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Journal of Business Research 124 (2021) 86–99
0148-2963/© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license
(http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
Clothes make the leader! How leaders can use attire to impact followers’
perceptions of charisma and approval
Thomas Maran
a
,
b
, Simon Liegl
c
, Sebastian Moder
c
, Sascha Kraus
d
,
*
, Marco Furtner
c
a
University of Innsbruck, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria
b
LeadershipWerk, 9490 Vaduz, Liechtenstein
c
University of Liechtenstein, 9490 Vaduz, Liechtenstein
d
Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, 39100 Bolzano, Italy
ARTICLE INFO
Keywords:
Leader charisma
Leader approval
Clothing
Nonverbal signals
Impression management
ABSTRACT
Sneakers at a product launch, a leather jacket when heads of state meet, sunglasses at a formal reception. While
popular media relishes leaders who catch the eye by way of such distinctive fashion, we know little about how
this salient daily practice of dress specically affects perceptions of leaders in their daily business. Addressing
this gap, we investigated how dress impacts perceptions and approval of a leader. Firstly, we found formal attire
to lead to ascriptions of prototypicality but not charisma (Study 1). Secondly, leaders’ charisma and approval
were higher when a person’s clothing style contrasted their organization’s culture (Study 2). Lastly, we repli-
cated the impact of informal clothing on both leader approval and charisma in a sample of CEOs of Fortune 1000
companies (Studies 3 and 4). Findings lend support to the notion that leaders can manipulate their style of attire
to actively shape their followers’ impressions of themselves.
1. Introduction
Numerous examples show that leaders purposefully choose their
clothing in order to shape the way they appear. Former US president
George W. Bush, despite his family’s sophisticated, political back-
ground, often appeared in a cowboy hat; he signaled familiarity to his
prospective voters and imbued himself with the heroism of the cowboy
narrative (Hoffman, 2011). Similarly, Steve Jobs, founder and former
CEO of Apple Inc., was known to “Think different.” His playful approach
to innovation carried over into his clothing style. He distinguished
himself from his formal and rigid competitors by wearing sneakers and
turtleneck sweaters to the company’s important product presentations
(Sharma & Grant, 2011). Even the absence of clothing can evoke a
strong impression, as is evidenced by the popular snapshots of Vladimir
Putin, President of Russia, shing topless (Cassiday & Johnson, 2010).
Taking a closer look, we nd that these popular leaders have one thing in
common. Be they incumbent presidents or CEOs, they stand at the helm
of large-scale organizations that are highly structured and hierarchical
by nature, an arena where traditional, formal dress-codes usually hold
sway. However, the individuals mentioned above have managed to
disrupt our expectations and evaluations simply by dressing differently,
thus paying tribute to the pedigreed and often observed adage: clothes
make the man.
One’s choice of clothing can be adapted to manipulate beholders’
perceptions. Certainly, one might consider this common knowledge, as
many modern individuals spend a considerable amount of their time
nding the right outt, particularly for special engagements such as a
festive occasion or job interview. This extends into the workplace
setting. A certain level of formality in employees’ clothing is usually
required, while still giving employees freedom to manipulate their
choice of colors, patterns, or accessories as paths to personal expression.
For example, individuals willingly pay a higher price for luxury clothing
brands to signal their wealth (e.g., Nelissen & Meijers, 2011). Further-
more, within organizations, small accessories may be used to signal
differences in status (Goffman, 1951). In fact, in authoritative organi-
zations like the military or the police, employees are required to signal
their formal leadership position via standardized accessories like
shoulder badges (Siart, Püger, & Wallner, 2016).
Over four studies, our work aims to translate such insights into the
everyday workplace, where leaders and followers frequently interact,
and the effectiveness of the organization depends at least in part on the
followers’ perceptions and acceptance of their leader. We investigated
the effect of leaders’ clothing style in the workplace on a number of
attributes they elicit there, above all perceptions of charisma as well as
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: sascha.kraus@zfke.de (S. Kraus).
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Business Research
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jbusres
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.11.026
Received 27 May 2020; Received in revised form 10 November 2020; Accepted 13 November 2020
Journal of Business Research 124 (2021) 86–99
87
leader prototypicality and approval (Antonakis, Bastardoz, Jacquart, &
Shamir, 2016; Lord, Foti, & De Vader, 1984). The present paper provides
three main contributions to the literature. First, it reveals a connection
between a leader’s choice of clothing and the degree to which their
followers accept them as a leader and attribute charisma to them. More
specically, we nd that followers attribute higher charisma to those
leaders who wear clothing that contrasts their organization’s cultural
norms and lower charisma to their conforming counterparts. In turn, the
present study adds to the body of knowledge on how leaders embody a
deviation from the status quo through their choice of clothing (Reh, Van
Quaquebeke, & Giessner, 2017). Second, we focus our research on
concrete behaviors (Van Quaquebeke & Felps, 2018) and, thereby,
advance understanding of how leaders earn their followers’ approval
and attributions of charisma. Third, our ndings disclose clothing as a
potent tool for leaders’ impression management. Crucially, our ndings
remain watertight even when derived from the naturalistic portraits
taken from Fortune 1000 CEO incumbents, taken either as scale-type
ratings or in a preferential duel where an informally clothed leader
went heads up against one in more formal dress. Clothing is known to
shape rst impressions (e.g., Holman, 1980), but it has been widely
neglected as a practice of impression management in managerial liter-
ature (e.g., Bolino, Long, & Turnley, 2016).
2. Theoretical background
2.1. Leaders’ charisma through the lens of signaling theory
What is to be done when a group is faced with a coordination
problem that each individual of that group cannot solve by themselves?
Someone has to step forward and provide a solution, inuence all
members to join their idea, translate the problem into a goal hierarchy,
formulate an action plan, and coordinate the group while striving for the
goal to, nally, solve the problem (Antonakis & Day, 2018; Yukl &
Gardner, 2020; Yukl, 1999). But how can a prospective leader
communicate that they would be best suited to lead a group? The act of
selecting an able leader inherently confronts the group and the potential
leader with an information asymmetry regarding a candidate’s posses-
sion of certain resources, abilities, or traits, which enable them to lead
effectively and solve the coordination problem (Grabo, Spisak, & Van
Vugt, 2017). Signaling allows individuals to reduce this asymmetry by
sending verbal or nonverbal cues (Connelly, Certo, Ireland, & Reutzel,
2011; Spence, 2002). A potential leader may signal their leadership
ability through displaying the sophistication necessary to solve such
problems and by intimating their ability to effectively inuence fol-
lowers to implement the leader’s solution. This is where charisma
emerges as a reliable signal of leadership ability. Charisma, long a
nebulous construct, has recently been dened as “values-based, sym-
bolic and emotion-laden leader signaling” (Antonakis et al., 2016; p.
304), which empowers a leader in their mission by helping them to in-
uence and coordinate employees (Johnson & Dipboye, 2008; Meslec,
Curseu, Fodor, & Kenda, 2020). These cues, sent by prospective leaders,
hijack the attention of prospective employees, who are particularly
sensitive to cues that may guide their decision on whom to approve of as
a leader (Gerpott, Lehmann-Willenbrock, Silvis, & Van Vugt, 2018).
Charismatic signals are supposed to be honest, in other words, to validly
and reliably indicate actual leadership ability. For example, charismatic
leaders use long uent speeches to captivate their employees (Meslec
et al., 2020). These speeches signal verbal sophistication, offering a
dependable cue for cognitive ability (Von Hippel, Ronay, Baker, Kjel-
saas, & Murphy, 2016). Thus, it may be this very reason why such cues
are used by employees to accurately assess an individual’s ability to lead
effectively. The sender, in turn, is raising their probability of emerging
as a leader and of gaining followership to a larger degree than their
competitors who lack the ability to signal in this way (Grabo et al.,
2017). Thus, research has decidedly come to regard charismatic lead-
ership as an effective form of organizational leadership (Banks et al.,
2017; House, Spangler, & Woycke, 1991; Jacquart & Antonakis, 2015).
Studies have shown that employees are especially receptive for
nonverbal expressivity when they assess prospective leaders’ aptitude
(Trichas, Schyns, Lord, & Hall, 2017). However, despite convincing
evidence on the effects of nonverbal behavioral cues (Little, Jones, &
DeBruine, 2011; Maran, Furtner, Kraus, Liegl, & Jones, 2019; Maran,
Furtner, Liegl, Kraus, & Sachse, 2019; Maran, Moder, Furtner, Ravet-
Brown, & Liegl, 2020; Masters, Sullivan, Lanzetta, Mchugo, & Englis,
1986; Trichas & Schyns, 2012), surprisingly little attention has been
paid to the effects that an individual’s choice of clothing has within the
context of organizational leadership. Clothing is an easily accessible
form of self-presentation and is strongly incorporated into our daily
routines (Johnson, Lennon, & Rudd, 2014). Indeed, most individuals
think of what to wear when they aim to earn specic ascriptions about
themselves. Vice versa, they also tend to make trait inferences based on
the appearance of others. However, the empirical evaluation of signals
from dress styles as cues in a leadership context has, so far, been
neglected.
