own body language

so separate that it becomes a virtual no man's land. He
should achieve some contact by walking through the plant
often enough to be a familiar sight to the workers.
The situation you describe, of spending all your time
in your own office or with management on your own level,
is a very awkward one. You should try to overcome it
with a higher degree of visibility. Get to know something
of the men under you, and take the time to talk to them,
even if it's a brief word or two. And most important, do
it by going to them rather than summoning them to your
office.
A top executive at an advertising agency told me that
he makes it a point, at least three times a week, to walk
through both floors of his firm.
"I talk to all of the men, even if it's just to ask them
meaningless questions not at all related to work. I discuss
sports, the weather, skiing—anything to let them know
I exist and I'm available. Sure, it takes an hour out of
every day, but it pays off. They all know me and trust
me, and their work shows it."
I'm a minor executive in a large oil company, but I'm
eager to climb the corporate ladder. I've noticed that at
our staff meetings there is a lot of jockeying for position
between the boss and the executives as well as among
the executives themselves. Are there rules to all this, and
could I profit by learning them?
THE BODY LANGUAGE OF POWER 115
You can learn a great deal from careful observation.
People reveal a lot about themselves in meetings of this
sort. The executive who gets too close to the boss's desk
is usually declaring his allegiance. While the boss may
approve and award him "brownie points," his fellow
executives will be suspicious of his motives. They'll begin
to think he's out to get them. Remember back in school
how you felt about the teacher's pet who took the desk
closest to the teacher?
However, if an executive positions himself away from
or behind his teammates, he'll make them uneasy and
damage the cohesiveness of the team. If he decides to
stand while they sit, he makes the separation even more
obvious.
Dr. Mortimer R. Feinberg of the City University of New
York cited these examples of team interaction in a recent
article and went on to note that while this jockeying
for position takes place, the boss in turn will be reacting
to his executives with a very subtle, but revealing, body
language of his own.
He'll acknowledge the arrival of each employee with an
abstracted glance, probably accompanied by a "quick
minuscule smile." If the boss starts talking at once, he's
making it clear that he's about to lecture his executives,
not confer with them. The longer he talks, the more
obvious it is that he's in control, and the more certain it
is that any executive will hesitate to volunteer his own
ideas. It takes a tough subordinate to be the first one to
speak after a long harangue by the boss.
n6 THE BODY LANGUAGE OF POWER
Watch your fellow executives during the meeting. They
will usually avoid eye locks (catching and holding someone
else's eye) while the boss is talking. Eye locks give
the impression that they are plotting against him.
On the other hand, too long a smile at the boss, or too
many head nods while he's talking, or too much leaning
forward attentively all betray the "yes man" in the crowd
to his fellow executives.
If yessing is to be done, and you cannot get up many
rungs of the corporate ladder without it, it is most effective
in a one-to-one situaton, not at a large meeting.
My friend Jim thinks he's a celebrity, but if he is,
he's a very minor one. He plays with a rock group on
weekends in a local bar. What gets me is that Jim always
wears dark glasses. Since I've known him I've become
aware that many famous people wear sunglasses all the
time. Why do they do it?
Sometimes the celebrity who wears sunglasses does it
as an affectation, and sometimes the glasses are used as a
disguise. Occasionally, they're a genuine guard against
too much sun. But aside from these, there is another valid
reason why someone who is famous wants to hide his eyes.
The eyes are the parts of the body used most often in
nonverbal communication. Hiding the eyes removes the
possibility that a stranger might catch your eye and pull
you into an unwanted conversation.
THE BODY LANGUAGE OF POWER 117
If someone does lock eyes with a celebrity and the
celebrity ignores the signal, he runs the risk of offending
a possible fan and harming his reputation. What he's
saying is, "Yes, I see you but I'm not interested in talking
to you."
