Power Pose & Stilettos - Can They Create Confidence?

Yesterday morning, I happened to catch Hoda and Kathie Lee while at the airport. Interestingly, the segment I watched featured two life coaches opining on how to "Create Confidence".  They advised adopting a "power pose," citing research which demonstrated that a power pose for as little as two minutes can boost confidence, making people feel more powerful and more willing to take risks.

The segment continued with advice on how to be more assertive and improve your confidence when walking into a business. Their first piece of advice: "wear stilettos". The positive attributes of that instruction are aligned with research that indicates taller is better and taller is more attractive which is also better and sex sells which is ...well, a fact. However, this strategy fails if you have to walk either fast or any distance. Try and walk six blocks on uneven concrete  to a meeting dragging a wheelie bag. Not only will you fail at impressing, your flat shoed male colleagues will end up either waiting for you, or not.

As an expert in communication, I endorse the idea of using space and body language to your advantage. However, a stiletto might not have been my first go to accessory to suggest. 

What's your "go to" confidence booster? 

Laugh at Yourself – It Makes You More Likeable

It seems everyone (here and here to show you just a few) is talking about the upcoming issue of Newsweek featuring Presidential contender Michele Bachmann on the cover. An “unflattering” photo is not a method for discriminating against gender. That it is Bachmann’s photo is not stereotyping a characteristic of the female gender. In fact, declaring that a woman candidate must look pretty on the cover of a magazine could be considered the gender biased position. Since I do not pay much attention to Ms. Bachmann and could not pick her out of a crowd, it was not readily apparent that this cover shot did not reflect a possible storyline. “I see the White House” or “Take me Jesus” come to mind.

At my house if an unflattering picture of you shows up, it is fodder for a little self-deprecating humor, which we know is a top-notch communication tool that attracts people and makes an individual more likeable. Instead of whining like a girl, Ms. Bachmann should pull out all her bad photos and do a “bad photo scrapbook.” And if she does not have enough of her own, I know plenty of women who are not afraid of their “bad side” who would be willing to share.

Communication is Communication: Night or day

Did you hear? President Obama appeared on The View yesterday. Now people are weighing in on whether the President made the right decision to appear in this type of format. What a hoot – this is just an attempt to discredit his appearance by snooty mainstream media and Rosie O’Donnell worried about their coveted lock on the President’s public appearances.

Mr. Obama does not need to speak to the nation through CNN, FOX, MSNBC or Larry King. Communication is communication at night or during daytime. And there is no denying he is a master. It is not like he showed up at the “Bunny Ranch.” Leaders need to adapt to tools at hand to elucidate their policies and personalities to the American Public. The President has been criticized lately for his demeanor during formal press conferences, so the Administration is getting creative, exploring alternative media sources and trying to gain back some of his likeability. I suggest the naysayers do the same – adapt.

Eyes Wide Shut

Welcome my partner and fellow communication guru Beth Foley as our guest blogger this week. Watch Beth's recent interview with a Chicago news station on image perception and Blagojevich's run at reality television by clicking here.

We all need to be aware of our image. Especially if we know people are watching us. This makes former Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich’s behavior especially odd. In a few short months, a jury will be judging his character, his judgment and his motives. I suspect Mr. Blagojevich thinks that people really like him and when they hear the truth they will see how unfairly he has been treated. Probably because he seems to really like himself an awful lot and he has had good luck persuading people in the past.

You may recall from previous blogs, we are only about 50% right in knowing our own image. So, I recommend that Mr. Blagojevich’s “handlers” conduct a survey of Chicago residents to find out, from potential jurors, just exactly what his image really is because he obviously isn’t listening to feedback. I think a twice-elected governor would pay attention to “polling” results, right? He needs to stop trusting his own instincts about what he feels he’s communicating and get some facts. Then, he can start working round the clock to salvage his image or he can continue on the same path at his own peril. It’s kind of like a pilot who is veering off course in the dark: trust the instrument panel, not your gut.