2.2. Clothing as a tool for signaling
Impressions formed and judgments made of others are commonly
based on their physical appearance. Indeed, they may form even before
any face-to-face interaction is initiated, or any behavior is perceived.
This human tendency has proven to be successful. For example, people
infer traits, judged through the sole physical appearance, with an ac-
curacy far exceeding mere chance (e.g., Naumann, Vazire, Rentfrow, &
Gosling, 2009; Todorov, 2005; Todorov, Said, Engell, & Oosterhof,
2008). Such inferences are based on nonverbal signals like clothing,
hairstyle, facial expression, gestures, and mimicry, as well as on verbal
cues regarding the content and manner of speech (e.g., Back, Schmukle,
& Egloff, 2010). Clothes may be of particular signicance in this regard
since they possess inherent symbolic character (Robinson & Baum,
2020), express status, roles, and afliation to groups (Hamid, 1972),
convey information about values, moods, and attitudes (Stone, 1962),
and impact the level of mental abstraction (Burger & Bless, 2017; Sle-
pian, Ferber, Gold, & Rutchick, 2015). For example, ashy and neat
dress impresses strangers at rst glance (Back et al., 2010). Further
ndings show that observers judge conscientiousness (Albright, Kenny,
& Malloy, 1988; Borkenau & Liebler, 1992; Kenny & DePaulo, 1993) as
well as extraversion (Naumann et al., 2009) based on the neatness or
formality of clothing. In addition, an individual’s social values, such as
their desire for conformity, ambition, or interpersonal afliation, can be
predicted through their choices regarding style and brand (Rose, Sho-
ham, Kahle, & Batra, 1994; Unger & Raymond, 1974). By such means,
dress often indicates ranks and social status, through style of clothing in
general, and through uniforms in particular. For example, non-
uniformed public services members seem more competent and author-
itative in business dress than casual dress. Furthermore, individuals
implicitly make role and hierarchy attributions between differently
dressed members of uniformed public services, such as remen or mil-
itary staff (Karl, Hall, & Peluchette, 2013). Even in the rst years of life,
children learn to draw conclusions about others’ character from their
choice of clothing, differentiating between remen and policemen
before they can infer distinct personality traits (Hamid, 1972). Clothing,
therefore, is a nonverbal cue and transmits a great amount of informa-
tion about the wearer (Damhorst, 1990).
Such attributions commonly even lead to certain expectations about
behavior, from casual clothing to workplace uniforms. For example,
observers attribute higher intelligence to both students (Behling &
Williams, 1991) and teachers (Morris, Gorham, Cohen, & Huffman,
1996) when these wear more formal clothing. Further, clients are more
likely to return if their therapist wore formal rather than casual clothing
(Dacy & Brodsky, 1992). Specically, formal clothing conveys social
distance, since it is typically associated with unfamiliar and less intimate
settings (Slepian et al., 2015). Physical appearance, which includes
T. Maran et al.
Journal of Business Research 124 (2021) 86–99
88
one’s choice of clothing, has even been shown to be the most inuential
factor in employee selection, outperforming other verbal and nonverbal
behaviors and impression management tactics (Barrick, Shaffer, &
DeGrassi, 2009).
Indeed, a large body of literature has already examined the effect of
clothing as a signal shaping impressions, but only a marginal amount of
research has been done on the function of dress as an embodiment
practice by the wearer. For example, there is evidence for a clear rela-
tionship between one’s emphasis on appearance and both neuroticism
and extraversion (Johnson, Francis, & Burns, 2007), as well as on the
strategic choice of dress to manipulate appearance with the aim of
meeting cultural ideals of masculinity (Frith & Gleeson, 2004). Further
evidence reveals that individuals in public service feel more competent,
authoritative, trustworthy, and productive when wearing either formal
or casual business attire (Karl et al., 2013). Wearing less formal or even
casual attire leads to feelings of friendliness and creativity (Cardon &
Okoro, 2009; Peluchette & Karl, 2007). In addition, individuals wearing
a suit do in fact embody power, status, and rationality (Barry & Weiner,
2019). Thus, existing research suggests that individuals who desire to be
perceived as prototypical leaders and to earn attributions of trustwor-
thiness, intelligence, and competence would be well-advised to dress
formally, e.g., in a suit (Peluchette & Karl, 2007; Ruetzler, Taylor,
Reynolds, Baker, & Killen, 2012; Sebastian & Bristow, 2008). Apart from
the fact that clothing shapes interpersonal impressions, signaling via
clothing is directly and easily manipulable by the individual (Roach &
Eicher, 1965) as opposed to established, well researched and docu-
mented cues of leader outcomes like physical appearance or body-height
(Reh et al., 2017). Besides, clothing and how it impacts success of
leaders has received considerable attention in the popular management
media (e.g., Fouse, 2020; Thibodeaux, 2020).
The meaningful signaling character of clothing in the process of
interpersonal judgments is therefore empirically underlined, yet the
signicance of dress to the perception and attribution of leadership
qualities is a subject to be broached. This is intriguing, as categorization
approaches to leader perception take as their starting point precisely the
sort of cognitive category, or rather cognitive prototype, which is used to
distinguish leaders from non-leaders. Such prototypes, in turn, are
activated by just such cues (Tskhay, Zhu, Zou, & Rule, 2018) and
thereby bias perceptions, evaluations, and behaviors towards a leader
candidate (Lord et al., 1984).
A core task of leaders is to set goals and to offer employees a structure
for their achievement. Formal clothing provides a further means to an
end in this respect, with it being, in a sense, structured clothing. A formal
style of dress signals structure to a leader’s surroundings, in particular to
their subordinates. Therefore, we hypothesize dress to be an effective
cueing strategy in the formation of impressions of a supervisor via their
leader prototypicality.
Hypothesis 1. A more formal clothing style makes a leader appear
more prototypical of their station.
Clothing, by its very nature, represents a multi-signal capacity
(Kaiser, 1985). Therefore, a recipient’s impressions of such physical
signals are formed within the context of their surrounding environment
instead of depending solely on the stimulus person and the perceiver
(Damhorst, 1990). The same may be said for leadership. It is well known
that the attribution of leader ability depends on contextual factors
(Lakens, Semin, & Foroni, 2011; Reh et al., 2017). Hence, besides the
embodied signals a leader wants to communicate in order to be
perceived as effective (Lord & Shondrick, 2011), the organizational
environment plays a key role for the interpretation of those signals.
Organizations represent an environment with expected norms and
shared standards of formal conduct, both representing artefacts of an
organization’s culture (Schein, 1985). Each organization is character-
ized by a broad and inclusive set of factors shaping its identity, values,
and processes (Marinova, Cao, & Park, 2019; Quinn & Rohrbaugh,
1983). For example, control-oriented organizations are characterized by
a strong and deep formal hierarchy, often spanning multiple levels of
management. They tend to value stability, efciency, and predictability.
The power to make decisions is held by higher-level authorities. Such
mechanistic structures often follow uniform and rigid regulations, and
employees’ work is characterized by standardized processes and rou-
tines (Ambrose & Schminke, 2003). This type of culture is most preva-
lent in larger organizations and government agencies. While it allows
the efcient and cost-effective exploitation of existing offerings, orga-
nizations may be challenged to survive if the conditions of the market
suddenly change. On the other hand, there are exibility-oriented
adhocratic organizations. These tend to follow a more organic struc-
ture, employ fewer formal rules, and value open communication (Smith
& Lewis, 2011). Temporary project teams and their corresponding
decentralized power structure tend to emerge and disintegrate ad hoc
depending on the distribution of competence among their members with
regard to the current situation. These organizations’ exible culture
allows them to strive in dynamic markets coined by volatility and am-
biguity (Cameron & Quinn, 1999).
Clothing is one of the most salient artifacts of culture. These days, it
is ubiquitous, from the blue pinstripe suits iconic for the Zurich nancial
industry, to the Patagonia-branded eece vests of their transatlantic
brethren. Even more so, in uniformed services like the military, re
department, or police, standardized badges clearly denote a wearer’s
position within their respective hierarchy (Siart et al., 2016). In other
words, an organization’s culture is accompanied by an innate institu-
tionalized aesthetic code (Creed, Taylor, & Hudson, 2020) that may be
directly reected in its employees’ clothing. The more formal an orga-
nizational culture is, the more formalized their dress code will likely be,
whether it is communicated explicitly or implicitly (Schein, 1990). This
is mirrored in the everyday wisdom that neat clothing is deemed
appropriate or necessary for certain roles. In fact, there exists an
inherent understanding to this effect, which is given added emphasis by
ndings showing that formal dress explicitly embodies competence and
dominance (Barry & Weiner, 2019). Hence, one might assume that
leaders’ signaling of leadership ability through clothing would occur
through clothing typifying their dominant position and conforming to
the appropriate norms. However, with regard to many outstandingly
popular charismatic leaders, quite the contrary holds true. Leaders good
at drawing the media spotlight are, in fact, often excellent at deviating
from such routines. Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba, for example, is
known for his attention-grabbing habit of wearing lipstick and wild wigs
in order to entertain his employees during annual meetings (MacLeod,
2014). In similar if more restrained fashion, Steve Jobs commonly wore
sneakers and turtleneck sweaters at product launches, to visually
distinguish himself from his competitors (Lohr, 2010; Smith, 2012). In
short, the paradigm of context adequate appearance is violated by such
actors intentionally, in order to stimulate a specic and desired
perception in their employees.
