CHAPTER 5
Do You Look Like a Liar?

SOME YEARS AGO I RECEIVED A PHONE CALL FROM A NEW York business executive who asked if I could coach him about a problem he was unable to resolve on his own.

The problem was that despite all of his widely acknowledged abilities and accomplishments, this gifted man was consistently passed over for promotion by senior management. Why? Because along with being brilliant, he was also shy, soft-spoken, gentle, and naturally self-effacing—qualities that made him a joy to work with but which were misidentified by C-suite executives as withdrawn, withholding, uncertain, insincere, and even deceptive.

Could I coach him? Of course I could.

Did we have a happy ending? Of course we did because, in this client’s case, it was easy. After our first session he realized that his advancement was being sabotaged by a variety of unconscious gestures, postures, and speech mannerisms. By our third and final session, he had made key behavioral changes without in any way changing who he was fundamentally, and he was finally getting the positive attention of senior leaders.

This client was only one in a long line of men and women whom I’ve helped do battle with the potentially damaging consequences of being misread by colleagues and superiors. At the heart of nearly all such battles are two basic facts: First, emotionally charged situations—a job interview, for example, or a meeting with senior executives—are stressful and make us behave in ways of which we’re not entirely aware. Second, we are poor judges of the impression we make on others. Seeing ourselves on video for the first time often makes both points quite clearly. I remember the shocked reaction of another client I was helping through interview jitters when I played back the practice job interview I’d recorded: “Hell, I wouldn’t hire me,” he declared. “I look like a liar!”

What about you? When you are feeling shy, stressed, or intimidated, do the signals you send get misdiagnosed as deception? Is there something in your posture, demeanor, or voice that robs you of your credibility and makes others instinctively distrust you or disregard your opinion? If so, is there anything you can do to change those false impressions?

This chapter is all about impression management. It offers tips to help you project your true competence and confidence—and to ensure that feeling anxious, introverted, or awkward in stressful situations doesn’t inadvertently signal untrustworthiness or deceit.

Why Others Get the Wrong Impression

This chapter concentrates on techniques to reinforce people’s positive perceptions of you, but it is important to emphasize here that however carefully you prepare, misinterpretations will occur. You can expect people to read your body language incorrectly when they don’t know the context or haven’t had time to become familiar with your baseline. And because you can’t control the way other people’s judgments are influenced by their conscious and unconscious biases, it’s always a good idea to note their reactions and be prepared to modify your behavior on the spot when required.

Context. You already know that you can’t make sense of someone else’s behavior unless you understand the circumstances—the context, the backstory—governing it; but your colleagues won’t always have this insight. You may be slouching because you’re tired, but people who don’t know this will likely read your posture as boredom or a lack of interest. You may be more comfortable standing with your arms folded across your chest, but others see you as resistant or not forthcoming. If, because you don’t know what else to do with them, you keep your hands stiffly by your side or stuffed into your pockets, you can give the impression that you’re insecure or deceptive—even if you are neither. And when you fidget, stammer, or display other stress signals for any reason, people won’t know that reason and may instead assume that you are hiding something or simply lying.

Baseline. You also know that one of the keys to accurately reading body language is to compare someone’s nonverbal response to their baseline, or normal, behavior. But if people haven’t observed you over time, they have little basis for that comparison.

This is especially important to remember when meeting people for the first time. Your staff may know that you habitually scowl when you are concentrating, but that new client won’t. (You may not know it yourself, unless a friend or coach has pointed it out.) When the new client sees you scowling, she will most likely think that something is wrong—and you may see her morph from a new client to an ex-client right before your eyes.

Biases. Everyone harbors hidden biases and prejudices that influence the unconscious judgments they make. Reactions based on biases are instinctive, and none of us has much, if any, control over them. Some of these biases may work unexpectedly in your favor—the mere shape of your face or the resemblance of your voice to one fondly remembered may earn you all sorts of unlooked-for credibility. Other biases, however, may and often do work against you. For example: if that remembered voice that is so similar to yours triggers emotional memories of fear or disgust, it may take continued effort on your part to overcome the suspicion and the mistrust that it has triggered.

People will also assess your credibility and honesty through an array of cultural biases. These may range from seemingly inconsequential behaviors—such as how close you stand to a colleague in conversation, how much or little you touch others, the degree of emotion you display, the kind of hand gestures you use—to occasionally more-obvious prejudices involving education, language, religion, gender, age, and ethnicity.