For the ordinary person this is a perfectly acceptable
way of discouraging inroads on his privacy. For the
celebrity who must carefully watch his image, there is
always the risk of appearing too self-important or too
conceited to bother with the public.
Rather than risk this interpretation, the celebrity retires
behind dark glasses and avoids the eye confrontation
altogether. It's a much safer method.
There's something of a power struggle going on in our
office, and Harold seems to have the edge. He's gotten
it by anticipating so many of the boss's decisions that
we're all beginning to wonder if he has extrasensory
perception. When we put it to Harold directly, he just
laughed and said, "Body language." But we've all been
watching, and none of us notices anything obvious.
Can there be slight gestures we don't see that Harold
is able to use to his advantage?
Harold may be right. There are very slight gestures that
we all use in body language—some so slight that it's hard
to believe our eyes are quick enough to pick them up.
118 THE BODY LANGUAGE OF POWER
Scientists have photographed people in action and have
had to play and replay the films dozens of times before
they could pick up some of these seemingly insignificant
gestures: a minute droop of an eyelid, a slight motion with
a head or hand.
Amazingly enough, without being consciously aware of
it, we all receive these tiny signals and understand them.
The greater part of our body language communication,
indeed, is on this subliminal level.
Now Harold may be picking these signals up from your
boss and interpreting them to his own advantage in the
power play you mentioned, but there is no reason to think
the rest of you can't pick up the same signals—as a matter
of fact, I'm sure you can.
It's likely, however, that Harold has other sources of
information in anticipating the boss's directives and is just
throwing the rest of you off the track by making you think
he's relying just on body language.
Sam has been my business partner for ten years, and
we manage to get along—except for one thing that
bothers me. Sam has the most annoying handshake. When
you shake hands with him, you always end up with
only his fingers. What does this type of handshake mean?
For that matter, how much can you tell about a person
from his handshake?
THE BODY LANGUAGE OF POWER
A handshake is a very revealing body language signal,
and it can give you some important clues to what the
shakee really thinks of you. The odds are that Sam, who
offers you only the fingers of his hand, doesn't like you
too much, or else doesn't want to become too involved
with you. Perhaps, since you're partners, this is a wise
choice.
The person who shakes hands like a limp fish, offering
you the entire hand but with "no bones" is probably ill at
ease and unused to shaking hands. The chances are he
doesn't like to be touched, and he submits to the handshake,
but he does so feeling it's a necessary violation of
his privacy. There is also a possibility that the limp handshaker
has an inner arrogance that he wants to conceal.
On the other hand, the firm handshake gives an impression
of quiet confidence. "I'm glad to meet you" is
the unspoken message. Also: "I'm a no-nonsense person,
competent and at ease." Unfortunately, the firm handshake
is often a learned reflex and may reveal very little
of the true man. Men are taught to shake firmly in this
society—not too heavily, but not too lightly. The businessman
learns this quickly, and his firm, pleasing handshake
is usually training. But it is still the most acceptable
shake.
The macho shake is superhard and firm, a test of
strength that says, "I have the power to cause pain if I
want to!" Far from betraying his inner strength, the man
with the macho shake usually hides a basic insecurity
and the need to prove himself with every meeting.
120 THE BODY LANGUAGE OF POWER
In class the other day I tried to tell my teacher that
I had been too ill to research a paper, but she caught
me out in the lie. She said I gave myself away with my
uneasy eye contact. I've been wondering ever since if
I could have been more convincing. Tell me, can you
really lie in body language?
A study to determine just this was the subject of a
doctoral thesis submitted to Stanford University by
a student, Mark Snyder. Mark set up what he called a
"self-monitoring" approach to discover whether our expressions
are consistent. "We may put on a happy face
to cover our sadness, but do we also use a happy tone
of voice?" Mark wondered. Forgetting to be this consistent
would spoil any attempt to lie with our bodies.
