GESTURE OF A LEADER MATTERS A LOT!!!!!.

How people read your body language.

Understanding how body-language signals are perceived

- The senior vice president of a Fortune 500 company is speaking at a leadership conference in New York. Now he's a polished presenter with an impressive selection of organizational "war stories" delivered with a charming sense of humor. The audience likes him; they like him a lot. Then, as he finishes his comments, he folds his arms across his chest and says, "I'm open for questions. "Please ask me anything." At this point, there's a noticeable shift of energy in the room, from engagement to uncertainty. The audience that was so attentive only moments ago is now unable to think of anything to ask.

I was at that event, and later I interviewed members of the audience, none of whom recalled the arm movement, but all of whom remembered struggling to come up with a question. So what do you think happened? How could a simple gesture that the audience wasn't even aware of have had such an immediate impact? We continue to find out more and more about how body language affects the messages we're trying to send, and one of the findings from evolutionary psychology is that our brains are hardwired to respond to nonverbal cues even though most of us aren't consciously aware of the process.

All leaders express enthusiasm, warmth, and confidence as well as arrogance, indifference, and displeasure through their posture, their facial expressions, hand gestures, and use of space. The key to being an effective nonverbal communicator is to realize that the impact of these signals depends less on what you meant, and more on how most people interpret those signals. So what the conference speaker needed to realize was that most people in the audience would unconsciously read his crossed arms as a signal that he wasn't at all open for questions.

A classic and often misquoted study by Albert Mehrabian at UCLA found that the total impact of a message is based only seven percent on the words used. Much more important are facial expressions and other forms of body language, responsible for 55% of the total impact, and tone of voice, responsible for 38%. Well obviously you can't listen to a person speaking a foreign language and understand 93% of what's being communicated by simply observing their body language. Mehrabian was only studying the communication of emotions, particularly the feelings of liking and disliking.

But emotions are a big part of your impact as a leader because emotions are highly infectious. We all tend to mimic the postures and expressions of those we work with. As a leader, any strong emotion you display, like enthusiasm or disgust, will cause the people around you to automatically mirror or copy that expression. And it isn't just a physical response, since that facial expression will start to trigger the corresponding feeling. That's why smiling at someone can brighten up their day, while angry frowns upset them.

Body language also plays a crucial role in making sure your team truly understands key messages. If you're going to talk about new initiatives or major change, or if you have any bad news to deliver, my advice is to do so in person. Remember, it's only in face-to-face encounters that our brains process that continual cascade of nonverbal cues that we use as the basis for building trust and professional intimacy, both of which are crucial to persuasion and good communication.

Misreading body language

- Body language was the basis for our earliest form of communication. When the split second ability to realize if someone was safe or dangerous was often a matter of life or death. Nonverbal signals still help us form quick impressions, but as innate as this ability may be, not all of our impressions are accurate. The problem is that the world has changed, but our body reading ability is still based on a primitive, emotional reaction that hasn't changed much since humans began interacting with one another. Because we all make mistakes when reading body language, your nonverbal signals won't always convey what you intended them to.

In fact, you can count on people making five major mistakes. First, they'll look for the negative. People you work with are constantly trying to evaluate your state of mind by monitoring your body language. And 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 and not to be bothered. So you may be more comfortable standing with your arms crossed, or you may be cold, but don't be surprised when others judge that gesture as resistant and unapproachable.

Second, they won't consider the context. You can't really make sense of someone's nonverbal message unless you understand the circumstances behind it. That's called context. Context is this weave of variables that can include location, relationships, time of day, past experiences, and even things like room temperature. Depending on the context, the same nonverbal signal can have a totally different meaning. Someone hunched over and hugging herself while sitting outside on a cold day sends a very different message than that same person in that same position sitting at her desk.

One says, "I'm cold!" The other, "I'm in distress." There's some pieces of context that aren't so obvious, and your colleagues won't always have access to these insights. So if you yawn in the staff meeting because you were up early for an international call, let people know why you're tired. Without this context, they may think you're just bored. Third, they'll find meaning in one gesture. All too often your colleagues will assign meaning to a single, and sometimes totally irrelevant, nonverbal cue.

In reality, nonverbal cues occur in what's called the gesture cluster. Now that's a group of movements, postures, and actions that reinforce each other. A single gesture can have many meanings, or mean nothing at all. During a conversation, for example, you might look at your watch for any number of reasons. But when that action is coupled with a glance at a door, drumming fingers on the table, and hands on thighs, that seated readiness position, it would be a cluster of signals that say you're finished talking and ready to leave.

The problem is that people may jump to the wrong conclusion when you take that first glance at your watch. So if you were just checking to make sure you're not late for your next appointment, you need to say so. Fourth, they won't know your baseline. Observing how a person normally behaves helps you spot meaningful changes from that baseline behavior. Now here's what can happen when you don't know someone's baseline. A few years ago, I was giving a presentation to the CEO of a financial services company, outlining a speech I was to deliver to his leadership team the next day, and it wasn't going well.