They purposefully and autonomously disregard normative expecta-
tions with regard to their dress code, and, in turn, signal that they do not
fear repercussions for deviating from the norm. Having high status, they
are not obliged to adhere to social constraints, and may deviate further
from the norm than low-status individuals (Hollander, 1958; Peterson &
Kern, 1996; Phillips & Zuckerman, 2001). For example, low qualied
individuals choosing a non-normative style of attire for job interviews
face repercussions that highly qualied applicants would not (Oostrom,
Ronay, & van Kleef, 2020). Expected norms and shared standards of
formal conduct are provided by the cultural context; it plays a crucial
role when observers make use of clothing as a signal to form their im-
pressions about a person. In cases of divergence, research has shown that
inferences of high status in such situations appear if, and only if, re-
ceivers are aware of the to-be-violated cultural context and its norms,
and when the actor’s deviation from the norm is seen as intentional.
Hence, the organizational context frames to a certain extent how a
leader is expected to appear and behave. By leaving this frame and
extending themselves into the spectrum of unexpected behaviors,
T. Maran et al.
Journal of Business Research 124 (2021) 86–99
89
leaders may create paradoxical tensions in employees (Zhang, Wald-
man, Han, & Li, 2015). Appearing to stand out from a given context
assigns a leader a more salient role and results in them garnering greater
attention from fellow group members (Gerpott et al., 2018). Such con-
tradicting dissimilarity, created by unexpected appearance in a certain
context, leads employees to forming more charismatic impressions of
leaders (Bellezza, Gino, & Keinan, 2014). Therefore, we argue that a
leader dressing in a manner unconventional to a certain organizational
culture creates a paradoxical contrast in the eyes of employees, resulting
in greater attention being given to that leader. If leaders contrast a
exibility-oriented culture of an organic nature by signaling structure
and hierarchy through formal clothing, they will stand out. Equally, a
casual look in a more mechanistic environment will attract the attention
of the employees. We posit, furthermore, that this singular surplus of
attention, this unique prominence, will make a leader appear more
charismatic. Thus, while we expect formality in and of itself to engender
ascriptions of prototypicality in a leader (see Hypothesis 1), we hy-
pothesize that the clothing style of a leader affects the employees’
perception of their leader’s charisma if it contrasts the given organiza-
tional culture.
Hypothesis 2. The more a leader’s clothing style deviates from the
organization’s cultural norms, the more charismatic they appear.
Ascribing certain characteristics onto leaders based on observable
signals is highly heuristic in nature (Jacquart & Antonakis, 2015), with
ascriptions of certain attributes being linked to others (Fiske, 1995). So,
an inference based on a nonverbal charismatic signal, like the chosen
style of attire, might lead to various other inferences that themselves are
not based on an actually perceived cue (Cantor & Mischel, 1977). For
example, as a consequence of receiving such signals, followers might
ascribe leaders a variety of desirable attributes associated with a typical
leader, e.g., dominance, competence, and trustworthiness (Grabo et al.,
2017; Maran, Furtner, Liegl, et al., 2019; Reh et al., 2017; Van Vugt &
Grabo, 2015). This results in an overall increased likelihood for this
person to be approved as a leader, expressed by the proportion of in-
dividuals voting for them (Todorov, 2005). Prospective followers
perceive leaders who send charismatic signals as more effective and,
consequently, are more likely to vote for them (Jacquart & Antonakis,
2015). Hence, a candidate’s charismatic signalling enables them to
emerge as leader of the group. If wearing deviant attire is a distinctive
signal in a leader’s repertoire, earning the approval of the group through
adopting this signal is a trial by re.
Hypothesis 3. A leader who chooses a deviant clothing style receives
more approval than a leader who chooses a conforming clothing style.
To test our predictions, we designed four experimental designs.
During the rst two, individuals were presented with pictures of a
designated leader. We systematically manipulated their clothing style
(see Yan, Yurchisin, & Watchravesringkan, 2011), which allowed us to
draw causal implications from the experiment (e.g., Kraus, Meier, &
Niemand, 2016). To ensure external validity, we substantiated our
ndings through two subsequent studies by using pictures of incumbent
CEOs from the Fortune 1000 list. In doing so, we instrumentalized
naturalistic variation in clothing styles as practiced by real top-level
leaders. Our focus throughout all four experiments was to gain a
detailed insight into how clothing shapes perceptions of a leader’s
charisma and how it aids them in gaining approval from their follow-
ership, seeking evidence for our two main hypotheses (Hypotheses 2 and
3). Additionally, we assessed whether wearing formal attire corresponds
to the stereotypical prototypes of a leader (Hypothesis 1), in our initial
two studies.
3. Study 1: Ascriptions of desirable leader attributes depending
on clothing style
Our rst study aimed to examine whether a more formal clothing
style makes a leader appear more prototypical of their station (Lord
et al., 1984) and, further, how the choice of dress affects observers’
perceptions of the leader’s charisma as well as observers’ approval of
them as a leader. A sample of employees were asked to express the de-
gree to which they ascribed a variety of desirable attributes to a picture
of a designated leader wearing one of three clothing styles (formal,
smart, or casual). Since formality signals structure, and providing
structure is a core component of leadership (e.g., Yukl, 1999), we ex-
pected more formally clothed leaders to better t employees’ idea of a
leader, and hence to earn higher ascriptions of leader prototypicality
(Hypothesis 1).
3.1. Methods and Design}
We assigned participants randomly to rate one of three pictures of a
designated leader wearing either formal, smart, or casual clothing using
an online questionnaire. Our criterion for selecting participants was that
they were in active employment at an organization and thus had expe-
rience being part of a formal leader-follower relationship.
3.2. Sample
Our sample consisted of 78 german-speaking working participants
(60.3% female) with a mean age of M =32.08 (SD =11.43, range 17 to
66) recruited by directly contacting local enterprises and professional
education facilities. Most participants worked in healthcare (17.9%), or
economics and administration (15.4%) and the most prevalent units
were marketing (15.4%), sales (9.0%), HR and IT (7.7% each). We
assigned the participants randomly to one of the three conditions (ca-
sual, smart, formal), resulting in 26 participants per clothing style.
3.3. Measures
Leader’s prototypicality. Leader Prototypicality is a scale assessing the
extent to which the presented designated leader corresponds to the
participants’ prototypical appearance of a leader. We employed three
items of the prototypicality questionnaire (adapted questionnaire by
Antonakis, Fenley, & Liechti, 2011; based on Cronshaw & Lord, 1987).
The questionnaire features items such as: “The person I am rating acts
like a typical leader.” Reliability was measured at
α
=0.88.
Leader’s charisma. We selected 16 items of the transformational
leadership scale, that are specically suited to capture a leader’s char-
ismatic aura and their emotional effect on employees (MLQ Form 5X-
Short, Avolio, Bass, & Jung, 1999; German translation by Felfe, 2006;
Towler, 2003). An example item reads: “Impresses and fascinates others
with his personality.” The scale’s Cronbach’s alpha reliability was at
α
=
0.94.
Leader approval. We quantied the approval of a leader by asking
participants whether they would vote for the stimulus person as their
own leader on a dichotomous scale (yes or no).
Desirable leader attributes. Four different trait impressions (charisma,
dominance, competence, trustworthiness) have been employed using a
single item for each (e.g., Oosterhof & Todorov, 2008; Willis & Todorov,
2006). Items followed the format of: “How charismatic is this person?”
3.4. Stimulus material
We employed a professional photographer to take three pictures of
the same middle-aged Caucasian male. Since the perception of female
leaders is regrettably heavily affected by stereotypes (e.g., Brescoll,
2016), ratings of them would likely be skewed due to gender bias.
Therefore, to ensure that the inuence of the clothing style was
adequately reected in the ratings, we chose a male to depict the leader.
The pictures displayed the person’s full body and were shot in front of a
neutral ofce background. We matched the exact position and body
posture between each picture, with the only variation between the
T. Maran et al.
Journal of Business Research 124 (2021) 86–99
90
pictures being the attire worn (see Fig. 1). For the casual condition, the
stimulus person wore a plain dark t-shirt, jeans, and white sneakers; for
the smart condition, a white shirt, black dress pants, and black dress
shoes; for the formal condition he added a black suit jacket and a blue
tie.