After his study was completed, Mark concluded that
the face is usually controlled, but the body is often
forgotten. He found that the people he interviewed and
tested could be categorized. There were two distinct
types: self-monitors, who are sensitive to the expressions
and messages sent out by others and who use these cues
to manage their own body language, and non-selfmonitors,
who don't care about their own body language
and who pay no attention to the expressions of others.
People who are strong self-monitors are good at learning
what's socially right in new situations. They adapt well
and they can control their own body language and lie
rather successfully in body language.
Actors were the strongest self-monitors, the best liars.
THE BODY LANGUAGE OF POWER 121
Among the poorest self-monitors were ward patients in
psychiatric hospitals.
Here are six of the true-false statements that helped
Mark separate self-monitors from non-self-monitors:
(1) I can only argue for ideas I already believe.
(2) I guess I put on a show to impress or entertain
people.
(3) I rarely need the advice of my friends to choose
movies, books, or music.
(4) I'm not always the person I appear to be.
(5) At a party I let others keep the jokes and stories
going.
(6) I may deceive people by being friendly when I
really dislike them.
Altogether, there were twenty-five such statements in
Mark Snyder's "He-detector test." The testee was asked to
answer them a honestly as he could.
Just as a sample, if you answered the above six questions
this way—(1) false, (2) true, (3) false, (4) true, (5)
false, and (6) true— then you rate high on the selfmonitoring
scale. You are probably a rather skilled liar
in body language!
I'm a doctor in general practice, and the problems my
patients bring me range from physical to emotional. It
seems to me I've heard every frailty of human nature
that there is. Usually I can listen in a nonjudgmental
122 THE BODY LANGUAGE OF POWER
way, but I find that if I've had any upsetting
problem at home or in the hospital it becomes very
difficult to deal with my patients. They seem to sense
my inner tension. What body language giveaway clues
am I projecting?
The very simple ones that betray your troubled feelings
are probably found in your face. People who see themselves
on television or film are frequently amazed at the
tension and anxiety betrayed by their own faces. "Is that
the way I look?" is usually their first response, and then,
"But I tried so hard to cover my nervousness—or did I?"
When you see your patient after a trouble-filled day at
home or in the hospital you project your own anxiety in
dozens of ways—the tight eyebrows, the intent frown, the
narrowed eyes and downcast mouth. All of these can give
you away.
Not only your face but your body, too, can betray your
true feelings. Slumped shoulders signal depression. Repetitive
gestures—tapping your hand or foot—indicate impatience
or nervousness. Tension is often betrayed by a
clenched fist or rigid stance.
One doctor I spoke to about this problem pointed out
that he had learned from his patients. The women hide
their anxieties behind elaborate hairdos or dark glasses.
The men shield their eyes or look away when they're
anxious. The anxious patient often sits on the edge of
his chair, he told me. "Or he'll lean on my desk. I watch
them and search for the same betraying signs in myself.
THE BODY LANGUAGE OF POWER 123
Often I can catch my own anxiety in time to keep the
patient from seeing it."
When this doctor spots an anxious patient, he advises
him to sit back, drop his hands, and breathe slowly.
"Even if it doesn't relax them, it makes them laugh and
recognize that they are tense. I think that recognition is
the first step in reducing tension."
I watched Henry Kissinger on television the other
night, and I noticed that when he speaks he usually uses
only one hand to gesture. What does this mean?
When a man unconsciously holds back on his body language
gestures, limiting his motion to half his body or
to only one arm, there is always the possibility that he is
trying to hold back verbal information as well.
However, it is important to understand that a man must
be judged in the total context of his personality and his
cultural background. This means the culture he was born
into and the one in which he spent his formative years,
as well as the one he lives in as an adult.
Kissinger came to America in his teens, and his ethnic
origin is Jewish-European, his immediate ancestors coming
from Germany. Typically, according to scientists who
have analyzed hand gestures, the body language gestures
of Jews who come from this area tend to be "one-handed,
choppy, staccato, and filled with energy."