Projecting Confidence, Competence, and Credibility

We are all instinctively drawn toward people who believe in themselves—or who at least look like they do. The simple truth is, when you look confident, you are judged to be competent and credible. When you look unsure of yourself, your credibility—and even your basic honesty—may be questioned.

If you are naturally upbeat, confident, and charismatic—and if you never feel shy, introverted, anxious, or intimidated—you won’t need the following tips. But if you are very sure of yourself in some situations and less so in others (like I am), here are 20 ways you can overcome that situational shyness or nervousness and project your genuine confidence, competence, and credibility.

20 Ways to Project Genuine Confidence, Competence, and Credibility

Stand tall and take up space. Power, status, and confidence are nonverbally displayed through the use of height and space. Keeping your posture erect, your shoulders back, and your head held high makes you look sure of yourself.

If you stand you will look more powerful and assured to those who are seated. If you move around, the additional space you take up adds to that impression. If you are sitting, you can look more confident by putting both feet flat on the floor, widening your arms away from your body (or hooking one elbow on the back of your chair), and spreading out your belongings on the conference table to claim more territory.

Widen your stance. When you stand with your feet close together, you can seem hesitant or unsure of what you are saying. But when you widen your stance, relax your knees, and center your weight in your lower body, you look more solid and confident.

Lower your vocal pitch. In the workplace the quality of your voice can be a deciding factor in how you are perceived. Speakers with higher-pitched voices are judged to be less truthful, less empathetic, less powerful, and more nervous than speakers with lower-pitched voices. One easy technique I learned from a speech therapist was to put your lips together and say, “Um hum, um hum, um hum.” Doing so relaxes your voice into its optimal pitch. This is especially helpful before you get on an important phone call, where the sound of your voice is so critical.

Speakers who speak slowly are also judged to be less truthful, less persuasive, and more passive than people who speak faster. To project confidence and competence, modulate your pitch and volume, minimize your noticeable pauses, and speak a little faster and a little louder.

Can people really change their natural speaking style?

Sometimes.

Take the case of Margaret Hilda Roberts, who in 1959 was elected as a Conservative member of Parliament for north London. She had political ambitions, but her voice was a problem—too high pitched, too “schoolmarmish.” She learned to lower her pitch and speak with more authority—and she did pretty well for herself. She changed her last name after marrying a wealthy businessman, and in 1979 Margaret Thatcher became the first female British prime minister.

Become a Method actor. Trying to display confidence when you’re actually feeling tentative, or trying to be perceived as upbeat and positive when (for any reason) you are feeling the opposite, is a tricky thing to pull off. Here’s a technique, adapted from Lee Strasberg’s and Constantin Stanislavski’s Method acting, which draws on emotional memories: Think of a past success that fills you with pride and confidence. (This doesn’t have to be taken from your professional life—although I do encourage clients to keep a “success log” so that they can easily find such an event.) Then picture that past success clearly in your mind. Recall the feeling of certainty, of clarity of purpose, of accomplishment—and remember or imagine how you looked and sounded. Recalling that genuine emotion will help you embody it as you enter the meeting room or walk to the podium.

Strike a power pose. Research into the effects of body posture on confidence, conducted at Harvard and Columbia Business Schools, has shown that simply holding your body in expansive, “high-power” poses (leaning back with hands behind the head and feet up on a desk, or standing with legs and arms stretched wide) for as little as two minutes stimulates higher levels of testosterone—the hormone linked to power and dominance—and lower levels of cortisol, a stress hormone.¹

Try this before your next important business meeting, and I guarantee you will look and feel more confident and certain. In addition to causing hormonal shifts in both men and women, these poses lead to increased feelings of power and a higher tolerance for risk. The study also corroborated my observation that people are more often influenced by how they feel about you than by what you’re saying.

Maintain positive eye contact. You may be an introvert, you may be shy, or your cultural background may have taught you that extended eye contact with a superior is not appropriate, but businesspeople from the United States, Europe, Australia, and many other parts of the world will expect you to maintain eye contact 50 to 60 percent of the time.

You and I know that a lack of eye contact is not necessarily a sign of lying, but it is still the most commonly believed myth, so it has to be acknowledged. If you continually look down (which is often a signal of submission), let your eyes dart around the room, or otherwise avoid meeting the other person’s gaze, people will probably think that you don’t believe what you are saying or that you are being deceptive. Here’s a simple technique to improve eye contact: whenever you greet a business colleague, look into his or her eyes long enough to notice what color they are.