3.5. Results and discussion
To examine variations in the impressions left by the style of clothing
worn by the stimulus person, we computed univariate analyses of
covariance with the attire (formal, smart, causal) acting as the xed
factor. Participants’ age and gender were included as covariates to each
model. Partial eta squared
η
p
2
(0.01 =small, 0.06 =medium, 0.14 =
large effect; see Ellis, 2010) are used to report effect size. The alpha-level
was set to 0.05 for all statistical tests. All reported p-values are two-
tailed. Bayes factors (Marsman & Wagenmakers, 2017; Wagenmakers
et al., 2018) were calculated to quantify the relative strength of evidence
for each hypothesis compared to its alternative [1 to 3 =anecdotal ev-
idence; 3 to 10 =moderate evidence; 10 to 30 =strong evidence; 30 to
100 =very strong evidence; >100 =extreme evidence; Lee & Wagen-
makers, 2014]. We computed all data analyses using SPSS (Version 26)
and JASP (Version 0.11.1; JASP Team 2019).
Leader’s prototypicality. Firstly, the style of attire affected ascriptions
of prototypicality (F
2,73
=5.26, p =0.007,
η
p
2
=0.13, BF
10
=6.42; see
Fig. 2A). The leader appeared as less prototypical for his station when
wearing casual (M =3.93, SE =0.32) as compared to smart (M =5.17,
SE =0.32; MD = − 1.24, SE =0.46, p
Bonf
=0.025) or formal attire (M =
5.26, SE =0.33; MD =1.33, SE =0.46, p
Bonf
=0.016), conrming our
rst hypothesis. Wearing formal or smart attire did not differentially
affect prototypicality perceptions (MD =0.09, SE =0.46, p
Bonf
=1.000).
Leader’s charisma. Secondly, when analyzing the differences in per-
ceptions of leader’s charisma, as measured by the selection from the
transformational leadership scale, we found the attire did not inuence
others’ perceptions of the leader’s charisma (F
2,73
=0.60, p =0.553,
BF
10
=0.17; see Fig. 2B).
Leader approval. Thirdly, the tendency to vote for the stimulus person
as one’s own leader was not affected by their attire (F
2,73
=0.15, p =
0.860, BF
10
=0.13; see Fig. 2C).
Desirable leader attributes. Lastly, the style of clothing had no impact
on the attributions of charisma (F
2,73
=1.90, p =0.156, BF
10
=0.45),
dominance (F
2,73
=0.32, p =0.728, BF
10
=0.14) or competence (F
2,73
=1.41, p =0.252, BF
10
=0.32). However, wearing the smart attire led
to lower trustworthiness ratings (M =4.56, SE =0.29) as compared to
the formal (M =5.63, SE =0.30; MD = − 1.07, SE =0.42, p
Bonf
=0.039),
but not to the casual clothing (M =5.43, SE =0.30; MD = − 0.87, SE =
0.42, p
Bonf
=0.119). The latter two conditions showed no differentiation
from each other (MD =0.20, SE =0.42, p
Bonf
=1.000; F
2,73
=3.70, p =
0.030,
η
p
2
=0.09, BF
10
=1.95).
In essence, these ndings strongly support our rst hypothesis that
casual clothing results in low ascriptions of leadership prototypicality,
while formal attire makes a leader appear more prototypical of their
station.
4. Study 2: Ascriptions of desirable leader attributes depending
on clothing style and organizational culture
In our rst study, we found evidence in support of our proposition
that a leader’s clothing inuences the way they are perceived by pro-
spective employees, conrming Hypothesis 1. Subsequently, we con-
ducted a second study to examine a contingent interaction between a
leader’s clothing style and their respective organization’s culture,
seeking evidence for our second and third hypotheses. To do so, we
replicated our rst study but added an introductory text, framing in our
participants’ minds the culture that the stimulus person was assumed to
Fig. 1. Schematic depiction of the stimulus material for the formal (A), smart (B), and casual (C) condition.
T. Maran et al.
Journal of Business Research 124 (2021) 86–99
91
work in. More specically, we referred to a bi-dimensional approach
based on the well-established competing values framework (Cameron &
Quinn, 1999; Marinova et al., 2019). On the one hand, we described an
organization that can quickly adapt to changing market conditions,
which is shaped according to organically resolved structures and is dy-
namic in nature (adhocracy or exibility-oriented); on the other hand,
an organization characterized by formalization and centralization that
gains effectiveness from steadiness regarding their design and output
(hierarchy or control-oriented). In the former, to create is a key value,
whereas in the latter to control can be regarded as a case in point
(Cameron & Quinn, 1999). We have suggested that a style of dress that
contrasts with the context, in this case the organisational culture, en-
ables leaders to appear more charismatic. Therefore, a leader should
appear more charismatic to their employees (Hypothesis 2) and subse-
quently gain a higher approval (Hypothesis 3) rate when clothed less
formally in a control-oriented culture, or more formally in a exibility-
oriented culture.
4.1. Methods and design
We extended the approach of Study 1 by designing a 2 (culture) ×3
(clothing style) factorial experiment. We assigned participants randomly
to rate one of three pictures of a designated leader (formal, smart, or
casual; see Yan et al., 2011) in the context of a specic organizational
culture (control-oriented or exibility-oriented; see Cameron & Quinn,
1999). As measures, we administered the same as in Study 1, with re-
liabilities being at
α
=0.90 for the prototypicality and at
α
=0.91 for the
leader’s charisma ratings. The organizational culture was manipulated
insofar that participants received written contextual information (see
Supplementary Information) they considered for their judgement of the
presented leader before being presented with the visual stimulus and the
questionnaire.
4.2. Sample
We sent out questionnaires to 251 German-speaking employees from
three local enterprises that execute their operations in manufacturing,
nancial services, and IT. The nal sample consisted of N =148 (29.1%
female) participants that completed our survey. Their age ranged from
20 to 61 years, M =36.32, SD =12.60. The criterion of being in a leader-
employee relationship was therefore strictly fullled for all participants.
The most common units were distribution (12.2%), R&D (10.1%),
management, sales and nance (9.5% each). It is important to have
equal group sizes in order to control for distinct effects. As the 2 ×3
experimental design results in six different scenarios, in our study, the
six subsamples therefore consist of 24 to 25 individuals each.
4.3. Results and discussion
To analyze whether there was an interaction between the clothing
style of a leader and the respective organizational culture on the per-
ceptions of the leader, a 2 ×3 ANOVA for independent measures was
applied. Style of dress (formal, smart, and casual) served as the between-
subject variable, and the organizational culture (control-oriented and
exibility-oriented) as the context variable. In case of an interaction
effect we further computed Bonferroni-corrected t-Tests, analyzing the
impact of the context variable across clothing styles. Again, we added
the participants’ age and gender as covariates to all analyses of variance.
As the effects of the style of attire on the perceptions of the leader’s
charisma and prototypicality found in Study 1 were replicated in this
study, we focus on the effects of the culture modulation and interaction
effects in the following results description. Statistical parameters were
the same as those laid out in Study 1.
Leader’s prototypicality. The leader left a more prototypical impres-
sion in the exibility-oriented (M =5.75, SE =0.20) than in the control-
oriented condition (M =4.63, SE =0.20; F
1,140
=15.40, p <0.001,
η
p
2
=
0.10, BF
10
=46.06; see Fig. 3A).
Leader’s charisma. The style of clothing indeed differentially affected
the ratings on the selection from the transformational leadership scale,
depending on the presented scenario (F
2,140
=3.55, p =0.031,
η
p
2
=
0.05, BF
10
=1.96; see Fig. 3B). When the leader was wearing the formal
(t = − 4.94, p
Bonf
<0.001, d = − 1.41, BF
10
=1612.54) or smart attire (t
= − 4.72, p
Bonf
<0.001, d = − 1.34, BF
10
=874.78) the ratings were
higher when the culture was described as exibility-oriented compared
to control-oriented, whereas they did not differ from one another when
he was wearing casual clothing (t = − 1.32, p
Bonf
=0.576, BF
10
=0.58).
Overall, the ratings were higher in the exibility-oriented culture (M =
3.35, SE =0.07) as compared to the control-oriented condition (M =
2.77, SE =0.07; F
1,140
=36.69, p < 0.001,
η
p
2
=0.21, BF
10
=
650850.67). These ndings conrm our second hypothesis regarding
the impact of a formal culture on ascriptions of charisma based on a
leader’s attire.
Leader approval. Our next analysis revealed that the scenario deter-
mined the percentage of leader approval, with 49.3% (SE =5.2%) of the
participants voting for him in the exibility-oriented condition, whereas
only 22.0% (SE =5.3%) showed approval in the control-oriented culture
(F
1,140
=13.53, p <0.001,
η
p
2
=0.09, BF
10
=63.32; see Fig. 3C).
However, opposing our expectations, we found no interaction effect that
would mirror the results on the leader’s charisma (F
2,140
=1.84, p =
0.163, BF
10
=0.53). Results even indicated a general positive effect of
formality on leader approval (F
2,140
=5.14, p =0.007,
η
p
2
=0.07, BF
10
=
3.81). The approval rate was higher when the leader was wearing formal
(M =49.2%, SE =6.5%) as opposed to casual clothing (M =20.2%, SE
=6.4%; MD =29.0%, SE =9.1%, p
Bonf
=0.005), but not substantially
different in comparison to the smart attire (M =37.6%, SE =6.4%),
which was just in between the formal (MD = − 11.5%, SE =9.1%, p
Bonf
Fig. 2. Distribution of the ratings of the leader’s prototypicality (A), charisma (B), and approval (C) depending on their style of attire. N =78.
