Hunter-gatherer culture of our ancestors provided adaptive challenges such as searching for food and fighting for territory. In order to ensure survival the ancestors developed a group survival strategy. Another challenge was to find a leader who would enable the group to overcome the challenges in the environment. According to the biosocial contingency leadership model, preferences for high masculinity of a leader’s face are more pronounced in situations of greater conflict, competition and aggression, while preferences for relatively lower facial masculinity are more pronounced in calmer, cooperative environments. One of the features of the face examined in this context is the facial width to height ratio (fWHR) which is measured as the maximum horizontal distance from the left to the right face border (width) divided by the distance from the tip of the lip to highest point of the lid (height). The original theoretical motivation for postulating a link between fWHR and aggressive or dominant behavior stems from the assumption that testosterone is responsible for the development of male secondary sexual characteristics, such as facial masculinity during puberty. Given that a higher fWHR indicates dominance, aggression and masculinity, and these are precisely the traits that may be associated with a leader’s preference in a particular context, research shows that people generally prefer leaders who have more masculine faces. The aim of this research was to examine the preference of the leader with regard to his facial characteristics.The study involved 147 people recruited on the Internet. In the first part of the experiment, which was set in the PsyToolkit program, participants were randomly presented with eight images of people with low and high fWHR. Participants assessed the degree to which a person looks like a good leader. Then, in order to examine the leader's preferences in two contexts, hypothetical scenarios of peace and war were presented. Participants were presented two faces (low and high fWHR) of the same candidate at the same time, and the task of the participants was to assess the degree to which the selected candidate was a better choice for president. In this study, a difference was found in the choice of a generally good leader depending on whether it was a person with lower or higher fWHR. People with low fWHR were rated as better leaders compared to people with high fWHR. No difference was found in the choice of the leader of a person of lower or higher fWHR depending on situations of war and peace.