I would just like the former governor to get a dose of reality, and I don’t mean reality TV.

Nonverbals Matter.

Girls, girls, girls, this blog is for you. If you are white, 60ish, not tall, menopausally round and running against a tall, skinny, 40 something black man for President please do not pick what could be the most crucial television moment of your campaign to warm up your image. My dream (and it should be yours too) of a woman as the presidential nominee (party and politics aside) is about to go up in a fluff of brown bouclé.

Was it poor nonverbal judgment or was it bad advice; the latter being most likely. Did you know that we are wrong about our own image about half the time? And one of the principle reasons that we are so off the mark is that people bear false witness to all that we do. Not a malicious behavior and in fact just the opposite. Lying to people is born out of politeness. But now is not the time to be polite to Ms. Clinton. Nor is politeness (by the way, if you look up politeness in the dictionary, and I just did, the sentence used, as an example is “they thought she was wrong but were too polite to tell her.” Duh.) your friend if you are job hunting, dating, giving a major speech, arguing before the Supreme Court or reaching for a desk in the Executive Wing. So, I cast out being nice and here is the takeaway for us women from the most recent presidential debate.

Nonverbal behaviors matter. Why start with her suit, which seems superficial. Because the package contributed to overall image and the image is what people hire, vote for, fall in love with, befriend. Starting my blog in the middle of a presidential election year supplied me with great fodder to discuss the verbal, nonverbal and visual communication tactics that I am so passionate about. Nonetheless, I swore off the subject in a grand announcement to my staff insisting that the candidates had plenty of advice and that the pundits had more than enough opinions. Huh? Maybe I missed the mark on this decision.

All communication must be assessed in context. What was Hillary’s context? Obama? Being male and physically larger he set the context. Nonverbally, he was the ‘one to beat’. Ms. Clinton’s image can be summed up as: small, tired, anxious, lacking confidence, desperate. Contributing to this overall image were these nonverbal behaviors: posture, gesturing, space use, clothing, voice or laugh quality, rate of speech. There may be more but without going back to watch (a thought too painful) I cannot now recall. So what went wrong? As you read on remember the context.

Sitting posture needs to be ballerina upright using as much space as possible. Imagine pinching the pencil between the shoulder blades. This is especially true if you are over 50 and have begun to get a little of that back fat we all try to ignore. Using as much space as possible makes a person look confident. It also causes one to appear ready for a call to action. In the context of a bigger person, proper space use is huge. Huge may be the operative word. Make yourself huge. How? Master the posture and then dress for visual impression. A dark, well-tailored suit with a good set of shoulder pads would have served Hillary well and will do you justice no matter your stature.

See the photo below and notice how when Hillary Clinton was the listener and not the speaker she would fold her arms and use what in our business we call ‘self touch’. Touching yourself is not a good thing. It is read as a weakness, a self-protection, stress, and nervousness.

Don’t show skin. In spite of great jewelry on your wrists, skin shows vulnerability. Clothes are your armor. Compare Hillary’s bare wrists to Obama’s crisp white cuffs. Get it?

Rate of speech and use of silence gives the edge to the person who knows how to use both. When answering a question in an interview or on a date or on TV in front of millions of people, don’t act like you are a dog begging for a bone. Ponder the question for a second. I am not sure how many questions were asked of each person in the debate but let’s say there were ten. Those ten seconds would be better spent looking calm and contemplative than the twenty or so words that can be blurted out in that time.

Personally, I believe Hillary is smarter and prettier (her makeup was stunning) and as a fellow (?) woman I want to see her do well. I want all my sisters to do well. Nonverbals are not the end all/be all of success. That is, if you live in a cave, you communicate with smoke signals and all your neighbors wear buffalo hide. But in a society that feeds on the visual media, Facebook, YouTube and video messaging, what is a girl to do? If Hillary Clinton can’t overcome the “image” issue with her brain and brawn, then who can?

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