A few weeks ago, I saw an article in The Economist about a study in which Tufts University psychologists Nicholas Rule and Nalini Ambady asked undergraduates to evaluate pictures of faces of a bunch of Fortune 1000 executives.
Half the students were asked to rate how good they thought the person in the picture would be at leading a company, the other half were asked to rate the person for five attributes: competence, dominance, likeability, trustworthiness, and something called facial maturity (i.e., did the person look grown up).
Damned if the students - none of whom, by the way, recognized Warren Buffet's photo - didn't do a surprisingly good job at figuring out who the "best" leaders were in terms of which ones were running the most successful companies.
From the Psychological Science press release (the journal in which the study was published), we learn:
Without knowledge of the pictured individuals’ job titles, and by rating the faces on competence, dominance, likeability, facial maturity and trustworthiness, the students were able to distinguish between the successful and the not-so-successful CEOs.
Despite the ambiguity of the images, which were cropped to the face, put into grayscale and standardized in size, ratings of power- and leadership-related traits from CEOs’ faces were significantly related to company profits.
"These findings suggest that naive judgments may provide more accurate assessments of individuals than well-informed judgments can," wrote the authors. “Our results are particularly striking given the uniformity of the CEOs’ appearances.” The majority of CEOs, who were selected according to their Fortune 1000 ranking, were Caucasian males of similar age.
Of the traits evaluated, the ones that mattered were competence, dominance, and facial maturity. Alas, likeability and trustworthiness didn't seem to count for much.
My first thought is, great, more support for the value of the "naive judgments" of the twenty-somethings. As if they need yet another boost to their self-esteem.
My second thought: why didn't they ask for a rating on confidence, which I'm guessing may have been what separated the Caucasian males from the Caucasian males, as it were.
My third thought: how very interesting.
Well, I had enough time to either try to find the full report, or to do an unscientific, unnormalized study of my own, evaluating pictures of the first five Caucasian male CEO's who came to mind. (Other than Warren Buffet, all photos taken from the corporate web site.) So here are my ratings:
Google:
I'd give Eric Schmidt high marks for competence, likeability, and trustworthiness. He looks like one smart, fun to work with nerd. Ixnay on dominance, and facial maturity - but maybe this is the wave of the future.
Verizon:
How well I remember the times when Ivan Seidenberg blew into Genuity (a Verizon spinout that spun out of control - and out of business) to tell us that our fate was in our hands. Well, Ivan, that turned out not to be 100% correct, but all (or almost all) is forgiven.
I think Ivan looks competent, facially mature, and - maybe it's the shirt and tie - a tad bit dominant. Gee, I also have to say he looks reasonable likable and even a little trustworthy. Way to go, Ivan.
Berkshire-Hathaway
Maybe those Tufts kids had no idea who you are, but Warren, baby, I'd know you anywhere. Warren looks likable (and rumpled), competent (perhaps because I know he is), facially mature (and hair color mature as well), and trustworthy. Warren does not look dominant to me, but hanging around Omaha, and having a kabillion dollars to his name - he just may no longer have to be.
GE
Well, to me Jeff Immelt looks like Michael Douglas playing Jeff Immelt.(Or Jeff Immelt playing Mitt Romney.) But once I get beyond that, he looks competent enough, dominant (in a cocksure, sales guy, cigar-ish kind of way), Likable (but with a bit of faux-likeability about the smile), and reasonably facially mature. To me, however, he doesn't give good trustworthy. Maybe a little too much attention paid to looking "approachable". (Maybe it's just the candid shot.)
Microsoft
What's there to say? The person in this picture of Steve Ballmer doesn't look particularly likable or trustworthy. He sure doesn't look dominant. The gaze. The smirk. He looks goofy. (And I'm not dissing the bald, here, either. Some of my best friends are bald, including my husband, father, and brothers. But even when I covered that bald pate with my thumb, he still looks goofy.) I don't even see a lot of facial maturity going on (other than the bald). All I can say is, this guy must be rip-roaring competent!
No comments:
Post a Comment