T. Maran et al.
Journal of Business Research 124 (2021) 86–99
92
=0.620) and casual (MD =17.5%, SE =9.0%, p
Bonf
=0.166) condition.
Desirable leader attributes. The rst impressions of charisma were
higher in the exibility-oriented (M =5.66, SE =0.20) as compared to
the control-oriented condition (M =4.72, SE =0.20; F
1,140
=11.14, p =
0.001,
η
p
2
=0.07, BF
10
=31.83). Dominance on the other hand was not
affected by the culture (F
1,140
=2.59, p =0.110, BF
10
=0.47). In relation
to the perceived competency, we found the leader to be rated more
competent in the exibility-oriented (M =6.10, SE =0.17) than in the
control-oriented condition (M =5.41, SE =0.17; F
1,140
=7.98, p =
0.005,
η
p
2
=0.05, BF
10
=4.12). Lastly, the leader was perceived as more
trustworthy in the exibility-oriented (M =5.85, SE =0.19) than the
control-oriented scenario (M =4.83, SE =0.19; F
1,140
=14.64, p <
0.001,
η
p
2
=0.10, BF
10
=58.41).
In providing participants with information on the organization’s
cultural context, we were able to achieve two aims: replicate the nd-
ings from our rst study, and delineate several interesting interaction
effects between clothing and organizational culture, testing our second
and third hypothesis. Firstly, formal and smart attire were rated as more
charismatic in atter, more organic corporate cultures than in control-
oriented cultures. Meanwhile, casual clothing elicited similar
ascriptions of charisma in both types of cultures. Overall, then, a atter,
more exibility-oriented organizational culture was associated with
higher ratings of charisma, leadership prototypicality, competency,
trustworthiness, and leader approval, regardless of a leaders’ clothing
style. We conclude organizational culture to interact with clothing to
shape ascriptions of leaders’ charisma. However, we found no conclu-
sive evidence for our third hypothesis, that leaders would reach an
increased approval rate when deviating from the conventional style of
attire for their company’s culture, as results on leader’s approval cor-
responded in terms of the main effect of exibility-oriented culture with
those on leader’s charisma, but instead of an interaction we found a
general effect of formality on approval, that can’t be explained by our
expected relation between charisma and approval alone. In Study 3 and
Study 4, we aimed to gain a deeper understanding of the relation of these
two key variables for leader success.
5. Study 3: Individual ratings of incumbent leaders
So far we found evidence that formal clothing, overall, elicits
desirable leader attributes, especially in exibility-oriented cultures. To
translate these ndings into the real world of leadership, we made use of
the natural variations in self-image occurring readily in real leaders
which were captured on photographs. More specically, we used natural
footage of incumbent CEOs from the Fortune 1000 list, split into either
formal or informal dress. We then introduced them to participants as
designated candidates for the role of the CEO, and asked participants to
ascribe certain attributes to them. Mature companies of a size great
enough to occupy a place in the Fortune 1000 are, by their very nature,
established, and therefore more formalized than a startup at the foot of
its growth curve. This notion is reected in participants rating the cul-
ture of the CEOs’ companies as mostly control oriented (7-point Likert-
scale, 1 =very control-oriented, 7 =very exibility-oriented; M =3.56, SE
=0.09) In lieu of the argumentation towards our second and third hy-
potheses, therefore, we expect CEOs deviating from a formal clothing
style to be perceived as more charismatic than their formally clothed
counterparts and thus achieve an increased approval rate.
5.1. Methods and design
We gathered portraits of 88 CEOs of Fortune 1000 companies, turned
them to grayscale, cropped them in a similar fashion, and matched them
to form 44 pairs of individuals that were similar in age and rank but
differed in their clothing style (formal and informal). We had them rated
both individually (Study 3) and against each other directly (Study 4)
with regard to the impressions of the leader that were evoked in the
participants.
In Study 3, we presented participants with a single portrait of a CEO
and asked them to express the degree to which they ascribed charisma,
competence, trustworthiness, dominance, and attractiveness, as well as
their approval of the leader (see Study 1). Furthermore, we asked them
to rate the formality of the CEO’s clothing style and the respective
company’s culture (see 5.3. Measures). We recruited raters as described
in Study 1.
5.2. Sample
A total of 65 german-speaking raters (35.3% female) participated in
this study. Their ages ranged from 19 to 27 (M =22.00, SD =1.76). We
assigned the raters randomly to 88 leaders from Fortune 1000 com-
panies selected for this study. 6 to 12 ratings were obtained for each of
the leaders and each participant rated 13 leaders on average.
5.3. Measures
Clothing style. We employed both an objective dichotomous measure
for the formality of the leaders’ attire (informal/formal) and a 7-point
Fig. 3. Distribution of the ratings of the leader’s prototypicality (A), charisma
(B), and approval (C) depending on the presented culture and clothing style. N
=148.
T. Maran et al.
Journal of Business Research 124 (2021) 86–99
93
Likert-scale ranging from 1 =informal to 7 =formal rated by the par-
ticipants. The ratings corresponded with r =0.75, p <0.001, with the
objective clothing style.
Control variables. As a multitude of factors fundamentally impact our
impressions of others, we aimed to control for the impact of the most
prevalent ones. Therefore, we assessed the perceived age and attrac-
tiveness of the respective CEOs, both factors that are known to bias
perceptions of leaders (e.g., Eagly et al., 1991; Spisak, Grabo, Arvey, &
Van Vugt, 2014). As objective measures, we coded whether the CEO was
wearing glasses, as these may impact perceptions of attractiveness and
intelligence (e.g., Kinley, Strübel, & Amlani, 2019; Lundberg & Sheehan,
1994) and assessed the word count of their English Wikipedia article as a
measure for their general renown to mitigate possible familiarity effects
(e.g., Harmon-Jones & Allen, 2001; Wyatt & Silvester, 2018).
5.4. Results and discussion
We conducted bivariate correlational analyses to assess the relation
between one’s perception of a leader’s clothing being informal or formal
to the characteristics and approval ascribed to them. We don’t report
Bayesian factors for the correlational and following regression analyses,
given that they depend on the same test statistics as p-values, therefore
offering no additional information in the statistics for cross-sectional
designs (García-P´
erez, 2017).
Correlational analyses revealed ratings of leaders’ charisma to be
negatively related to the perceived formality of the attire (r = − 0.26, p
=0.013). The approval of the leaders, however, did not correlate with
the perceived formality (r =0.17, p =0.120). Next, we computed linear
ordinary least squares regression models to gain further insight into
these ndings and the factors inuencing charisma perception and
leader approval (see Table 1). We proposed three models, with the rst
including only the objective control variables in the form of whether the
CEO was wearing glasses, and the word count of their English Wikipedia
article. To the second model we added the subjective perceptions of
attractiveness and age. Lastly, we added the rating of the attire being
informal or formal to the third model. As to mitigate the impact of
heteroskedasticity, robust standard errors were calculated using the
heteroskedasticity consistent estimator 3 (HC3; Davidson & MacKinnon,
1993) in the RLM macro for SPSS by Darlington and Hayes (2016). We
report the standardized coefcients.
The objective measures of the CEO wearing glasses (β = − 0.08, SE =
0.13, p =0.565) and the word count of their Wikipedia article (β =
−0.06, SE =0.12, p =0.609) were not suited to explain variance in the
charisma ratings (ΔR
2
=0.01, F
2,85
=0.32, SE =1.01, p =0.730). With
the addition of the subjective measures, however, a considerable
amount of the variance could be explained (ΔR
2
=0.32, F
4,83
=8.74, SE
=0.83, p <0.001), mainly by the perceived attractiveness (β =0.61, SE
=0.11, p <0.001), not by the age (β =0.15, SE =0.11, p =0.183).
Including the perceived formality of the attire (β = − 0.25, SE =0.11, p
=0.030) again increased the explained variance (ΔR
2
=0.05, F
5,82
=
8.90, SE =0.81, p <0.001). In total, 38.6% of the variance in charisma
impressions were explained by our nal model. This lends further evi-
dence to our second hypothesis.
Repeating these analyses for the tendency to approve of a CEO as
one’s own leader showed similar results. The objective control variables,
glasses (β =0.10, SE =0.11, p =0.342) and word count (β = − 0.12, SE
=0.12, p =0.294) could not explain the approval rate (ΔR
2
=0.02,
F
2,85
=0.82, SE =1.00, p =0.442). The subjective measures, attrac-
tiveness (β =0.52, SE =0.09, p <0.001) and age (β =0.13, SE =0.10, p
=0.202), on the other hand, could (ΔR
2
=0.24, F
4,83
=9.78, SE =0.88,
p <0.001). Lastly, the addition of the clothing style (β =0.23, SE =0.11,
p =0.035) explained additional variance (ΔR
2
=0.04, F
5,82
=8.71, SE
=0.86, p <0.001). 30.2% of the variance in leader votes could be
explained by this last model.
