Men who want to rise to the top but are losing their hair may be doing themselves a big favour by taking matters into their own hands and shaving off their remaining locks, according to new research conducted by a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania in the United States.
The study, conducted by the Wharton School lecturer Albert Mannes and published in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, showed that men with shaved heads are perceived as being dominant, taller, stronger and having better leadership skills than men who have full heads of hair or who look as if they are desperately clinging on to thinning hair.
Over the past 10 years, the close-cropped look has been favoured by men in what are typically considered "masculine" professions such as the military and law enforcement.
Many top athletes in the US choose to razor off their locks, while Hollywood action heros such as Bruce Willis and Vin Diesel have adopted the look to appear tougher.
In the corporate world, Jeff Bezos, the chief executive of Amazon, sports the shorn look, as do Lloyd Blankfein, the chairman and chief executive of Goldman Sachs, and Steve Ballmer, the chief executive of Microsoft.
Mr Mannes, who is himself folically challenged, said he was prompted to conduct the research after finding people reacted to him differently when he shaved his head: they were more stand-offish and, in come cases, more deferential.
Numerous studies have been done to assess what are considered dominant traits such as height and eye colour - brown-eyed people are considered more dominant than those with blue eyes, for instance - but hair is particularly interesting because it is a characteristic that can be changed.
Ahmet Kayhan, the chief executive of Reidin.com, a property information company based in Dubai, is 35 but started shaving his head in his 20s.
"People who are brave enough to shave their heads are dominant people," he says. "I started to shave my head back in college when I was 20, 22. But I was always very confident - it just wasn't an issue: hair or no hair."
David Lewis, who was recently in Abu Dhabi to expand Pinnacle, his communication skills business, agrees that having a shaved head indicates underlying confidence.
"I ultimately know you don't care if I am bald or not," he says. "You care about whether I have something to say that's interesting and engaging. Do we still like to watch our weight and be conscious of things we can control? Yeah. But I can't control [baldness].
"I knew 15 years ago my hair was thinning. I thought: 'I already know where this is going.' I was never going to be the guy to hang on. It is what it is. It comes down to confidence."
However, Michael Hariz, the founder and chief executive of Hariz Middle East, has "passed the 30 mark" and favours the close-cropped look.
But he turns the research on its head, so to speak. He believes it is the stress of running his advertising and communications company that has caused his hair to fall out.
"When I started out, I had a full head of hair," he says. "My father started losing his hair in his late 40s and my brother still has a full head of hair. I became bald because of the job."
The bad news for those who have opted to shave is that bald men are perceived as less attractive as their hirsute peers.
Mr Mannes also notes that further research needs to be done. The study was conducted in the US and the findings there may not be similar in other cultures. Shaved heads in the United Kingdom, for example, have a nasty association with skinheads and racism. And, of course, in the UAE, many men wear a guthra.
"Local people cover their heads, so I don't think the research stands here," says Mr Hariz. "But I do think there is something to the theory."
