Not long ago, my trainings touted the importance of the Power Pose. Amy Cuddy's TED talk made the research go viral, and soon everyone was standing in star pose before their talk. Alas, the research was shaky. Underneath it, there is truth.
Your posture is a message. Your brain reads it first.
When have you noticed your posture dictating how you feel?
Your chair, your screen, and your table are defining how you show up. The monitor sitting a few inches low. The chair leaning back a touch too far. Six hours later you walk into a meeting that matters, and you bring that state with you.
The cold room and the crossed arms
A client of mine once presented in a conference room where someone had set the thermostat for penguins. Halfway through, she crossed her arms to stay warm. The feedback afterward described her as unsupportive and closed off. Her body language sent a signal that changed her message.
Here's what's fascinating: her brain was reading those crossed arms too. The body files its report inward as much as outward.
This is the third of six principles in my book, Clear and Compelling: Your Entire Body Is Speaking. Posture, gesture, and expression arrive before the voice does. Internally as well.
What survived the power pose
You probably watched the TED talk. Stand like a superhero for two minutes and your hormones shift. In 2015, a replication with five times the participants found the hormones did nothing, and the lead author of the original study publicly withdrew her belief in the effect. What survived was smaller and more useful. People in open, upright postures felt more confident. A 2022 meta-analysis of 128 studies and more than 10,000 participants confirmed it: the feeling is real, the biology is not.
Then the science got wiser. Researchers at McGill, published this year in the British Journal of Psychology, never told anyone how to sit. They put a tablet on a raised stand for one group and flat on a low table for another, then measured neck angle on video. The upright group took smarter risks, earned more from them, and reported more pride afterward. Nobody was asked to pose. The furniture did the work.
An earlier study out of Auckland went one step further. Researchers taped participants into upright or slumped positions and then handed them a stressful speech. The slumped group used more negative words, more sadness words, and more "I" in their speech. Their posture was writing their sentences.
The effects in all of this are modest. That is exactly what an honest bodily effect should look like. Modest, repeated every hour of every workday, adds up.
The room shapes the body. The body briefs the brain.
Think about the six hours before your last high-stakes conversation. What was your desk telling your body the whole time?
Try this
Before your next three meetings, do a twenty-second reset. Stand or sit with your feet shoulder-width apart, arms at your sides or on your thighs, shoulders back and down, sternum lifted up and forward. Feel the full expanse of your body in the space. Then walk in.
Notice what changes in the first two minutes. Then notice something bigger: the reset undoes six hours of a low monitor in twenty seconds, and the monitor will be waiting for you tomorrow. Prop the laptop on a stack of books. Raise the chair. Fix the input once and the reset gets easier every time.
Communication strategies to help you lead with care and accountability
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