So I decided to check what % of top women have this hairstyle. You’d be quite surprised. For this calculation, I took the 50 Most Powerful Women list published by Fortune Magazine. I rated their hair length as very short, shoulder length, just below shoulder, 7-8 inches below the shoulder, and very long.
In fact, Indra Nooyi was ranked the most powerful woman by Fortune (see photo).
The results?
Very short (like men’s): 58%
Shoulder length: 28%
3-5 inches below shoulder: 10%
7-8 inches below shoulder: 4%
Longer: 0%
Two other features were noticeable. If you look at the same distribution for women in the top 10, the results are even more skewed.
Top 10:
60%, 30%, 10%, 0%, 0%
Top 5:
100%, 0%, 0%, 0%, 0%
And, only two of these 50 women had a feminine hairstyle, only one with prominent curls.
Makes you wonder: Do successful women have very short hair cuts because they are successful and presumably don’t have the time or patience to deal with anything longer? Or, to get to the top they had to project an image that people normally associate with leaders?
I guess with my unruly curly long hair, I might as well drop any ideas of being a CEO :)
2 comments:
There could be a third reason for the correlation, which is that women with traits that enable them to rise to powerful ranks also happen to be the ones who prefer short hair. That is, there is no causality in either direction. Or perhaps the reality is a mix of all three possibilities...
There could be a whole other more practical reason: short hair is easier to deal with (to wash, dry and even 'set').
When my husband told me a few years ago to let my hair grow long, my response was, 'if you like long hair, go ahead and grow your own'.
Looking for a pattern to CEO readiness is like looking for answers in your daily horoscope. You will frame the question to fit the answer oftentimes :-)
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