Carol Kinsey Goman, author of “The Silent Language of Leaders: How Body Language Can Help – or Hurt – How You Lead,” offers ten simple, powerful (and sometimes surprising) tips guaranteed to give you a nonverbal advantage!
1) 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.