Body Language Basics For New Leaders
As a leader, what you say is important, but it’s not the only message you’re sending. The impact of your communication is also strongly influenced by a subtle but powerful set of nonverbal cues, All leaders express emotions, motives, and attitudes through facial expressions, posture, gestures, touch, tone of voice and use of space – and our brains are “hardwired” to respond to these nonverbal signals. Which is why it’s essential for new leaders to be aware of their body language and how it’s most like to be interpreted by the team members, colleagues, clients, and executives with whom they interact.
Businesswoman speaking at a business conference
getty
Here are five body language basics for new leaders:
Send signals of both warmth and power
While you can’t stop people from making snap decisions – the human brain is hardwired in this way as a prehistoric survival mechanism – you can understand how to make those decisions work in your favor.
People will be looking for two sets of qualities from you: warmth and power, and they’ll assess these qualities from nonverbal cues they pick up within seven seconds of meeting you.
In business interactions, first impressions are crucial because they stick, and they are more heavily influences by nonverbal cues than anything you say. Once someone mentally labels you as “likeable” or “untrustworthy”, “confident” or “insecure,” everything else you do will be viewed through that filter. If someone likes and believes in you, she’ll look for the best in you. If she doesn’t like you or mistrusts you, she’ll suspect devious motives in all your actions.
By displaying warm body language, you convey likeability, empathy, and inclusion. Body language that shows warmth include smiles, slight forward leans, open palm gestures, head nods, head titled to side (a signal of curiosity and interest), and eye contact around 60 percent of the time.
MORE FROM FORBES ADVISOR
More than any other nonverbal cues, touch is oldest and most potent signal of warmth and connection. Touch, in the form of a handshake, is often the very foundation of a business relationship. According to a study published in the Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience, scientific evidence supports what successful leaders intuitively know, a handshake activates neural circuits in the brain that predisposes us toward positive feelings of competence, and trustworthiness – encouraging positive cooperation.
Using your body language to display power emphasizes your status, authority, confidence, and credibility, making team member feel secure in your leadership ability. You nonverbally demonstrate power when you stand tall, use wide gestures, pull your shoulders back, and hold you head high.
Business Conference Stage
getty
The quality of your voice also plays a role in how you are perceived. Speakers with higher-pitched voices are judged to be less powerful and more nervous than speakers with lower pitched voices. One easy technique to do before the meeting is to put your lips together and say, “Um hum, um hum, um hum.” Doing so relaxes your voice into its optimal lower pitch.
Align your verbal and nonverbal communication
In any interaction, you are communicating over two channels – verbal and nonverbal – resulting in two distinct conversations going on at the same time. While you may prepare what you are going to say because you want to send a clear message, do you also realize that in a thirty-minute business discussion, two people can send over eight hundred different nonverbal signals?
That’s why it’s so important to communicate congruently – to align the spoken word with body language that supports what you say. When nonverbal signals conflict with your verbal messages (such as a head shake when saying “yes,” or a shoulder shrug when trying to convey certainty), the people you are talking to become confused and almost always unconsciously believe what they see, regardless of what they hear. This kind of mixed communication from leaders has a negative effect on team performance and makes it difficult to build relationships of credibility and trust.
Be aware of how most people will read your body language
People are constantly trying to evaluate your state of mind by monitoring your body language, but all too often they will assign meaning to a single, and sometimes irrelevant, nonverbal cue. Since the human brain pays more attention to negative messages than it does to positive ones, people are mainly on the alert for any sign that indicates you’re in a bad mood or disapproving. The key her is to realize that the impact of your body language is less about your intent and more about being aware of how most people will read it. For example, you may be more comfortable folding your arms across your chest, but don’t be surprised when others judge that gesture as a sign that you’re annoyed or resistant. Likewise, a failure to look at someone when they’re speaking is likely to be taken as a sign of disinterest or disrespect.
Adjust your body language on Zoom
In a face-to-face meeting, people take up to seven seconds to evaluate you, but in a virtual environment your visual image sets that first impression in a fraction of a second. Because of this instantaneous evaluation, unless you have sad or negative news to deliver, a smile is the most impactful facial expression to start with. Because facial expressions trigger corresponding feelings, your smile makes both you and your audience feel more upbeat and positive.
The way you sit in a virtual meeting also sends a nonverbal message about your physical state and communication savvy. Rounding your shoulders and caving in your chest makes you look uninterested or insecure. The best tip for looking confident in a virtual meeting is to sit with good posture, facing the screen directly with shoulders squared, head straight, arms slightly away from your body, and feet flat on the floor. A side benefit is that good posture not only makes you look more confident, but it also makes you feel more self-assured.
You’ll be most effective in a virtual meeting when people can see your gestures, but you’ll need to keep them close to your body and within the frame of the camera. Doing so will enhance your credibility by helping the audience more easily understand what you are saying. Just remember that sweeping gestures, which can be effective in person, will go out of camera range or get exaggerated by coming too close to the camera and are counterproductive.
Use body language to project your best authentic self
It isn’t any less authentic to be seen at your best than it is to display your sloppiest behaviors. The problem only arises if you confuse authenticity with habit. For example, while you may slouch because you have poor posture, that doesn’t make slouching authentic; it simply makes it a habit. And by the way, not a habit that serves you well if you want to be seen as the talented leader you truly are.
Business people clapping hands during meeting in office for their success in business work
getty
As a new leader, you can’t avoid making an impression, but you can use nonverbal knowhow to help control the impression you make. And the more you practice good body language, the more it becomes your new habit, and the faster you’ll see it’s positive influence in your career.
Source link
