Developing Leadership Abilities

Using Nonverbal Signals to Revolutionize Your Leadership Relationships

Team member returning from team meeting, reporting to her friend:

Friend: So what did your team leader say about missing the deadline for your part of the report?

Team Member: The usual, but he looked really serious this time. I guess I’d better do something.

As leaders, we all trust our words too much to carry our messages to others. We think about “what we want to say,” then assume that pronouncing those words will convey our thoughts and urgency to the listener. Rarely do we think about the more subtle but extremely powerful messages being sent by our eyes, faces, hands, posture, and other key aspects of nonverbal communication.

This is our mistake as leaders. In fact, ...