It serves as important environmental primes for initial judgements of suitability for leadership and can play a determinative role in leader emergence.” (p 287) Also, he stated that “high level of physical attractiveness, in particular is known to convey a wide variety of important social advatanges – in dating, academic achievement, mental health, persuasion, as well as in contests for leadership.” (p 293) Physical attractiveness has been linked to mental health, intelligence, ability and performance. Physical attractiveness is viewed primarily as an ascribed personal resource which with controls for other personal resources such as education, income, health, perceived intelligence, height, number of friends, religious faith and age has a relationship to a single global index of well-being. Attractive people are clearly more positive in the affective side of their lives, however, they are not more satisfied with their lives in general or the major domains of life. Attractive people receive cues from others which make them behave better. The reactions that pretty people get may make them learn to adapt more socially. (Webster and Driskell, …show more content…
People occupying prototypical positions may acquire such power to influence in at least two ways: (a) They are socially attractive (Hogg,1992,1993; Hogg, Cooper-Shaw, & Holzworth, 1993; Hogg & Hains, 1996; Hogg & Hardie, 1991) and, thus, because they are liked (as group members), people in the group are more likely to comply with their suggestions, requests, and orders, (b) They are perceived to have charismatic-leadership personalities, because of the operation of attribution processes that cause members to attribute the leader's apparent influence to the person rather than the prototypicality of the position they occupy (cf. the fundamental attribution error; Ross, 1977).
Leadership is a dynamic product of transactions between leaders and followers. Leaders play a significant role in helping followers achieve their goals, followers bestow power and status on leaders to restore equity. Effective leaders should be proactive, change oriented, innovative, motivating and inspiring, and have a vision or mission with which they infuse the group. They should also be interested in others and be able to create commitment to the group and extract extra effort from, and generally empower, members of the