Talk with your hands. Brain imaging has shown that a region called Broca’s area, which is important for speech production, is active not only when we’re talking but also when we wave our hands. Because gesture is integrally linked to speech, gesturing as you talk can actually power up your thinking. Whenever I encourage clients to incorporate gestures into their deliveries, I find that their verbal content improves, their speech is less hesitant, and their use of fillers (“um” and “uh”) decreases. Experiment with this and you’ll find that the physical act of gesturing helps you form clearer thoughts and speak in tighter sentences with more-declarative language.

Use open gestures. Keeping your movements relaxed, using open arm gestures and showing the palms of your hands—the ultimate See? I have nothing to hide gesture—are silent signals of credibility and candor. Individuals with open gestures are perceived more positively and are more persuasive than those with closed gestures (arms crossed or hands hidden or held close to the body). Also, if you hold your arms at waist level and gesture within that plane, most audiences will perceive you as assured and credible.

Try a steeple. You see lecturers, politicians, and executives use this hand gesture when they are quite certain about a point they are making. This power signal is where your hands make a “steeple”—where the tips of your fingers touch, but the palms are separated. When you want to project conviction and sincerity about a point you’re making, try steepling.

Manage your stress. Stress from any source can cause you to tense up and display the same signs of anxiety that alert people to a possible liar. Although there are a variety of ways to reduce stress—from exercise to meditation—I suggest this one-minute stress reliever: Sit with your weight evenly distributed on both feet and sitz bones. Look straight ahead with your chin level to the floor and relax your throat. Take several deep belly breaths. Count slowly to six as you inhale. Hold your breath and increase the tension in your body by making fists and tensing the muscles in your arms torso and legs. Then, as you exhale, allow your hands, arms, and body to release and relax. When dealing with on-the-spot tension during a tricky interview or negotiation, try clenching your toes and localizing your stress (unseen) in your feet.

Mirror. We like and trust people who are similar to us. The importance of this simple fact is something that liars know all too well—and employ all too often—but that truthful people sometimes forget. When liars mirror (subtly mimic the facial expressions, posture, and gestures of the person to whom they are speaking), it’s in the hope of making their deceptions believable. When you are being truthful, mirroring others will build rapport, making you more persuasive, and enhancing the (accurate) perception that you are empathetic and honest.

Remove barriers. Using props as barriers makes it look as if you need protection or are hiding something. Move your laptop, purse, briefcase, or anything else on your desk that could create a barricade between you and the person you’re talking to. Better still, come out from behind the desk and sit beside him or her. Remember what we know about someone’s preferred side: if you sit on the right side of a right-handed colleague, your ideas will be given added credibility.

Use your shoulders and torso. Face people directly when speaking to them. Even a quarter turn away gives the impression that you are disengaged or not interested in what’s being discussed. (At that point, if your body language is saying “uninterested” but your words are maintaining the opposite, you will be perceived as a liar.)

Reduce nervous gestures. When we’re nervous or stressed, we all pacify with some form of self-touching, nonverbal behavior—rub our hands together, bounce our feet, drum our fingers on the desk, play with our jewelry, twirl our hair, fidget—and when we do any of these things, we immediately rob our statements of credibility. If you catch yourself indulging in any of these behaviors, take a deep breath and steady yourself by placing your feet firmly on the floor and your hands palms-down in your lap or on the table. Stillness sends a message that you’re calm and confident.

Keep your voice down. This tip is especially applicable to females in business. Women’s voices often rise at the ends of sentences, as if they’re asking a question or asking for approval. When stating an opinion, be sure to use the authoritative arc, in which the voice starts on one note, rises in pitch through the sentence, and drops back down at the end.

Smile. Smiles have a powerful effect on us. The human brain prefers happy faces, and we can spot a smile at 300 feet—the length of a football field. Smiling not only stimulates your own sense of well-being but also tells those around you that you are approachable and trustworthy.

Research from Duke University proves that we like and remember those who smile at us—and shows why we find them more memorable.² Using functional magnetic resonance imaging, the Duke researchers found that the orbitofrontal cortices (a “reward center” in the brain) were more active when subjects were learning and recalling the names of smiling individuals.

Most importantly, smiling directly influences how other people respond to you. When you smile at someone, they almost always smile in return. And because facial expressions trigger corresponding feelings, the smile you get back actually changes that person’s emotional state in a positive way.

