Psychologists often find strange relationships between our behaviour and our body shape. Recent research from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee has discovered that profitable companies require a fat-faced leader…! According to the research, Fortune 500 companies who had leaders with wide faces made more profits than businesses where the leaders were thin-faced. The results were statistically significant, suggesting there is something to this.

But why should men with relatively wider faces do better financially than men whose faces are less rounded? It seems it is something to do with testosterone. At puberty, testosterone levels rise and these lead to changes in the size of the jaw bones in boys. A girl’s face grows less after puberty than does a boy’s, as a result. However, there is a complication in all of this – the levels of testosterone are related to the immune system too. When a boy’s immune system is, what you might call stronger, the effect of the testosterone is greater. Essentially, this means that boys with good immune systems have greater facial growth. In evolutionary terms this is important – it means that the “stronger” potential mate is the one with the wider face. Several studies show that women prefer men whose face shape produces a higher ratio of face width to face height.

This has a knock on effect – men with wider faces get to realise they are more attractive. They then sense the degree of power they have. And it is this which probably explains why they are also more successful in the boardroom. Indeed, men with very wide faces tend to be aggressive – their extreme sense of power has tipped too far in the negative direction.

However, for any business this research has implications – it may mean that rather than checking CVs, rather than relying on interviews, all you need to do is measure the width to height ratio or your job applicants’ faces. The one with the wider face is the winner…!

So – who is running your online business? A thin-faced weasel or power hungry fat-face?

Related articles

• Wide-faced CEO’s ‘better for their companies’ (telegraph.co.uk)
• Team Uncovers Big, Fat (Faced) Liars (newser.com)
• Face to face is essential for online people (grahamjones.co.uk)