Looking for a Good Nonprofit CEO? Choose a Teddy Bear, Not a Shark, Survey Says

According to University of Toronto research, having the face of a leader may depend on whether the enterprise being led is a for-profit business or a nonprofit organization.

In a paper entitled, "Predicting Firm Success from the Facial Appearance of CEOs of Nonprofit Organizations," Daniel Re, a postdoctoral fellow, and Nicholas Rule, an associate professor of psychology, report on three separate studies that suggest the facial features of successful nonprofit CEOs are noticeably different from leaders of for-profit companies.

For the first study, Re, Rule and team showed images of the faces of many of the CEOs of the 100 highest-revenue nonprofit organizations as listed by Forbes for 2009, 2010 and 2011.