The many faces of leadership

The ancestral environment may have shaped human’s implicit preference of leadership. Ancestral human society was not always hierarchical, evidenced by the fields of archaeology and anthropology, which suggests early human leaders’ influence was limited to their domain of expertise. 

Previous studies find dominance is not always preferred in leaders, particularly in peace and intragroup conflict situations. Using an online card-sorting interface, Caucasian and East Asian participants were asked to sort male Caucasian faces into one of the following categories: business leader, sports leader, moral leader, and not a leader. A ‘not sure’ category was also included to allow uncertain and alternative leader categorisation.

Face choices were compared with perceived personality ratings (e.g. masculinity, intelligence, attractiveness, health, maturity).

1. An individual's facial appearance predicted whether or not he/she will be considered as a leader.
2. Different sets of faces were chosen according to leadership contexts.
3. Contextual choice was driven by facial cues to different personality traits (e.g., perceived intelligence was important for business and moral leadership but not for sports leadership).
4. Cross-cultural agreement was found with subtle differences in the visual representations of leadership prototypes.

Facial appearance can be used to explore implicit leadership theory. Leadership preference patterns are context contingent and largely consistent across cultures.

Presenters: Dr Jing Ma (University of Dundee) 
Host: Dr. Felippe Oliveira

Location: You can either join us on Teams or come to the presentation at the Carnegie Building, Carnegie Lecture Theatre, School of Business, Dundee, DD1 4HN 

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