Curb your enthusiasm. A certain amount of movement and animation adds passion and meaning to a message, but when you express the entire spectrum of emotions you will be viewed not as passionate but as erratic (and possibly out of control). In situations where you want to maximize your authority, it’s important to minimize your movements. When you appear calm and contained, you look more powerful and confident.

Perfect your handshake. It’s worth devoting time to cultivating a professional shake—remember that touch is the most powerful and primitive nonverbal cue. The right handshake can give you instant credibility, and the wrong one can cost you a job or a contract. So, no “dead fish” or “bone-crusher” grips, please. The first makes you appear to be a wimp, and the second signals that you are a bully.

Handshake behavior has cultural variations, but the ideal handshake in North America means facing the other person squarely; making firm, palm-to-palm contact, with the web of your hand (the skin between the thumb and first finger) touching the web of the other person’s hand; and matching hand pressure as closely as possible without compromising your own idea of a proper professional grip.

A great handshake is important for all professionals, but it is especially key for women, whose confidence is evaluated by the quality of their handshake even more than it is with their male counterparts.

Watch your fillers. As mentioned, speech fillers are superfluous sounds or words, like “um” and “you know.” Today I hear fillers more and more in the business world. The CEO of a Silicon Valley startup recently said to his team, “So, I, ah, passionately believe that we have an opportunity to, uh, you know, um, take this technology to a new level. So we just, uh, need to, ah, go for it.” He wanted to sound motivational, but his fillers made his message fall flat.

When you hear yourself using fillers, simply stop and pause to give your mind time to search for the next word. You’ll sound so much more confident, credible, and motivational when you do.

Remember: it’s a balance. In the aptly titled article “Brilliant but Cruel,” Harvard business school professor Teresa Amabile points out an important challenge for impression management.³ The problem is that we often see competence and warmth as being negatively related—warm individuals don’t appear as intelligent or skilled as those who are more negative and mean, and tough individuals are judged as far less likable. If you want to optimize your body language to appear at your most charismatic, confident, and credible best, remember to balance power and status cues with warmth and empathy.

Aren’t These Tips a Bit Deceitful?

It’s a question I am asked all the time: “If I use these body language tips to impress people, aren’t I being manipulative and inauthentic?” The answer I always give is, “Yes—and no.”

Yes, of course, you’re being manipulative—just as manipulative as when you “dress for success” in preparation for a job interview or when you mind your table manners when dining with a client, spell-check your report before sending it to the boss, or rehearse your talking points before a presentation.

And, no, you are not being inauthentic. Rather, you are aligning people’s impression of you with your best and most authentic self. You really are intelligent, confident, competent, and trustworthy—right?

Here’s an example of how one little signal can block people from seeing the real you—and how making a small change can send a powerful and positive message. It’s an e-mail I received from Tracy Finneman, a member of the leadership team at the North Dakota Department of Commerce:

A few years ago, I became very interested in trust and its importance in the workplace. As a first step, I participated in a 360-degree trust audit. When the results of the review came back, I was surprised to see that my two superiors had given me rather low scores in the area of creating transparency. When I asked for an explanation, I was even more surprised to be told that both felt that I sometimes gave the impression of having a hidden agenda.

I certainly don’t have any hidden agendas at work, and it bothered me to think that my co-workers might believe I was somehow being deliberately secretive in my dealings with them. My primary supervisor suggested I try declaring my intent in greater detail before laying out new ideas or plans, and I worked on this quite diligently for the next several months. But when I received my trust audit scores a year later, they were exactly the same, again with this emphasis on a lack of transparency.

It was shortly after this that I attended one of your seminars on body language and began thinking about the vital connection between creating trust and physically opening up to others. And I wondered if there was something in my body language that gave the impression I had a hidden agenda. Then it occurred to me: My normal, core temperature is lower than most people’s. I’m someone who is chronically cold and goes about with my arms crossed for warmth. If it’s true people believe what your body says more than the words you use, then my body was communicating something very different from my verbal openness about new ideas and opportunity. For the next several months I made a point of wearing more layers of clothing and of opening my arms and gesturing more generously when speaking.

The result: My latest trust scores showed a significant improvement in my ability to create transparency. All because my body language was now in better alignment with my verbal message.

Tracy is by nature honest and responsible. It really did bother her that the leadership team felt she was not being entirely open with them, and it was a great relief to her when she was finally able to correct that misunderstanding.

But some of you may wonder why she went to all that effort. You may even be thinking, What good is honesty, openness, and readiness to cooperate with others in the current economic climate?

Read on...