Maximising positive impressions – your gaze
In a prior blog I mentioned that people will believe your certainty. They may not know if an idea is good or not – but they will believe how certain you are, that it is a good idea. Particularly with senior executive interactions, your gaze, will be very important in conveying your certainty or your lack of certainty.
Put simply, people who are more certain of themselves hold their gaze with the other people longer than people who are less certain, less sure of themselves. This ‘hold’ may only be a 1/4 or 2/3 of a second longer – but it can be the determining factor in a person believing and acting, or not acting, on what you say.
Especially in situations when a person may question or doubt what you say – if you hold a fractionally longer gaze, the other person can be convinced to act in your favour. Their internal thinking might be as follows: ‘well, I’m not sure if this is a good idea or not . . . but she definitely is very sure about this . . . hm. . . ok I’ll give it a go”.
This longer gaze holding is the polar opposite of eyes that flit about. Flitting eyes convey uncertainty, nervousness and lack of surety.
A caveat on the above is that, holding the longer gaze is not about staring at a person. It’s simply, steadily holding, longer eye contact.
The ‘how to’ for this blog is to become aware of your gaze duration when interacting with others, and to become aware of how well other people hold their gaze with you.
