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Conveying an appropriate degree of confidence in social settings and professional settings is beneficial to how others perceive you and will determine your level of influence. Confidence is a key component that sets you apart from others and in professional settings, increases your chances of getting ahead.

Research has shown that people who are overconfident improve their social status in addition to being perceived as more competent, which is especially beneficial if others are forming an opinion of your abilities for the first time.1 

If you want to rise into the ranks within your social and professional settings, consider adopting the following gestures. Your body language will demonstrate confidence and in turn, you will build inner confidence.

Stand Tall, Keep your Head Up

There are basic ways to exude confidence in the body which include maintaining a strong posture by standing tall, rolling your shoulders up and down your back while lifting your chest forward and holding your chin up. Confidence can be conveyed by just simply taking up more physical space. Instead of contracting, which can be seen as inferior and gives off a sense of low self-esteem, you want to expand. In addition, consider the one thing we tell children if they’re in a sad or unconfident mood, ‘keep your head up, kid.’ 

Maintain Eye Contact

Engaging in and maintaining eye contact causes another individual to perceive you of many qualities, confident being one of them. During an interview setting of one study, candidates who engaged in more eye contact were more likely to get hired because they were perceived as credible and attractive. In addition, interviewers perceive candidates who engage in more eye contact as more “alert, assertive, dependable, confident, responsible, and displaying more initiative.”2 There is an appropriate amount of eye contact to engage in. In The Definitive Book of Body Language, the authors state that in order to build rapport, two individuals should hold eye contact for 60-70% of an interaction.3 By engaging in this amount of eye contact, you display confidence, gain trust and the other person will begin to like you. 

Power Pose

The most effective expansive poses are power poses which influence your physiology by making you feel more confident. Social psychologist Amy Cuddy and her research team measured the difference of subjects in expansive poses compared to contractive poses. What they discovered was that standing in expansive power poses increased subject’s likelihood to take risks, “high-power posers felt significantly more powerful and in charge than did the low-power posers.”4 Not only were subjects who had taken part in the expansive power poses more willing to take risks by feeling powerful, they effectively increased their testosterone and decreased cortisol. The result of high testosterone and low cortisol caused these subjects to feel more assertive with less anxiety. 

Expansive Power Poses: 

  • Adopt the Superman Pose by standing with your feet wider than hip-width apart, chest open with your fists on your hips. 
  • Adopt the ‘Victory Pose’ by standing with your feet hip-width apart, put your hands into fists and hold them up in a V formation above your head (as if you just won a race).

A key component of the Superman pose is standing with your hands on your hips which portrays a very powerful and strong gesture. In addition to superheroes, policemen tend to hold their belt with their arms bent or put their hands on their hips and hold this pose. According to author and body language expert Vanessa Van Edwards, people stand like this to “visually communicate they are standing their ground.”5

Engaging in power poses is a simple way to boost your confidence because they enable you to feel self-assured by reducing feelings of stress and anxiety. You only have to stand in expansive poses for a minimum of two minutes to feel the effects and reap the benefits. So next time you need a quick boost, find a private area and power pose yourself to confidence.

Arms Behind the Back

Another confident stance is standing with your arms behind your back while grabbing a wrist. If you’ve ever been in a lecture hall or in your high school classroom you are familiar with teachers putting this pose to good use as they walk up and down the rows. According to Van Edwards, “this is a powerful gesture because it exposes the most vulnerable part of the body – the groin for men and chest area for women.”5 

Steeple

The Steeple gesture is an effective gesture for conviction. It’s performed by bringing your hands in front of your chest or below your chin and forming a triangle so that your fingers and thumbs are touching but your palms are apart. According to FBI hostage negotiator Chris Voss, the steeple is a gesture that conveys confidence because “the person feels superior and in charge.”6 In addition to affirming confidence in one’s decision, it is also effective in conveying confidence in your idea to your audience, this is why you may notice politicians and speakers using this gesture. If you’ve seen the Simpsons, you are quite familiar with a Steeple gesture – Mr. Burns performed it each time he had come up with a plan that he was certain of. 

The goal of conveying confidence is to adopt expansive poses and to take up space. Consider when you might be adopting contractive poses such as sitting in a chair and holding your arms tight beside you in contrast to keeping your arms wide with your elbows on the armrest. In order to convey confidence, keep your hands out of your pockets, and when you are speaking, gesture with your palms facing out and up. Try out the gestures and poses listed above to increase your confidence and gain influence in your social and professional settings.

 

1 Anderson, C., Brion, S., Moore, D. A, & Kennedy, J. A. (2012). A status-enhancement account of overconfidence. UC Berkeley: Institute for Research on Labor and Employment. Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/6s5812wf

2 Burgoon, J.K., Manusov, V., Mineo, P. et al. Effects of gaze on hiring, credibility, attraction and relational message interpretation. Journal of Nonverbal Behaviour, 9, 133–146 (1985). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01000735

3 Pease, Allan and Barbara Pease. The Definitive Book of Body Language. Bantam Books, 2006.  

4 Cuddy, Amy Joy Casselberry. Presence: Bringing Your Boldest Self to Your Biggest Challenges. Little, Brown and Company, Hachette Book Company, 2015.

5 Edwards, Vanessa Van. Human Lie Detection and Body Language 101: Your Guide to Reading People’s Nonverbal Behaviour. CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform, 2013.  

6 Voss, Chris and Tahl Raz. Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It. HarperCollins, 2016.