The Beauty Gap: are good looks a curse for women in the boardroom?

Aretired head teacher of one of Britain’s most go-getting girls’ schools has stirred up a hornets’ nest by suggesting that beauty is a winning weapon in the boardroom. Clarissa Farr, high mistress of St Paul’s Girls’ School until 2017, has caused consternation by suggesting that good looks can give female bosses an authority they might otherwise be considered to lack.

“When you google the word CEO, the images are all white men with grey hair,” Farr remarked over the weekend. “Our idea of authority is still male. There are certain woman whose personal beauty makes their leadership acceptable who wouldn’t be able to hold the sway they do if they didn’t look the way they do.” By way of example, she cited Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg and British financier Helena Morrissey….

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About the Author: DrStefanieKJohnson

Dr. Stefanie K. Johnson is an Associate Professor of Management at the Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado Boulder. She holds a Ph.D. from Rice University and is particularly interested in the effects of unconscious biases in the evaluation of women and minorities, with the goal of finding ways to mitigate those biases. Dr. Johnson brings bias to light with an engaging and humorous approach to advanced scientific research, which has earned her numerous accolades and invitations to present her work at meetings around the world, including the White House for a 2016 summit on diversity in corporate America on National Equal Pay Day, and the 2016 Harvard Negotiation and Leadership Conference. She has published over 70 journal articles and book chapters in outlets such as Harvard Business Review, Journal of Applied Psychology and The Academy of Management Journal. She has extensive consulting experience and has created and delivered leadership-development training with an emphasis on evidence-based practice. In recognition of her unique research, Dr. Johnson has been awarded nearly three million dollars in external funding to study leadership and create leadership development programs aimed at increasing safety. Media outlets featuring her work include: The Economist, Newsweek, Time, and CNN. Stefanie lives in the Boulder Bubble in Colorado with her Biology Professor husband, two young kiddos, and two old kitties.