Bigger head, bigger success

16 April 2012 - 

THE next time you assess how well a CEO is doing, check out the size of his head.

The successful man has a bigger head. No pun intended here.

    Mohd Khamil

 

If you were to really observe successful people in the corporate world, you will notice that these people are bobbing some seriously big heads around.

Lets just have a look at some of the corporate heads that have been in the news recently.

Among the more prominent are Performance Management and Delivery Unit (Pemandu) CEO Datuk Seri Idris Jala, DRB-Hicom Bhd group managing director Datuk Seri Mohd Khamil Jamil, British American Tobacco Bhd managing director William Toh, Dialog Group Bhd managing director Ngau Boon Keat, SapuraCrest Petroleum Bhd group president and CEO Datuk Seri Shahril Shamsuddin, and Rimbunan Hijau Group chairman and managing director Tan Sri Tiong Hiew King.

What do they all have in common?

Apart from being the chiefs of extremely big organisations, they have very large heads.

Their heads are a full one-seventh of their entire body lengths. In Mian Xiang, it is recognised that intelligent and more successful people tend to have bigger heads.

Toh

 

It does make sense. After all, it is where our brain sits — it is the place where we gain knowledge and learn about the world. So naturally, a bigger head should be sheltering a larger brain.

In physiognomy, the head is the highest point of the body and is related to stature, wisdom and intellectual abilities. Therefore, a larger head signifies a person who achieves his successes, material wealth and status through intellectual abilities.

Just look at the bosses in your own company. Doesn’t the big boss have a big head? If unfortunately he has a small head, then it is most likely that he has trouble managing big groups of people. He just doesn’t have the head for that sort of influence.

How often have you seen the CEO of a big company with an extremely small head? If he has a normal-size head, its fine. If he has a small head on on a natural-size body, or worse, a big body, then it becomes unfortunate.

Chances are, most of his staff don’t think highly of his abilities. He probably got into that position because there was nobody better.

Tiong

 

CEOs with small heads and large hulking muscular bodies aren’t going to be exactly known for their thinking power. When the lower body is more developed, especially the third station of the body (from the waist to the toes), this person has more physical prowess. He excels more in adventure and outdoor activities and is less of a thinker.

Many atheletes or men who place huge emphasis on their physical appearances tend to have this sort of body shape — small heads on great bodies. He spends more time in the gym developing his body rather than reading books improving his knowledge.

So if you’ve got an investment banker with that body make up, you better re-think your decision. He won’t be able to figure out financial creativity or the best way to bring value to your company,

In my book Faces of Fortune, nearly all my chosen tycoons have got nice big heads. If I were to choose a tycoon just based on his big head, I can’t think of a better example that IOI Corp Bhd’s founder and chairman, Tan Sri Lee Shin Cheng — crowning his compact but sturdy body is a really big head.

He carries his head high and it is a full one-seventh of his body if not slightly more. That’s your first indication that this is a man with immense power and wealth. When you have a bigger head, you probably control something like tens of thousands of people. When you have a small head, you’re better off managing 10 people.

Jala

 

While the size of the head is important, the shape and balance of it is just as significant. The head must have corners and prominence at the right places.

If you have a leader with a shapeless head, then you’re in trouble.

A shapeless head is the sort of head which looks like God made it while he was in a hurry. He didn’t have time to properly construct the head and just gave the person a doughy dollop above his neck!

These people always lack charisma and leadership. They are never good networkers.

Corners in the front and back are especially important. You hardly see CEOs with pointy shaped heads. The pointy-shaped head is one where the top of the head is prominent and sharp.

This individual achieves a lot when he is young, typically before 30, but does not have the nescessary wisdom to give him a stable career outlook. So, typically, these people are clever, but less stable and tend to take unnescessary risks.

You are inclined to see this sort of head on very creative people, for example actors, artists, marketing and advertising people.

Prominent corners in the back and front of the head are very important.

The protusion at the back of the head is related to good memory and strength in character.

The protrusion in the front of the head is related to creativity, idealism and thinking ability. That is why clever people tend to have big heads with obvious corners especially on the back and front.

So now you know why all those biggies have some serious head!