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.

Signals of disengagement behavior 

Has this ever happened to you? You’re in a meeting, and it’s going well. You can tell because of the positive body language that your colleague has been showing you. And then, something happens – you’re not sure what -- and everything changes.

In business communication, engagement and disengagement are the most important signals to monitor in the other person’s body language.

Engagement behaviors indicate interest, receptivity, or agreement while disengagement behaviors signal that a person is bored, angry, or defensive. Here’s how it looks from head to toes:

When someone is disengaged, the amount of eye contact decreases, as we tend to look away from things that distress us and people we don’t like.

Human beings are born liars. We tell inconsequential lies, substantive lies, little lies, big lies, social lies and mean lies. We tell lies of omission, lies that obscure facts, and lies that are blatant misrepresentations of the truth. 

Lying in the workplace happens every day. Some lies - social lies - smooth the way for workplace interactions (“That’s a nice tie you’re wearing”). Some "white lies" are good for your career (“I’d be happy to serve on your committee.”) But other lies -- destructive lies -- poison business relationships, destroy employee engagement, and kill workplace productivity. 

Virtual collaboration holds amazing promise.

When successful, it enables talented peers to work together regardless of location and organizations to mine the collective wisdom of a widely dispersed employee population. In order to tap into this potential, enterprises are increasingly using geographically distributed teams as a key part of their business strategy.

But virtual collaboration comes with its own unique challenges -- especially for leaders whose previous experience has been mainly with collocated teams. Various studies have shown that it is more difficult to get virtual teams to bond, harder for informal leaders to emerge, tougher to create genuine dialogue, and easier for misunderstandings to escalate.

If the virtual team is global (as is often the case), leaders face additional complexities -- scheduling meetings around international times zones and holidays and conducting meetings in a language that for many participants is their secondary one. Leaders also must deal with an array of cultural issues that can include differences in business protocol, decision-making, dealing with authority, the concept of time, negotiation styles, and the emotional reactions allowed – or expected – in a business environment.

As an Institute for Management Studies faculty member, I present a seminar on “The Power of Collaborative Leadership.”

From that program, here are five tips for virtual collaboration:

Here are five body language guidelines to help you hold your own when you negotiate.

1. Start off with the right stuff

It all begins with the right attitude. Regardless of how tiring or frustrating your day may have been, before you enter the meeting room, pull your shoulders back, hold your head high, take a deep breath, and walk in as your “best self” -- exuding ease and energy.

Just after entering the meeting room, stop for a moment and look around at the person or group that has already assembled.

Open your eyes slightly larger than usual. This will trigger an “eyebrow flash” (a slight upward movement that is a universal signal of recognition and welcome).

Smile.

Make eye contact with all of your counterparts. A simple way to enhance positive eye contact is to look at eyes long enough to know what color they are.

Your boss tells you that “this change is for the best,” but as she speaks, you notice her stiff body posture and forced smile. Is she being honest with you?

Your co-worker says he’d be happy to help you with your project, but he seems to pause a long time before answering - and while talking, his eyes stay focused on his computer monitor. Can you trust what he says?

“You can count on my support."

"It wasn't my fault." 

"You're next in line for a promotion."

Really?

Wouldn’t it be great to know when we’re being lied to? And, wouldn’t it be nice if exposing falsehoods were as easy as it is portrayed on television shows like “Lie to Me” and “The Mentalist?” But of course, those are entertaining fantasies. In real life, human beings are more complex than that. And, as commonplace as deception is, deception detection remains an inexact science.

In most of the meetings you attend or lead, the seating arrangement may not be an issue. But if you are designing a collaborative session, it can make a big difference. I’m not suggesting that you use place cards for attendees, but you should be aware that strategic positioning is an effective way to obtain cooperation – and that neglecting this dynamic can inhibit your collaborative goals.

Have you ever noticed that when two people sit at a table, they often choose chairs on opposite sides? This is automatically adversarial in terms of territory – the kind of seating arrangement that divorce attorneys and their clients typically adopt. Groups of people may also sit on opposite sides of a conference table and unwittingly divide into an “us” and “them” mentality. If you intentionally mix up the seating arrangements you can discourage the tendency to “take sides.”

Let's face it, in business dealings, charisma counts. A lot. And charisma is as much about impressions and body language as it is about issues and substance. I've seen many qualified people get passed over for promotion (or lose a sale or fail an interview) simply because they couldn’t project an engaging attitude.

Max Weber, the father of sociology, first coined the term “charisma” to describe inspirational leaders. Originally from the Greek kharisma, meaning favor or divine gift, charisma has also been defined as “part confidence, part presence, and part sex appeal.” But however we define it, we know it when we see it. We call someone charismatic when they somehow compel us to embrace their vision -- whether it's corporate, social, or political.

A few years ago, a group of rising-star executives gathered at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) to take part in a special competitive event. Each was to present a business plan to be evaluated by the entire group. The best ideas would then be recommended to a team of venture capitalists for final evaluation. Participants saw this as a great opportunity to see how their ideas compared to others in an elite peer group.

If you had been one of those chosen executives, how would you have prepared for the event? Would you have concentrated on formulating a coherent description of your business plan? Developed a strategy for convincing others? Practiced your presentation skills?