Carol Kinsey Goman* warns that a failure to be conscious of one’s own body language can mean meetings get off to a rough start.
A few years ago, I was giving a presentation to the chief executive of a financial services company, outlining a speech on leadership presence I was to deliver to his organisation the next day.
It wasn’t going well.
Our meeting lasted 30 minutes, and through that entire time the chief executive sat at the conference table with his arms tightly crossed.
He didn’t once smile, lean forward or nod encouragement.
When I finished, he said thank you and glanced at the doorway to indicate that we were through.
I was sure that his body language was telling me that my speaking engagement would be cancelled.
However, when I walked to the elevator, his assistant came to tell me how impressed her boss had been with my presentation.
I was shocked and asked how he would have reacted had he not liked it.
“Oh,” said the assistant, smiling, “he would have gotten up as you were speaking and walked out of the room.”
The non-verbal signals I’d received from that executive were ones I judged to be negative.
What I didn’t realise was that, for this individual, it was his normal (baseline) behaviour.
Just as I misread that executive’s body language, when people don’t know how you usually behave (your baseline) they also can jump to the wrong conclusion.
Remember this when meeting someone for the first time.
She won’t know that you habitually frown when you’re concentrating — and may think the frown is a reaction to something she said or did.
Not knowing your baseline is only one of the reasons people make mistakes reading and reacting to your body language.
Here are four more:
They don’t consider the context
When it comes to body language, context is king.
You can’t really make sense of someone’s non-verbal message unless you understand the circumstances behind it.
Context is a weave of variables including location, relationships, time of day, past experience, and even room temperature.
Depending on the context, the same non-verbal signals can take on totally different meanings.
When your team members and colleagues don’t have access to this insight, they can misread you.
If you yawn in a staff meeting because you were up early for an international business call — let people know why you’re tired.
Without this context, you’ll look like you’re just bored.
They find meaning in a single gesture
People are constantly trying to evaluate your state of mind by monitoring your body language.
All too often they will assign meaning to a single (and sometimes irrelevant) non-verbal 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 and not to be approached.
So, you may be more comfortable standing with your arms folded across your chest (or you may be cold).
However, don’t be surprised when others judge that single gesture as resistant and unapproachable.
They evaluate you through an array of personal biases
There was a woman in my yoga class who liked me from the moment we met.
I’d prefer to believe that this was a result of my charismatic personality, but I know for a fact that it’s because I resembled her favourite aunt.
That’s how biases can work in your favour — an example of the so-called ‘halo effect’.
Biases can also work against you. What if, instead of someone they like, you reminded people of someone they despise?
In that case, you can bet their initial response to you wouldn’t be a good one, and that they would be looking for any behaviour on your part that confirms this negative bias.
They compare your behaviour to what is proper in their culture
When I talk about culture, I’m referring to a set of shared values that a group of people hold.
While some of a culture’s values are taught explicitly, most of them are absorbed subconsciously at a very early age.
Such values affect how members of the group think and act and, more important, the kind of criteria by which they judge others.
We all have cultural biases that render some non-verbal behaviour as normal and right and others as strange or wrong.
From greetings to hand gestures to eye contact to the use of space and touch, what your culture deems proper and correct, may be evaluated as ineffective — or even offensive — in another.
These are the most common mistakes people make when reading your body language.
Understanding them, and trying not to make the same mistakes, will help you display non-verbal leadership presence.
*Carol Kinsey Goman is an international keynote speaker and leadership presence coach. Her work involves Government Agencies and universities. She can be reached by email at [email protected].
This article first appeared on Carol’s webpage.
