The Facial Appearance of CEOs: Faces Signal Selection but Not Performance

J.I. Stoker; S. Windman; Harry Garretsen; Lieuwe Jan Spreeuwers

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0159950

The Facial Appearance of CEOs: Faces Signal Selection but Not Performance

J.I. Stoker, S. Windman (Editor), Harry Garretsen, Lieuwe Jan Spreeuwers

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44 Citations (Scopus)

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Abstract

Research overwhelmingly shows that facial appearance predicts leader selection. However, the evidence on the relevance of faces for actual leader ability and consequently performance is inconclusive. By using a state-of-the-art, objective measure for face recognition, we test the predictive value of CEOs’ faces for firm performance in a large sample of faces. We first compare the faces of Fortune500 CEOs with those of US citizens and professors. We find clear confirmation that CEOs do look different when compared to citizens or professors, replicating the finding that faces matter for selection. More importantly, we also find that faces of CEOs of top performing firms do not differ from other CEOs. Based on our advanced face recognition method, our results suggest that facial appearance matters for leader selection but that it does not do so for leader performance.

Original language	English
Article number	e0159950
Journal	PLoS ONE
Volume	11
Issue number	7
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0159950
Publication status	Published - 27 Jul 2016

Keywords

SCS-Safety
facial appearance
Face Recognition
Classification

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10.1371/journal.pone.0159950Licence: CC BY

spreeuwers_plosone2016Final published version, 566 KBLicence: CC BY

Cite this

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The Facial Appearance of CEOs: Faces Signal Selection but Not Performance

Abstract

Keywords

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