Yet it is remarkable how many bosses still conform to the traditional stereotype. Reports claim that 30 per cent of CEOs of Fortune 500 companies are 6 feet 2 inches or taller, compared with 3.9 per cent of the American population. Also bosses need to sound like leaders, and that means deep: Academics from the business schools of the University of California, San Diego and Duke University listened to 792 male CEOs giving presentations to investors and found that those with the deepest voices earned 187,000 dollars a year more than the average. Fitness seems to matter too: German researchers found that companies in America’s S&P 1500 index whose CEOs had finished a marathon are worth 5 per cent more on average than those whose bosses had not.

Can anything be done about the tendency to promote people who fit with a certain type? Ideally, those selecting a new boss should judge candidates purely on their potential and merit. However, according to the British business magazine: “Given a plethora of candidates, all with perfect CVs, selection committees continue to look for the `X´ factor and find that it resides in people who look remarkably like themselves”.  

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