Simple and Powerful Body Language Tips for 2013

 Simple and Powerful Body Language Tips for   ۲۰۱۳

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Body language plays a key role in effective leadership communication. From my most-requested program, “The Silent Language of Leaders

How Body Language Can Help – or Hurt – How You Lead,” here are ten tips guaranteed to give you a nonverbal advantage!

 To boost your confidence before an important meeting, replace your smart phone with a newspaper.

Most business professionals I coach understand the importance of projecting confident body language during an important meeting, a job interview, say , or a key sales pitch, but few realize that how they sit while waiting in the reception area has everything to do with their initial impression.

Research from Harvard and Columbia Business Schools shows that holding your body in expansive “high power” poses (standing tall with shoulders pulled back, widening your stance, spreading your arms to expand into space) raises testosterone (the hormone linked to power and self-confidence) and lowers the levels of the stress hormone, cortisol. This hormonal effect is actually reversed, the researchers discovered, when you contract yourself physically, (hunch your shoulders, tuck your chin down, etc.) assuming postures that make you look defensive and lacking in confidence.

Now picture yourself in the reception area where you are waiting for that important meeting. Are you bent over your smart phone, with your elbows pulled into your waist and your shoulders hunched? Or are you sitting up straight, feet firmly on the floor, arms spread wide holding an open newspaper? And, when you are called into the meeting, which of those two hormones is dominating your body chemistry?

۲) To spot a liar, look out for these four “the tell-tale” signals.

Nonverbal cues to all kinds of unconscious giveaways tend to occur in clusters – a group of movements, postures and actions that collectively point to a particular state of mind. This is crucially true of dishonesty, where one specific cluster of nonverbal signals has been proven statistically to be a highly accurate indicator of deception. These are: hand touching, face touching, crossed arms, and leaning away. According to research conducted at Northeastern University, if you see these “Telltale Four” being displayed together, watch out!

۳) To make a difficult task seem easier, smile.

Charles Garfield, the author of Peak Performance, once coached the Russian Olympic weight-lifting team. Garfield noticed that when team members lifted to exhaustion, they would invariably grimace at the painful effort. In an experiment, he encouraged the athletes to smile when they got to that point of exhaustion. This seemingly minor difference enabled them to add 2-3 more reps to their performance.

No matter the task, when you grimace or frown while doing it, you are sending your brain the message, “This is really difficult. I should stop.” The brain then responds by sending stress chemicals into your bloodstream. And this creates a vicious circle: the more stressed you are, the more difficult the task becomes.

Conversely, when you smile, your brain gets the message, “It’s not so bad. I can do this!”

۴) To reach an agreement, send early engagement signals.

Over the years, I’ve noticed that parties are more likely to reach an agreement if they begin a negotiation by displaying engaged body language (smiling, nodding, mirroring, open gestures, etc.). Interestingly, that positive result is the same whether the display was the product of an unconscious reaction or a strategic decision.

Picture taken on September 26, 2010 shows Matt… Image credit: AFP/Getty Images via @daylife.

۵) To encourage collaboration, rearrange your office.

Projecting power, authority, and status may be a key part of your nonverbal strategy to impress potential clients, customers, and investors – and if it is, then arranging your office space as a visual symbol of your and your company’s brand can be a crucial part of that strategy.

When it comes to building collaboration within your staff, however, status and authority cues can send conflicting, distinctly unwanted messages. If creating a collaborative culture is essential to meeting your business objectives, then you might want to rearrange your office to reflect this. For example, seating people directly across from your desk (especially if their chair is smaller and lower than yours) places them in a competitive (and disadvantageous) position. Instead, try putting the visitor’s chair at the side of your desk, or creating a conversation area

(chairs of equal size set around a small table or at right angles to each other) to encourage a feeling of informality, equality, and partnership.

PHD.S.MAZYAR MIR

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