Top account executives are the ideal examples to observe and emulate if one wants to improve his or her interpersonal skills. They use both speech and body language effectively and emerge as winners in interpersonal encounters. The previous week’s feature dealt with how top account executives monitor their speech; this article will discuss how they use body-language techniques.
Winning Ways of Using Body Language
People can and do communicate without speaking. Even before speech, humans expressed themselves through gestures, facial expressions, eyes, touch, movements, breathing, postures, and personal appearances. Body language is such an inherent, natural part of ourselves that we rarely recognize what research suggests—that more than half of the messages sent out and received during interpersonal communications happen through body language. With this in mind, almost every top account executive practices the following when interacting with people:
- Maintaining eye contact: Shifty eyes build distrust. Top account executives look directly into the eyes of others when either speaking or listening. They do this without staring, leering, or seeming to be overbearing and dominating. Natural, matter-of-fact eye contact increases people’s perceptions of honesty, trustworthiness, and reliability and helps keep the channels of communication open.
- Never pointing at people: Top account executives point at things, but, as a rule, you will never find them pointing at people. Socially, and instinctively, people point at others with intentions to demean, condemn, or control.
- Mirroring greeting gestures: Top account executives perfectly mirror the greeting gestures of other people. For example, they will instantly match your handshake in terms of firmness of grip, number of pumps, and release.
- Mirroring body positions: Top account executives will usually try to sit or stand at the same level as others and also mirror their poses without seeming to mock them.
- Monitoring body posture: Top account executives mirror the body postures of the people they meet. They never mirror the negative but will always mirror the positive without stressing the contrasts. For example, they will be relaxed if the other person is relaxed; they will sit upright if the other person is, but they will never hunch over just because the other person has a hunched posture, nor will they relax and lean back in such a situation. Most likely, they will adopt relaxed-but-upright poses, cueing the other person to relax through body language.
- Monitoring eye contact: Monitoring eye contact is as important as maintaining it. Top account executives usually mirror the other person’s eye-contact patterns. They will always look at the other person when either speaking or listening. During moments of silence, they will look away when the other person looks away, and visually connect when the other person wants to connect.
- Mirroring hand gestures: Top account executives usually pick up and use all positive hand gestures used by the person with whom they are interacting.
- Mirroring all positive facial expressions: Top account executives try to match neutral faces with neutral faces and smiles with smiles. However, frowns will rarely find frowns, unless the situation is appropriate and signifies the extent to which the account executive sympathizes with the other person’s problems.
- Never mirror nervous habits: Top account executives never mirror the nervous habits of other people; they always mirror only those habits of body language that are acceptable and do not overtly draw attention.
- Emphasize disagreement with changes in posture: Top account executives express disagreement through body language or change in posture before they actually express disagreement in words. While they continue to try to be persuasive, they suggest differences simply through body language. For example, if you have run into a disagreement with a top account executive, you may find him or her standing up or changing seat positions with emphasis.
- Never touch things without permission: This is a habit that works unconsciously as part of your body language. Top account executives never touch or move other people’s things without their permissions.
- Try sitting next to, not across from, the other person: Top account executives usually sit next to people they are trying to influence. They will sit directly across the table, if, and only if, that is the sole available alternative.
- Be careful of personal appearance: Top account executives try to make impeccable choices when it comes to their shoes and clothes. They also take care of any body odors or foul breath before personal interaction.
For career-conscious people, it is important to control the body and keep it from unconsciously giving away their thoughts. Next, it is important to be able to read the body-language clues of others, and, lastly, it is necessary to learn how to influence others through body language. Acquiring these skills can move your career forward and help you to tear down career barriers at a faster pace than you could have ever imagined.
Works Cited:
Beattie, Geoffrey. Visible Thoughts: The New Psychology of Body Language. New York: Routledge, 2003. 47.
Deep, Sam and Lyle Sussman. Close the Deal: Smart Moves for Selling. Cambridge, MA: Perseus Publishing, 1999.
Goldman, Ellen. As Others See Us: Body Movement and the Art of Successful Communication. New York: Routledge, 2003.
