Recently I was working with an executive who wanted to show up with more charisma.  As the day progressed, we tried some role-playing of the situations in which the executive typically found himself.   One was a one-on-one conversation with a potential client – a high-status client.  The executive often became tongue-tied in these sorts of half-social, half-business situations, and wanted some help in figuring out what to say. 

I played the high-status client, and the executive played himself.  And the conversation was indeed a bit stilted, but as the role-playing continued, it was something else that began to catch my eye.  The body language of the executive was far more important to what was happening than his chit-chat. 

So we stopped the scene, and showed him the replay.  He was astounded.  He said, “You look like a CEO, I look like an analyst!”  In his lexicon, an ‘analyst’ meant a lower-status person.

I had to agree.  He looked like an analyst.  How did he telegraph his lower status?  His body language was partly closed; he was holding his hands defensively in front of his stomach.  But more importantly was his posture:  a slight slump in his shoulders, sagging inward and collapsing his chest.  The executive was giving up all his authority by closing off and failing to take up the space that a CEO or high-status person must take.  He simply wasn't taking charge in physical terms.   

And he could see it immediately; that’s the power of video.  We talked through what he was seeing and what he could do to change it.  In this situation, you either change your posture or your thinking.  I prefer working on both, but some people get faster results from one or the other. 

In the next role-play, the executive concentrated on standing like a CEO, and the result was astonishing.  He was transformed; his persona opened up with new authority and his chit-chat even improved.  The problem was not that he couldn’t think of anything to say.  The problem was that he hadn’t figured out how to inhabit the role of a CEO.  Once he saw what he was doing physically, he freed himself up to fill the role; the difference was immediate and profound.