Snap. Patti Wood
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to the CEO’s company’s profits.12
What Can We Do about “Lookism”?
When the actual personality and character traits of individuals have been studied, stereotypes about attractiveness have proven false. Good looks don’t make an individual particularly “good” in other ways.13 Next time you get a warm, fuzzy feeling about someone you’ve just met, ask yourself if this is based on superficial good looks.
Still, we all want to feel good about how we look to others, and there are things we can do to boost our attractiveness quotient and improve the impression we create. Remember the disheveled me who was mortified to find herself surrounded by future audience members on the bus? In that moment, I couldn’t change my appearance, but I could change how I felt about myself and how I behaved in order to help people feel more comfortable with the sweatshirted me.
I began to walk up and down the aisle of the bus, stopping to say hello and introducing myself. I joked that I could use a refresher course in the first-impressions training I’d later be giving all of them! Instead of cringing and cowering, I assumed an air of confidence. My comfort, my going toward rather than away from them, my warm laughter-filled voice and handshakes made it easier for people to look past my appearance and, I hoped, trust and like me more than they would have if I had schlepped to the back of the bus and hid (as my embarrassment would have otherwise led me to do). I was pleased to see the smiles as people leaned in to greet me warmly.
There may be times when you need to go “outside-in” and fake it till you make it. Keep in mind that, however you hold your body, it begins to chemically influence how you feel in as little as one-fortieth of a second. Briefly taking on confident, charismatic, likable behaviors until your body chemistry catches up makes you feel confident inside.
One of my clients who has participated in my body language programs had a brain tumor removed and is paralyzed on one side of his face. He has been struggling because people are not comfortable around him. I’ve been helping him in oneon-one coaching do things nonverbally to help people cope with his appearance and lack of facial symmetry.
We can all make simple, small changes in our body language, voices, and approach to others to improve our attractiveness. Remember that, while we find attractive people more likable, we also find likable people more attractive. So incorporate behaviors discussed in the “What’s to Like?” section earlier in this chapter to create a more attractive snap impression.
Power
The speaker came onstage with shoulders back and chest high and moved to the front of the platform. He showed his confidence in his recommendations by using gestures that mimicked a conductor’s baton coming down just as he made each important point. He also struck a beat with his open hand by pounding his fist into his palm. He paused to let his points sink in, and, in the silence, he looked out at the group, gazing deeply into people’s eyes.
Another speaker came onstage with shoulders slumped and head bowed. He stood behind a table, bent over his laptop, his feet together and his hands glued to the keys of his computer. Occasionally, he glanced up at the screen behind him, where his slides were projected, and read his bullet points aloud. His ideas were well supported and his speech was well prepared. But his nonverbal delivery? Not powerful.
We’ve all experienced power in first impressions. We walk up to someone and shake hands, each of us noting whose grip is more forceful. When we make eye contact, we notice who breaks away first. Is one of us nervous and the other calm and confident? Beginning with our snap impressions, we’re subconsciously deciding who is going to have more power in the interaction.
Power is communicated in numerous ways — the four foundational principles of power are confidence, space, openness, and relaxation. You demonstrate power through the amount of space you take up with your body, through your possessions (coffee cup, purse, computer tablet or pad, smartphone), through your voice, and through whether your body windows are open or closed and whether your body is tense and distracted or relaxed and focused. This isn’t purely about being dominant. It’s about assuming a confident stance, claiming and holding the space you’re in, and being open (positioning your body and face toward others) rather than closed (fearful and self-protective).
Be the Queen of Your Jungle
Imagine a lion in the jungle. She establishes her space and territory with relaxed confidence. She moves gracefully. Her posture is open as she stretches out her limbs. She’d never have to battle for an armrest on an airplane! She’s authentic, fully herself. Without baring her teeth or making a threat, she is in charge.
In a study of 132 business school graduates that took place over eight years and included extensive interviews, researchers looked at women who show power by means of aggressiveness, assertiveness, and confidence — traits normally labeled as masculine. They discovered that women who can turn their power on and off according to their circumstances (called self-monitoring) get more promotions than either men or other women.14
How to Look and Feel Powerful and Confident in a First Impression
You can meet another’s power with your own without coming to blows by making use of the following tips.
• Note how much space you take up in your walk, in your stance, and as you sit; you don’t want to take up too much or too little space.
• Maintain eye contact. Trick: look from one of the other person’s eyes to her other eye to the bridge of her nose, then back to each eye.
• Touch the other person, either before she touches you or immediately after.
• Be the first to extend your hand for a shake.
• If you’re on the receiving end of a power shake, in which someone surrounds your handshaking hand with his left hand, or is overly aggressive in his greeting, reach out and hold the other person’s elbow with your free hand as you shake.
• If you are normally the quiet person who is interrupted frequently, and you’re interrupted when you are not finished talking, continue to speak. Know that, if you are interrupted, it is okay to very slightly raise your voice and even raise your hand a bit with the palm facing toward the interrupter.
• Don’t hide behind your “stuff.” Don’t put your belongings — coffee cup, electronic devices, and so on — between you and others. Similarly, if you are presenting and are offered a podium or table, stand in front of or to the side of it instead of behind it.
• Select a prominent seat — a noticeable position at the center of the conference table or in the front row of a large meeting. This signals confidence, genuine interest, and your willingness to engage.
• Show respect for hierarchies but don’t be overly deferential. If your aim is to advance to the next level of your profession, strive to be a colleague rather than a subordinate. Visit the offices and cubicles of powerful people, ask them to lunch, spend time with them. Positive power is contagious.
• Notice how far apart your feet are in a normal stance. Now move your feet one inch farther apart to create lion-like stability and presence.
• Square your shoulders and let them relax to communicate strength and stability.
• When anxious, we often fidget or touch ourselves for reassurance. Minimize acts such as rubbing your earring or mustache, twisting your hands, pushing back your hair, and so on. Research indicates that powerful people do move — they might tap their feet or click their pens with impatience — but this is not behavior you want to model.
Some aspects of nonverbal communication that generate a power impression are permanently set. Of course you have heard that greater height and bulk give people more power, and research shows that people with deeper voices are also more apt to have power or be perceived as more believable, and more likely to have their requests carried out. If you don’t have these physical attributes, work the bullet points in the preceding list especially hard!
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