Want to succeed? Strike a power pose

Beyonce has powerful presence.

Beyonce has powerful presence.

Published May 25, 2016

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London - If a woman wants to be viewed as leadership material, she doesn’t need to behave like a man – just stand like one.

The key to appearing confident, knowledgeable and inspirational is to adopt a typically male “power pose”, a study has revealed.

This involves standing with your feet wide apart and using expansive hand gestures.

Small changes to a woman’s stance can have a big effect on how she is perceived – irrespective of her age or what she is wearing – the University College London study found. The researchers concluded: “It seems the way people look when words are spoken influences the way people interpret these words.”

They showed 1 500 men and women a video of an actress delivering a short speech. There were several versions of the film, with the only difference being the way she stood.

The viewers rated her on everything from attractiveness to how knowledgeable she appeared to be. In a second experiment, 500 volunteers watched videos of actors and actresses who adopted one of two poses. The first was a power pose, with their feet wide apart and gesturing with their hands.

The second was a more submissive stance, in which they swayed from side to side and kept their hands by their sides. In both experiments, those who struck the power pose were judged more confident, convincing, knowledgeable, inspiring and leader-like.

The volunteers also said they would be more likely to vote for them in an election.

Strikingly, by standing like man, a young woman was rated as leader-like as an older man, the researchers say in the journal Psychology.

Co-researcher Richard Newman, of public speaking training company UK Body Talk, recommends standing still, with feet shoulder-with apart, hands and arms extended, and elbows away from the body.

He said: “I find that women more often resist standing like this. So, I show them pictures of people like Angelina Jolie, Beyonce and Julia Roberts, and say ‘they are all doing it and they have presence’.”

We are born to stand with our feet apart, he said. It is the first stance toddlers adopt when they learn to walk and puts someone in a position of physical strength, showing they are not a pushover. The pose also makes the person feel more confident, and it may be that others pick up on this.

Mr Newman said: “The findings show that if women can overcome their cultural conditioning and communicate using a stronger style, it could significantly increase their impact and influence and overall success in the workplace. Gender should never be a barrier to your ideas being heard.

“Instead of having a world led by people who are accidentally good speakers, we could have a world led by people who have the best ideas and know how to express them, whatever their sex.”

However, Mr Newman added of the power pose: “You have to practise it and do it in your own way.”

Daily Mail

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