I work for a man who always smiles, no matter what
the situation. Last month we lost our biggest account,
and when I told him about it he smiled even while
he was shaking his head and swearing! Now I wonder-
Does he just not understand the situation, or can you
smile when you're unhappy? What do smiles mean?
What can they tell about a person?
A smile can be a wonderful source of communication—or
a mask that prevents communication. Your boss undoubtedly
uses a smile as a mask, as something to hide his
true feelings or to give him a chance to collect his feelings.
This is a very common mask, and many people use
it. The smile becomes automatic, a reaction to any situation.
While the smile is on, the smiler can assess what's
happening, collect his thoughts, and keep control.
Jimmy Carter has this type of smile. Even when he's
confronted with an obvious problem, a wrong statement
he's made, or an untenable position he's taken, he responds
with a quick, nervous smile. The smile doesn't reflect his
true reaction but goes on as a quick mask while he collects
his thoughts. His next words will often completely
contradict the smile.
The key word with this type of smile is control. People
who use a smile as a mask are in constant control of
their emotions. They dread giving away a sincere and
honest part of themselves—how they really feel and react.
This would make them vulnerable, and for some people
THE BODY LANGUAGE OF POWER 97
being vulnerable is a frightening experience. If there is
no one you trust, how can you allow yourself to be vulnerable
at any time?
The smile as a mask is very much like the "professional"
smile, the smile used by people who are constantly in the
public eye. Jacqueline Onassis has such a smile—very
practiced, very broad, almost frantic. But her eyes
remain untouched. A normal smile, if it's broad, lifts the
cheeks and crinkles the eyes. Jackie's smile doesn't touch
the eyes. But neither do the smiles of most women who
are very aware of their appearance. Carol Channing,
Gloria Swanson, half the Hollywood crowd of actresses
have learned to smile with their lips while keeping their
eyes wide and open—pretty eyes in preference to honest
eyes.
Then there are actresses who seem to say "To hell
with how I look!" and who smile accordingly. Katharine
Hepburn and Bette Midler are examples. When they
smile, their whole face smiles.
What can you tell about a person from a smile? If
the smile is genuine, it gives you a sudden glimpse of
the inner person, the real man or woman. But if the smile
is a mask or a professional smile, all it can tell you is that
the person is concerned with appearances.
Psychologically, the greater the concern with appearance,
the less inner strength and self-esteem a person has.
Someone who is really self-assured won't bother to mask
his feelings.
98 THE BODY LANGUAGE OF POWER
I was making a sales pitch to the buyer for a large
department store the other day, and I thought things
were going very well, but halfway through it he yawned.
He told me he was up late the night before, but I
couldn't help thinking it was my pitch that bored him.
How can I tell when to keep pressing toward a sale
—or when I should quit while I'm ahead?
When the average customer listens to a sales pitch, he
attempts, very consciously, to prevent any emotion from
showing on his face. There's a common feeling that if
you let a salesman see how his pitch moves you—positively
or negatively—you give him a certain advantage. With
this attitude, even if your pitch is great, the customer
won't show how impressed he is.
In spite of this, a good deal of your customer's true
feelings will be betrayed by his face. No matter how hard
he tries to keep a noncommittal look, part of the truth
will leak through.
Slow-motion picture studies of people's faces, when
they try to cover up their emotions, show momentary
flickers of the truth, of the emotions they really feel,
disgust, anger, boredom, annoyance. These are just flickers
that pass so rapidly that the untrained eye cannot sort
them out. But a part of your brain does observe them
and record them, even though it all happens too fast for
conscious recognition. These records are fed into the
computer of our minds, and we react to the hidden
message.
THE BODY LANGUAGE OF POWER 99
A good salesman has a natural talent for reading these
subliminal messages. They tell him when he's on the
wrong track or the right one, and they help him select
the right sales pitch.
It is possible to train yourself in this technique and
improve your own ability to pick up these fleeting clues.
You first must become aware that they exist and that
heightened awareness will aid your perception.
This takes a great deal of practice, and the practice
can't be done on a client. Your mind would be so concerned
with getting and reading subliminal signals that
you would have nothing left over to concentrate on the
sale.
Your best bet is to let your unconscious take over. If
you feel your client is bored—go with your intuition.
Intuition is simply your own mental computer sizing up
and rejecting or accepting.
My little girl is only three years old, but she has a
mind of her own. She can twist her father around her
little finger, and she has an uncanny ability to
second-guess me. Can this be because she reads our
body language?
She probably does. In many cases children are more aware
of and more tuned in to body language than adults are.
100 THE BODY LANGUAGE OF POWER
They are quick to understand a body language message
that contradicts the spoken one.
My friend had a four-year-old son who was an expert
at this. His parents were in the process of getting a
divorce and were doing their best to keep their true
feelings from their son.
One day his mother came into Billy's room and found
him packing his toys carefully into a large cardboard
carton he had picked up outside.
"What are you doing?" she asked.
Billy shrugged. "When you and Dad stop living with
me and I have to leave, I want to have my toys all
packed."
She sat down with him and talked for a while, and to
her surprise found that he was convinced they'd separate
soon. "But we never mentioned it to him," she protested
later. Neither of us ever let him know how we felt. How
could he guess?"
To Billy it wasn't a guess. His parents had been sending
very obvious messages, and he was able to read them.
This uncanny ability to see through adult lies and read
their true feelings in their body language is the reason
many children will deliberately disobey a request or an
order from their parents. The spoken command is one
thing, but behind it lies the unspoken, unconscious message
which often tells them, "I won't be terribly mad if
you do it." Or even, "I really want you to do it!"
Your own daughter probably reads your husband clear
enough to know she won't be punished for what she does.
THE BODY LANGUAGE OF POWER 101
I went to apply for a job recently, and, without thinking
I put on a dress that I don't like. I felt more and more
uncomfortable in it during the day, and by time I
had my job interview I literally felt a mess. P.S.—I didn't
get the job! Could that dress have been responsible?
It could, or, to be more honest, your attitude toward the
dress could have killed the job interview. Not only do
clothes make the man, or woman, but sometimes—as in
your ease—they can unmake him or her.
The image we project to the world around us is also
the image we project inward. If we are dissatisfied with
that image, we are ultimately dissatisfied with ourselves.
Our face and figure as well as our clothes make statements
about ourselves and how we feel about ourselves. Often
that statement is not what we wish it to be. It falls short
of our expected self-image, and in turn we feel that
somehow we've failed. We are simply not sending the
message we'd like to send.
The clothes we wear define us in a dozen different ways.
Alice likes to project a cosmopolitan image, and the little
status symbols of designer initials on her dress, yellow
fleur-de-lis on her plastic bag, gold metal Vs on her
Valentino shoes all work to assure her that she's a person
of taste and knowledge. She walks with assurance and
signals that assurance in an interview or on a date.
Jane, on the other hand, wants to make a completely
different statement. She favors bleached jeans and T-shirts
and declares, "My life-style is casual." The success of her
