Physical Appearance, Social Skill, and Performance as a Leadership Candidate

A study was conducted to explore whether the influence of physical appearance on leader emergence is mediated by appearance-related social skills. College student subjects performed a leadership simulation task in which they were videotaped giving a standard campaign speech. Canonical analysis revealed that the quality of their performance, as measured by observers' judgments and behavioral indicators, was related to their appearance and to appearance-related leadership skills. The implications of these findings for both attribution theories of leadership and applied efforts to improve leaders' performance are discussed.