These results show inverse effects for the impact of formal clothing.
While less formal clothing increases charisma ascriptions, more formal
Table 1
Means, standard deviations, and correlation coefcients between the perceived formality of the attire, the four desirable leader attributes, the approval of the leader, and the two control variables, perceived attractiveness
and age. Reliability coefcients are presented in parentheses.
M SD 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.
1. Objective formality 0,500 0,503
2. Perceived formality 5,286 0,932 0,745 ***
3. Charisma 4,072 0,682 −0,234 * −0,263 *
4. Leader approval 0,492 0,177 0.053 0.167 0.439 ***
5. Dominance 3,969 0,793 0.219 * 0.276 ** 0.122 0.221 *
6. Competence 4,922 0,671 0.176 0.270 * 0.198 0.452 *** 0.050
7. Trustworthiness 4,329 0,682 −0.034 −0.042 0.287 ** 0.343 ** −0.301 ** 0.362 **
8. Attractiveness 2,767 0,638 −0.177 −0.175 0.560 *** 0.473 *** 0.245 * 0.108 0.219 *
9. Perceived age 50,661 5,848 0.177 0.384 *** −0.085 −0.057 0.040 0.230 * 0.029 −0.364 ***
10. Company’s culture 3,564 0,799 −0.350 ** −0.556 *** 0.338 ** 0.019 −0.120 −0.156 0.053 0.418 *** −0.612 ***
Note. N =88. Reliability coefcients are presented in parentheses along the diagonal.
*p <0.05, **p <0.01, ***p <0.001
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Journal of Business Research 124 (2021) 86–99
94
clothing increases the tendency to vote for the leader. However,
charisma ratings were positively associated with the tendency to vote
someone as their leader (r =0.49, p <0.001). To gain further insight
into this process, we computed mediation analyses in accordance with
the procedures outlined by Hayes (2012, 2018), performing Preacher
and Hayes’ bias-corrected bootstrapping techniques with 10,000 sam-
ples using the PROCESS macro (Hayes, 2018). Robust standard errors
were calculated using the included heteroskedasticity consistent esti-
mator 3 (HC3; Davidson & MacKinnon, 1993). The indirect effects were
considered statistically signicant if the 95% condence intervals did
not contain zero. We analyzed the inuence of the formality of the attire
on the tendency to vote the CEO as one’s own leader, mediated by the
charisma ascribed to the leader.
First, when adding the objective dichotomous measure of clothing
formality to the mediation model, results reiterated that a formal attire
was negatively related to charisma ratings (γ = − 0.23, SE =0.11, p =
0.030). These, however, were associated with an increased tendency to
vote for the leader (γ =0.48, SE =0.10, p <0.001), which resulted in an
overall negative indirect effect (γ = − 0.11; SE =0.05; 95% CI = − 0.21
to −0.02) and an increased direct effect (γ =0.16, SE =0.10, p =0.103)
of formality on voting for the leader as compared to the total effect (γ =
0.05, SE =0.11, p =0.627).
Second, we found similar effects when including the subjective
measure of clothing formality. More perceived formality decreased as-
criptions of charisma (γ = − 0.26, SE =0.13, p =0.040), whereas
increased charisma ratings were associated with a higher proportion of
participants voting for the leader (γ =0.52, SE =0.08, p <0.001).
Overall, the indirect effect of formality on voting for the leader was
negative (γ = − 0.14; SE =0.06; 95% CI = − 0.27 to −0.02), but the
direct effect positive (γ =0.30, SE =0.09, p =0.019) and more pro-
nounced than the total effect (γ =0.17, SE =0.10, p =0.107).
In summary, therefore, we delved under the surface of the relation-
ship between clothing and leader ascription, unearthing a number of
connections which go beyond the obvious. While these ndings conrm
our second hypothesis and shed light on the inconclusive ndings of
Study 2, we discovered an unexpected antagonistic relationship between
the style of attire, ascriptions of charisma, and leader approval. In
essence, a dichotomy is essential to shaping the effect of clothing for-
mality, with formal dress increasing positive ascriptions and directly
improving a leader’s chance of being elected, while simultaneously
denigrating their perceived charisma. In contrast, more casual clothing
failed to give leaders a bump in hypothetical election results, due to the
cancelling out of two simultaneous and opposing effects: while informal
dress negatively affected a leader’s likelihood of being approved by our
participants to lead, that same style of attire also lead to higher ratings of
charisma (Hypothesis 2), which increased approval (Hypothesis 3).
6. Study 4: Juxtaposing incumbent leaders with different
clothing styles
After identifying the ambivalent inuence of casual clothing on
leader approval, we strived to extend our ndings by employing the
same stimulus material in a fourth study, but presenting the images to
our subjects in a dyadic juxtaposition. Essentially, two CEOs from the
Fortune 1000 competed against each other for leadership, one in formal
and one in informal dress, with subjects deciding subjectively on whom
they would ascribe charisma. We expect casually clothed CEOs to
outperform their more formally clothed colleagues with regard to the
charisma attributions they earn. Furthermore, in replication of Study 3,
we expected informally dressed leaders to earn more approval in their
competition for leadership than their more formally clothed
competitors.
6.1. Methods and design
In Study 4, we acquired participants as in studies 1 and 3, with the
addition of reaching out to employees of enterprises based in the UK and
US. They were shown two images of CEOs in pairs, displayed side by
side. We asked them to decide on which one they perceive to be more
charismatic, older and more attractive, and which they would rather
approve of as leader, each rated on a single choice item. Pairs were kept
constant over all participants.
6.2. Sample
Overall 70 raters (47.1% female) with a mean age of 29.83 (SD =
10.06, age range 19 to 69) participated in this study and evaluated each
of the 44 CEO pairings in a randomized order. Raters were mostly
working in the education (11.4%), healthcare (8.6%), or retail and
distribution sector (7.1%).
For this study, we opted for a more international sample and there-
fore administered german and english translations of the questionnaires.
Participants were mostly German (41.4%), British (32.9%) or US-
American (12.9%). Participants received a monetary compensation for
completing the questionnaire.
6.3. Results and discussion
We conducted two repeated measures analyses of covariance
comparing the percentage of participants rstly deciding on which of
those leaders appeared as more charismatic and secondly selecting the
more formal dressed as compared to the less formal dressed CEO as their
leader. Differences in the perceived age, attractiveness, and rank dif-
ference to the less formally dressed leader were added as covariates to
both models. Details on the reported effect sizes, alpha-levels and Bayes
factors are laid out in Study 1. The less formal leader was perceived as
more charismatic by 57.9% (SE =1.5%) of the participants (F
1,40
=4.80,
p =0.034,
η
p
2
=0.11, BF
10
=56.56), offering us more evidence in sup-
port of our second hypothesis. Similarly, more participants (50.6%, SE
=1.1%) tended to vote for the less formal CEO as their own leader (F
1,40
=7.72, p =0.008,
η
p
2
=0.16, BF
10
=0.22), supporting our third
hypothesis.
To conclude, when presented with pairs of Fortune 1000 s CEOs in
juxtaposition, we found that our participants lent the one clothed
informally higher ascriptions of charisma, and were more likely to elect
them as a leader than their counterpart. This effect emerged even when
controlling for the difference in Forbes 1000 rank, perceived age, and
perceived attractivity. Thus, we conrm our ndings, regarding the ef-
fect of nonconformity in control-oriented organizations on the leader’s
approval rate (Hypothesis 3). In addition, we are thereby able to sub-
stantiate that informally dressed leaders were likely to knock out their
competition based on dress alone.
7. Discussion and conclusion
Thinking of the prototypical organizational leader, most of us would
likely imagine a person sitting behind a large wooden desk wearing a
suit. However, many popular leaders have successfully turned this pic-
ture on its head. Think of George W. Bush, playing up his Texan cre-
dentials with a cowboy hat, thus involving grassroots voters in his
vision, and Steve Jobs, attuning Apple customers to his embodiment of a
forward-looking, informal company through his relaxed and uncon-
ventional dress sense. Their clothing does indeed fulll the criteria of
acting as a signal: it is highly visible and designed to communicate
(Spence, 2002).
Quite in line with this picture, offered by replete examples from the
media exposition surrounding popular leaders, our results offer a rst
concrete and quantiable link to illuminate what impact clothing exerts
on peoples’ perceptions of leaders. Our results rst lay a foundation,
showing that formal dress increases a leaders’ perceived prototypicality
for their station (Hypothesis 1), while not showing much effect on their
charisma ratings nor their approval. Our second study then goes on to
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show how culture modulates this primary relationship, with leaders
appearing charismatic when lifting themselves from their surroundings
through their choice of dress. This may be executed with a disparity
either way along the dimension of formality, when wearing informal
clothing in a formal setting or vice versa (Hypothesis 2). Our third study
then moves on to examining the specics more or less in vivo, in Fortune
1000 CEOs, who are actually perceived as more charismatic when they
are dressed casually, which makes them more likely to gain approval.
