they go together, but I'm here to prove otherwise. Your sore thumbs are not in vain: you're improving your business skills!

Whether you're a veteran PC gamer or a survivor of the Console Wars, you've likely played more than your fair share of video games. And that's a good thing if you want to be a better business leader.

Video games and leadership go hand-in-hand.

The first reason is simple: video games are good for your brain — and better brains make for better leaders.

Studies have shown that playing puzzle games for 10 minutes per day can "help train the brain's hippocampus for things like remembering lost keys and recalling new names."

This daily "training" can increase your brain's memory functions and help you to solve puzzles outside of the games you play. But, of course, just like going to the gym, you have to keep playing to make the benefits "stick" (You can't do one push-up and expect to win the Olympics' weightlifting competition!).

However, you don't have to be a fan of Professor Layton or other "brain" games for video games to improve your thinking capacities.

Doctors C. Shawn Green and Aaron R. Seitz have noted that "action video games have been linked to improving attention skills, brain processing, and cognitive functions including low-level vision through high-level cognitive abilities. Many other types of games do not produce an equivalent impact on perception and cognition. Brain games typically embody few of the qualities of the commercial video games linked with cognitive improvement."