Our meeting lasted almost an hour, and through that entire time the CEO sat at the conference table with his arms tightly crossed. He didn't smile, lean forward, or nod encouragement. When I finished, he said, "Thank you," without making eye contact and left the room. As I'm a body language expert, I was sure that his nonverbal communication was telling me that my speaking engagement would be canceled, but when I walked to the elevator, the Executive's Assistant came to tell me how impressed her boss had been with my presentation.

I was shocked and asked what he would've done had he not liked it? "Oh," said the Assistant, "He would've gotten up in the middle of the meeting "and walked out." You see the only nonverbal signals I'd received from that CEO were ones I judged to be negative. What I didn't realize was that this was his normal baseline behavior. Fifth, they'll evaluate you through an array of biases. Now there's a woman in my yoga class who liked me from the moment we met.

I'd prefer to believe that this was due to my charismatic personality, but I know for a fact it's because I resemble her favorite aunt. When biases work in your favor, it's called the Halo Effect, but biases can also work against you. What if instead of someone they like, you remind people of someone they despise? You might overcome it with time, but you can bet that their initial response to you won't be a good one. Cultural biases are those shared values that determine which nonverbal behaviors feel normal and right, and which feel strange or wrong.

When dealing with people from different backgrounds, realize that cultural biases interfere with their ability to accurately judge your motives. From greetings, to the amount of emotion displayed, to the use of touch and space. What's deemed proper and correct in one culture may be ineffective or offensive in another. So what about you? As I was sharing these five mistakes, what came to mind? Can you think of times your body language has been misunderstood? Maybe it was a business meeting that went wrong, or a misunderstanding with your spouse.

We all have nonverbal cues that can send the wrong messages. What cues of yours are most likely to be misunderstood?

Getting your body language to match your words

- Imagine that you're the chief executive officer of an oil company, you've just arrived at a refinery to speak to a group of operators, electricians and warehouse workers. They're all dressed in fire retardant coveralls, you're wearing a designer suit, white shirt and power tie. After being introduced you walk very carefully to the front of the room, after all you don't want to get your suit stained. You remove your expensive wristwatch, and quite visibly place it on the lectern. Your unspoken message is, "I'm a very important person, "I'm uncomfortable in dirty places like this, "and I have exactly 20 minutes to spend with you." That message, is of course, quite different from the words you used to begin your comments, "I'm so happy to be with you today," but which do you think the refinery workers will believe, your words or your body language? Here's what research finds, when your body language doesn't match your words, your verbal message is lost.

Neuroscientists at Colgate University studied the effects of gestures by using electroencephalographs, EEG machines, to measure brainwaves that form peaks and valleys. One of these valleys called N400, occurs when people listen to nonsensical language. N400 also happens when subjects are shown gestures that contradict what's spoken. In a very real way, when your words say one thing, and your gestures indicate another you don't make sense, and when forced to choose between your verbal and nonverbal messages, people will instinctively believe what they see and not what you say.

That's why it's crucial for you as a leader to communicate congruently, that is to align what you say with body language that supports your words. When your nonverbal signals sabotage your verbal messages people become confused. These mixed messages have a negative effect on performance, and make it almost impossible to build relationships of trust. If you stand in front of your team, and talk about how much you welcome their input, the message gets derailed if you have a forced smile, or lean away from the team, or don't maintain eye contact.

All of these are disengaged signals, when your intended message is about inclusiveness. Then there's the matter of timing. If you gesture just before or as you speak, you appear to be open and candid. However, if you speak first and then gesture, as I've seen many leaders do, it's unconsciously perceived as phony, and at that point the validity of whatever you're saying comes under suspicion. There's no doubt that you can gain a professional advantage by learning how to use body language more effectively, and I know you'll get a lot of tips and techniques from this course, but body language is more than a set of techniques, it's also a reflection of your true internal state.

Here's a recent example, the HR manager who brought me into the company to coach an executive, warned me that she was a pretty crummy speaker, and after watching her at a leadership conference I was in total agreement. It wasn't what she said, her words were carefully chosen and well-rehearsed. It was how she looked when she spoke. She was verbally telling people that the upcoming change would be good for them, while her entire body was screaming, "I'm uncomfortable and unconvinced "about everything I'm saying." There wasn't much I could do to help.

Oh sure, I could find ways to make her movements less mechanical and her timing more fluid, but if a person doesn't generally care about or believe in what she's saying her body language will eventually give her away. What that executive needed most was authentic enthusiasm, and passion about the company's new strategy, because what employees saw when this leader spoke was exactly how she really felt. The main thing I want you to take away from this is that body language can't hide your innermost feelings. In fact, in most cases it reveals those feelings.

Take time to think about how you really feel about the current project you're asking your team to work on. If you secretly think it's a waste of time and resources, then you need to understand that you won't fool your team for long. Your negative attitude will be reflected in your nonverbal behavior. If, on the other hand, you believe that the project is important and interesting, then you can be assured that your genuine enthusiasm will be reflected through your body language.