But the effect is far from simple: apart from this mediation through
leader’s charisma, there is also an opposing direct effect, which suggests
that a leader gains more approval through formal dress, leveling out at a
stalemate. Finally, when these same CEOs competed for employees
approval, then the more informally dressed leaders were able to
outperform the more formally dressed opponents in the selection tour-
nament (Hypothesis 3). Our results reveal the importance of a leader’s
context when they dress to impress. While the traditional suit serves them
best in highly dynamic organizations, dressing down may actually be a
better choice in a highly structured culture if they desire to outperform
their competition. However, the results also reveal an opposite effect,
where formal dress makes a leader appear more prototypical and also
leads to more approval.
Think about Abraham Lincoln’s prominent nose (Carwardine, 2003)
or Grigori Rasputin’s piercing eyes (Smith, 2016). Outstanding leaders
have anecdotally been associated with outstanding features. Their
salience earns them a variety of desirable effects, for example, being in
the spotlight of a group by hijacking employees’ attention (Gerpott
et al., 2018). Our ndings are consistent with earlier evidence on the
effect of nonconformity on beholders’ perceptions. Not adhering to a
dress code created by social norms incurs social costs (Levine, 1989). In
a control-oriented organization with formal dress code, dressing infor-
mally could be seen as being ignorant; in a exible adhocratic one,
dressing formally could be interpreted as being narrow-minded. By
displaying the willingness to face potential consequent adversity, non-
conforming individuals elicit ascriptions of status. They communicate
that they do not fear losing their position in the society or organization.
Further, deliberately subjecting oneself to social judgment could be
interpreted as conspicuous consumption. Nonconforming actors display
that they can afford the social costs to deviate from the norm, similar to
individuals purchasing luxury items to display their wealth to others
(Bellezza et al., 2014). Our ndings suggest that leaders can intention-
ally or coincidentally benet from this effect to elicit ascriptions of
charisma and, therefore, leader approval. In highly formalized organi-
zational cultures, deviating from the norm by wearing less formal attire
makes individuals stand out, as does wearing formal attire in more
exible organizational cultures. Specically, these leaders dare what
others do not, and in doing so they pull all eyes onto themselves. The
amount of attention they garner makes them stand out, implicitly
creating the notion in peoples’ minds that such prominence is indeed
warranted. These individuals, therefore, communicate status and power
because they do not fear the social judgment for disregarding common
practices. This line of argumentation can be afrmed by the notion that
in fact literally outstanding leaders are perceived as outstanding leaders
(Gerpott et al., 2018). To conclude, clothing deviating from the norm
may act as a charismatic signal, because it indicates the presence of
ability outstanding enough to permit the wearer to deviate so obviously.
This notion is well supported by the so-called Red Sneakers Effect in
marketing science, which shows that prestige based on outstanding
ability (e.g., a professor’s afliation with a “top-tier” university vs. a
regular one) often leads people to signal this prestige by deviating from
norms, specically by clothing themselves differently (Bellezza et al.,
2014). Our ndings offer rst substantial, tangible insights into this
dynamic by showing that leaders who choose to dress differently not
only appear more charismatic, but also gain more approval from their
group.
The role of a leader is rst of all to motivate employees, and thence to
signal structure, encompassing the provision of clear goals, as well as the
supervision, monitoring and coordination of the group during the pro-
cess of goal completion (Yukl, 1999). To gain further insight into this
process, we did not focus on leadership styles and tried to draw inference
on resulting behaviors, but rather focused on the behavioral un-
derpinnings that constitute leadership, an approach that is still under-
represented in leadership research (Van Quaquebeke & Felps, 2018).
Leaders embody certain nonverbal signals, such as their height (Judge &
Cable, 2004), body-language (Tskhay, Xu, & Rule, 2014), facial ex-
pressions (Barrett & Barrington, 2005) and possibly their style of attire,
that inform their surroundings on their leadership abilities beyond their
rhetoric capabilities (Reh et al., 2017). Formal dress embodies a higher
degree of structure than casual clothing, and most large and mature
organizations are highly structured in terms of formalization and
centralization (e.g., Dougherty & Hardy, 1996). Consistent with our line
of reasoning we found that leaders wearing more formal clothing
therefore generally access, to their benet, the implicit association of
structure, merely by dressing in a formal manner, resulting in higher
ascriptions of prototypicality for their station and an increased approval
rate. However, integrating the ndings of our second study, the cultural
context of the organization has a sizable inuence on how clothing
shapes perceptions of a leader. In a exibility-oriented culture, formal
clothing lets a leader appear charismatic; by contrast, in a more formal
and control-oriented culture, the casual clothing ensures the same result.
Although the formal dress of a leader is consistent with the broad pro-
totype of a leader, it is the deviation from the context, expressed in their
clothing, which makes them charismatic. This latter notion gains further
support from our results on Fortune 1000 CEOs, who lead organizations
that are inherently formalized and hierarchical. A more casual style of
attire not only makes these leaders appear more charismatic, but the
increase in perceived charisma also boosts their appeal among their
potential followership. Watched through the lense of the paradox
perspective (see Fairhurst & Putnam, 2019; Waldman, Putnam, Miron-
Spektor, & Siegel, 2019; Zhang et al., 2015), we argue that followers
appreciate a leader that embodies exibility if the cultural context
provides structure, and vice versa, in organizations where the culture is
dened by exibility and adhocracy, the designated leader gains
approval when embodying a certain degree of structure. They thus earn
higher ascriptions of desirable leader attributes such as charisma when
they signal that which is not predened by the cultural context: struc-
ture in the absence of structure, or exibility in the absence of exibility.
Such unexpected leader appearance may increase employees’ attention,
as they sense paradox tension from non-conrmative leader behavior
and attribute high leadership abilities to a leader who is responding to
contradicting demands (Smith & Lewis, 2011).
7.1. Limitations and future research
Our study offers compelling insights into how observers form char-
ismatic impressions of designated leaders based on their clothing.
Thereby, we are able to identify clothing as one distinct and easily
manipulable behavioral signal of charisma. However, clothing is only
one of many powerful nonverbal cues that inuence impressions of
leaders. There are many other claimed signals of a leader’s charisma (e.
g., Antonakis et al., 2016; Grabo et al., 2017; Reh et al., 2017) for which
experimental evidence of their effect is still to be found.
Second, future research could explore a wide array of cues, such as
gestures (e.g., Frese, Beimel, & Schoenborn, 2003), vocal projection (e.
g., Niebuhr, Voße, & Brem, 2016), or facial expressions (e.g., Bono &
Ilies, 2006), with regard to their interaction with contextual factors,
such as organizational culture. For example, eye contact, which enables
a leader to connect with their followers (Maran, Furtner, Liegl, et al.,
2019), produces different effects, for example in an internally oriented
culture as compared to in an externally oriented culture.
Third, despite our study’s high internal validity and our effort to
replicate our ndings within more naturalistic settings using images of
actual Fortune 1000 companies’ leaders (e.g., Bellezza et al., 2014), our
T. Maran et al.
Journal of Business Research 124 (2021) 86–99
96
studies face some issues regarding external validity. Future research
should therefore seek to replicate our ndings in a real-life workplace
setting, deploying, for instance, experimental designs (Kraus et al.,
2016; Podsakoff & Podsakoff, 2019), where employees are presented
with real leaders wearing different styles of clothing. Fourth, all our
stimulus subjects were male, for the sake of consistency and compara-
bility in the face of a regrettable lack of female CEOs in Fortune 1000
listed companies. However, if a sample of sufcient power could be
obtained, it would be of great interest to contrast the effects of confor-
mity and clothing between male and female leaders (Brescoll, 2016).
Lastly, whereas the pictures used in studies 1 and 2 displayed the full
body of our stimulus person, we used portrait pictures of the Fortune
1000 companies’ leaders in studies 3 and 4, again for the sake of
comparability between these pictures and to increase the external val-
idity of our ndings. This, however, places a greater emphasis on the
leaders’ faces, bringing possible confounding factors into play, such as
facial features (e.g., Antonakis & Eubanks, 2017; Todorov, 2005), like
the facial width-to-height ratio (Geniole, Denson, Dixson, Carr´
e, &
McCormick, 2015), or whether the leaders were smiling or showing
different facial expressions that act as possible signals for charisma and
thus impact observers’ impressions (e.g., Trichas et al., 2017). One could
expect smiling leaders to garner more positive ascriptions and subse-
quent votes, following the denition of charisma being emotion-laden
signalling (Antonakis et al., 2016), and leaders with an increased
facial width-to-height ratio to be perceived as more dominant and
aggressive (Carr´
e, McCormick, & Mondloch, 2009). However, as pre-
vious research revealed, the impact of affective displays is highly context
dependent (Damen, van Knippenberg, & van Knippenberg, 2008; Kon-
ing & Van Kleef, 2015; Van Knippenberg & Van Kleef, 2016) and simi-
larly, when it comes to the stable facial physiognomy, a generalizability
of these effects could not be conrmed (Kosinski, 2017). Still, we believe
assessing the differential impact of nonverbal cues in relation to each
other and possible reciprocal effects between them provides a promising
avenue for future research that will bring needed clarity to the nature of
the behavioral foundations of charisma.
