Prima Facie Leadership
Leadership potential can sometimes be recognized at a glance.
From the Journal of Experimental Criminology:
If the face fits: predicting future promotions from police cadets’ facial traits
Published: 04 February 2023
Ian T. Adams, Scott M. Mourtgos, Christopher A. Simon & Nicholas P. Lovrich
Objective
To evaluate the relationship between police cadets’ facial traits and their subsequent promotional success.
Methods
Using archival police academy photographs, we use a two-phase experiment to evaluate the impact of facial traits on future promotional success. First, respondents (n = 507) view randomly selected photographs of cadets (observations = 15,669) and evaluate them for facial traits and perceived leadership ability. Second, respondents are presented with random dyads of differentially promoted recruits, and choose one based on the highest perceived leadership ability. We compare those leadership evaluations to the subsequent promotional success of the cadets featured in the photographs (observations = 5739). We employ Bayesian multilevel modeling throughout both phases.
Results
Facial traits are the primary driver of subject perceptions of leadership ability, and those perceptions successfully predict promotional success later in the cadets’ careers. When selecting for leadership potential based on police cadet photographs, respondents predict correct promotional choices at levels well above chance as measured by an AUC score of .70. Further, respondents’ evaluations successfully discriminate both between no promotion and lieutenant promotion, and sergeant versus lieutenant promotions.
Conclusions
Promoting the most capable police officers is a critical feature of public service. Our findings cast a degree of doubt on the purportedly meritocratic foundations of police promotion and selection. Extra-legal information, such as facial features, predicts later promotional success.
I dunno, seems like promoting cops whom strangers look at and say, “Now that looks like a leader” could work out fairly well.
Back around the turn of the century, there was a similar study of Army cadet's photos in old West Point yearbooks. Sure enough, strong-jawed cadets who looked like natural leaders of men were more likely to wind up as generals decades later.
Amusingly at the scientific conference in Europe where I heard about this paper, we had an example of this effect in action. Most days, after hearing about studies in the morning, we'd get on a bus in the afternoon and visit a tourist destination. But our trips always involved a lot of wasted time due to the academics indecisively milling about because none of us intellectuals had any leadership skills.
Finally, one of the coeds who was helping out at the conference brought her handsome, strong-jawed boyfriend along on an outing. This 20-year-old immediately took charge of the middle-aged academics like a border collie directing a sheep herd, and we all gratefully fell into line behind him. The whole day went much more smoothly than the previous ones because we all recognized a natural leader and followed his direction.
That particular West Point class of 1915 was the famous "The Class The Stars Fell On." Obviously the timing right before WWI helped, war records early in one's career are good for progression, and many stayed in the service during the Great Depression when there was very limited alternative economic opportunity, and then they were mostly Colonels or Lieutenant Colonels on the eve of WWII. Like a lot of them, Eisenhower was stuck at the rank of Major for 16 years, even though he had worked for and had good relationships and reputations with Marshall, McArthur, and Pershing. With McArthur (and Patton) he helped clear out the Bonus Army with chloro-arsenic-heterocycle based vomiting agent DM, called Adamsite after its inventor, famous American Organic Chemist Roger Adams of Boston (yes, related to John Adams), who also discovered CBD. Pershing was reportedly Eisenhower's favorite boss, and he ended up gifting him Hermann Goring's unique Merkel 303 Over- Under shotgun, which Pershing donated to the NRA for permanent display at their free museum headquarters in Fairfax, Virginia.
But what really made the difference for that class was Eisenhower himself, who quite apart from his cultivated avucular political persona, was widely regarded as one of the most fiercely determined and intelligent of the group and, apparently, by far the most charismatic, Bill Clinton level stuff.
While stationed at Fort Lewis Eisenhower had a chance meeting with, IIRC, FDR's daughter, charmed the pants off her (perhaps not literally, then again ...) and she introduced him to dad and FDR was likewise charmed and also convinced that Eisenhower was a good progressive and basically had the same political ideas, values, and goals, and so a good, reliable agent for that agenda should any political question arise in the field (things being much more genuinely delegated and decentralized than today when the White House just runs everything.) Like Groves thought of Oppenheimer, FDR concluded that he needed someone who could toe-to-toe with some of the world's top egos and talents, who could "manage outsized personalities with ease" and couldn't be intimidated. Even as a relatively low ranking officer at the time, FDR knew he found his man. America seems as if it was just overflowing with world-class talents at that time.
That's how Eisenhower got promoted from Lieutenant Colonel (O-5) to Five Star General (O-11) in just 18 months, which even in the midst of WWII was an astonishing extreme outlier (which everyone knew and noticed and gossiped about, you can be sure.) And what Eisenhower did was get strong influence over future assignments and promotions and then pull everyone he already knew best from his West Point graduating class along with him, whether they were already Generals or just needed his help in getting quickly bumped up. Not the last time "guys who just happened to get thrown together in college" had an outsized influence on the course of human events.
I saw this at work in my pledge class. There were twelve of us and during our first week together, everyone coalesced around two young men and (to my disgust) would look to them googly-eyed for leadership. I was absolutely perplexed. Until then I had naively assumed I was a natural leader. I could not sway the group at all with good arguments or obviously better ideas (which in retrospect, were not better. I didn't understand the priorities of frat boys). What was their secret? One was a loud braggart/ladies man and the other was a very smart, quiet, dud with no interest in being friends with more than one other kid in the class. Why was everyone automatically looking to them for decisions?
Took me a while to figure out that they were the best looking of us. Turns out evolution programmed a very simple algorithm in us because, apparently, it's more important to have certainty about who is the leader than to have the best leader. On average it's better that every man agree to pull in the same direction, than to take time to decide what is the best direction.
I think this mechanism is about getting newly formed groups to organize quickly. I also think that a longer lived group has the time to use better selection criteria and often does.
Even then, intelligence and judgement are not the only criteria. You still need that primitive thing where people look at you and hear you and have confidence you are in charge. That's why Dungeons & Dragons made charisma one of the character traits.