Picture the front of an old sailing ship. A figure is fixed there, out ahead of everyone. It meets the wind first, it is the part you see from far away, and every sailor knows its face. But it is not steering. The wheel is at the back, in someone else's hands. Every use of this word keeps that one picture: out in front, clearly seen, not holding the wheel.
From the word’s history
The source entry gives the word as figure + head, and files the leader meaning as an extension of the ship's carving. So the carved figure at the front is where the picture starts.
來源把這個字拆成 figure（人像）＋ head（前端），並且把「掛名領袖」標為由船首像延伸出去的用法。所以起點是那座立在船頭的木雕，人的意思是後來長出來的。
Wiktionary via kaikki (source_ref kaikki:3f6f69a190036ae4:1063762820:8206): "From figure + head."; the leadership sense is tagged "(figurative, by extension)".
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