Faces of CEOs hold clues of firm's success: study

Executives from six major oil companies are sworn in to testify at an U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee on the ''Consolidation in the Oil and Gas Industry: Raising Prices?'' on Capitol Hill in Washington March 14, 2006. The executives are (L-R): Rex Tillerson, chairman and CEO of Exxon Mobil Corp., James Mulva, chairman and CEO of ConocoPhillips, David O'Reilly, chairman and CEO of Chevron Corp., Bill Klesse, CEO of Valero Energy Corp., John Hofmeister, president of Shell Oil Company and Ross Pillari, president and CEO of BP America Inc. Photos of chief executive officers (CEOs) of top American companies can reveal much about them and the firms they manage -- including how successful they are, according to a new study.

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - Photos of chief executive officers (CEOs) of top American companies can reveal much about them and the firms they manage -- including how successful they are, according to a new study.

In research published in the journal Psychological Science, 100 college students who looked at headshots of the bosses of the highest and lowest ranked Fortune 1000 companies were able to identify the most and the least successful CEOs without knowing their name, title or the company they headed.

"The findings were a surprise but given what we know about the face and social psychology and how much information is carried by the face, it's not shocking that there would be such information there that would predict a company's performance," said Nicholas Rule of Tufts University in Medford, Massachusetts.

The executives were mainly Caucasian males in their 50s. Their photos were similar in size, cropping and emotional expression.

"The fact that there's something there that people are picking up on is particularly interesting," Rule added in an interview.

Rule and his colleague Nalini Ambady asked the students to determine which faces showed leadership ability overall, and to rate characteristics such as competence, dominance, likeability, facial maturity and trustworthiness.

They found that the ratings were significantly related to company profits.

But Rule said it is difficult to determine how chief executives' faces reveal their companies' success level.

"Either people who look a certain way are somehow advantaged in achieving in this domain," he said.

"It could just be that people who go through this sort of lifestyle, the rigors of climbing the corporate ladder, develop an appearance that gives off a certain impression."

(Reporting by Natalie Armstrong)