7.2. Practical implications
If nonconformity serves as a signal of charisma, intentional deviance
from etiquette can elicit ascriptions of higher status and competence
than a conformist choice of apparel (Bellezza et al., 2014). This is of
course highly relevant to those who produce apparel, and has the power
to inuence aspects ranging from product design over marketing targets
to advertisement designs. Some, of course, already relish in the sale of
nonconforming apparel, such as mismatched socks in packs of three,
while luxury designer brands hinge on the charismatic personality of the
designer, which they aim to reect in the distinguished products or
services (Dion & Arnould, 2011). However, a more targeted approach
could leverage the implications of charisma and leader prototypicality
being inuenced by clothing further. Similarly, any of the countless
political and corporate PR advisory agencies who specialize in opti-
mizing every aspect of public presentations by notables or spokesper-
sons could prot applying these ndings. Furthermore, these ndings
are of intrinsic relevance to applications of leadership development
(Meier & Carroll, 2020; Prommer, Tiberius, & Kraus, 2020). Leaders are
bound to their institution’s aesthetic code, and thus have to learn in
which cases deviating from this implicit code is benecial, and in which
they should rather conform with it, to shape their employees’ impres-
sions as intended (Carroll & Smolovi´
c Jones, 2018). Finally, the use of
clothing as a control variable in public surveys assessing any aspect of
leadership could clean those results of residual bias, introduced if some
of the subjects diverged from conformity in their dress code. However,
future research is needed to explore this proposition in greater detail.
7.3. Concluding remarks
Our results paint a heterogeneous picture of how a leader’s choice of
attire shapes their prospective followers’ perception. While wearing a
suit, overall, causes a leader to appear more prototypical and to garner a
higher approval rate, we challenge the traditional image of the formally
dressed leader by taking the organizational context into consideration.
Whether it’s formal dress amidst a dynamic environment or informal
dress where the culture demands structure: If a leader dresses in a way
that is contrary to the context that the organization operates in, they
may surpass their more conformingly dressed competitors when running
for leadership. In a nutshell, a clothing style that deviates from the
context acts as a charismatic signal and impacts leader approval. At the
same time, recommendations for action should be treated with caution.
The results also reveal an opposite effect, which is consistent with the
notion that it is formal dress that makes a leader appear more proto-
typical and also leads to more approval. These results offer a rst insight
into the dynamics at play when leader perception meets personal
clothing preferences in the crucible of corporate dress codes.
Acknowledgements
This work was supported by the Open Access Publishing Fund pro-
vided by the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano.
We would also like to express our gratitude to Mathieu Timmer-
mann, MSc, for his support in the sample acquisition and conduct of
Study 2.
Appendix A. Vignette texts (Study 2)
The following vignette texts were used as introductory texts in Study
2, to provide contextual information on the company’s culture the
participants should imagine themselves working in. These were
composed by closely following the denitions of the exibility-oriented
adhocracy and the control-oriented hierarchy dimension of the
competing values framework.
Context for the exibility-oriented culture:
Imagine you are working in a young organization. Your organization
in an open and decentralized network with a large number of colleagues
of equal standing. Your work consists of various dynamic and creative
activities.
Your organization thrives on innovation and likes to experiment. The
main goal of the organization is to grow in the long term. Leadership is
characterized by their innovative ideas and by a high willingness to take
risks. The organization offers you and your colleagues a lot of freedom
and encourages you to nd new solutions.
Context for the control-oriented culture:
Imagine you are working in an established organization. Your or-
ganization lives strictly by xed rules and formal procedures. Your work
is formalized and everything has its rightful place. Employees have their
xed place and the opportunities for advancement are highly dependent
on their performance.
Your organization is primarily interested in efciency. The main goal
is to avoid unforeseeable events and to secure the employment of the
staff. Leadership is characterized by controlling and coordinating the
employees to keep the organization running smoothly.
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Thomas Maran researches and teaches Leadership, Entrepreneurship and Innovation at
the Universities of Liechtenstein and Innsbruck. He holds a Ph.D. in Psychology from the
University of Innsbruck, Austria. He and his company, LeadershipWerk, consult estab-
lished companies to improve their leaders, drive towards data-driven choices and develop
their range of leadership options. His portfolio includes a series of leader(ship) develop-
ment programs, assessment centers and psychometric testing, as well as evaluation of
transformation, business experiments and data intelligence.
Simon Liegl completed a master’s degree in psychology at the University of Innsbruck and
is currently enrolled in the PhD in Business Economics – Entrepreneurship and Manage-
ment at the University of Liechtenstein. His research focuses on charismatic leadership
behaviors.
Sebastian Moder completed a master’s degree in entrepreneurship at the University of
Liechtenstein and is currently enrolled in the PhD in Business Economics – Entrepre-
neurship and Management at the University of Liechtenstein. His research focuses on
leadership and its effect on organizational culture.
Sascha Kraus is Full Professor of Management at the Free University of Bozen-Bolzano in
South Tyrol, Italy. He holds a doctorate in Social and Economic Sciences from Klagenfurt
University, Austria, a PhD in Industrial Engineering and Management from Helsinki
University of Technology and a Habilitation (Venia Docendi) from Lappeenranta Uni-
versity of Technology, both in Finland. Before, he held Full Professor positions at Utrecht
University, The Netherlands, the University of Liechtenstein, ´
Ecole Sup´
erieure du Com-
merce Ext´
erieur Paris, France, and at Durham University, United Kingdom.
Marco Furtner holds the Chair for Entrepreneurship and Leadership at the University of
Liechtenstein. He is Head of the Institute of Entrepreneurship and Dean of Studies for the
MSc Entrepreneurship at the University of Liechtenstein. His current research focuses on
leadership, entrepreneurship, and innovation.
T. Maran et al.
Journal of Business Research 127 (2021) 382–383
0148-2963/© 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Corrigendum
Corrigendum to “Clothes make the leader! How leaders can use attire to
impact followers’ perceptions of charisma and approval” [J. Bus. Res. 124
(2021) 86–99]
Thomas Maran
a
,
b
, Simon Liegl
c
, Sebastian Moder
c
, Sascha Kraus
d
,
*
, Marco Furtner
c
a
University of Innsbruck, 6020 Innsbruck, Austria
b
LeadershipWerk, 9490 Vaduz, Liechtenstein
c
University of Liechtenstein, 9490 Vaduz, Liechtenstein
d
Free University of Bozen-Bolzano, 39100 Bolzano, Italy
Corrigendum Text:
Unfortunately, the wrong version of Fig. 1 was reproduced in the
published article. Thus, its description in the text does not match the
depicted gure. In the formal condition, an individual wearing a suit
was shown, whereas in the casual condition, the stimulus person was
wearing a T-shirt and jeans. The correct version of Fig. 1 and its
description can be found below.
In chapter 4.1., we refer to the Supplementary Information for the
vignette texts of study 2. Since this material was reproduced under
DOI of original article: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.11.026.
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: sascha.kraus@zfke.de (S. Kraus).
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Journal of Business Research
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jbusres
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2021.01.020
Journal of Business Research 127 (2021) 382–383
383
the heading “Appendix A. Vignette texts (Study 2)”, the reference in
chapter 4.1 shall read “(see Appendix A)” instead.
Table 1 was meant to show results of the regression models of study
3, as it is also written in the text in chapter 5.4. Instead, a
correlational matrix from a previous article version has been repro-
duced in the published article. The correct version of Table 1
including its description can be found below.
Table 1
Results of the regression analyses, assessing the variance in charisma ratings and leader approval explained by the inclusion of the objective control variables (Model
1), the subjective controls (Model 2), and the perceived formality (Model 3).
Variables Charisma perception Leader approval
Model 1 Model 2 Model 3 Model 1 Model 2 Model 3
Glasses −0.08 −0.07 −0.05 0.10 0.11 0.10
(0.13) (0.10) (0.09) (0.10) (0.09) (0.09)
Wikipedia −0.06 −0.02 −0.04 −0.12 −0.09 −0.07
(0.12) (0.10) (0.11) (0.12) (0.09) (0.08)
Attractiveness 0.61
***
0.60
***
0.52
***
0.53
***
(0.11) (0.10) (0.09) (0.09)
Perceived age 0.15 0.24* 0.13 0.04
(0.11) (0.11) (0.10) (0.11)
Perceived formality −0.25* 0.23*
(0.11) (0.11)
R
2
0.01 0.34 0.39 0.02 0.26 0.30
df 2, 85 4, 83 5, 82 2, 85 4, 83 5, 82
F-Statistic 0.32 8.74
***
8.90
***
0.82 9.78
***
8.71
***
(1.01) (0.83) (0.81) (1.00) (0.88) (0.86)
Note. N =88. Standardized coefcients are reported.
Robust standard errors (HC3) are displayed below the estimates in parentheses.
* p <.05, ** p <.01, *** p <.001.
T. Maran et al.
