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How To Portray Confidence

how-to-portray-confidenceTo portray confidence is one of those quintessential business traits. It’s what convinces investors to believe in your value proposition. Confidence gets your team members to rally behind you during turbulent times. The glue that keeps your leadership together. Without it, people will not follow you into battle. For mankind as a whole has a herd mentality. It’s afraid of change and wants to see that a message is believable before buying in. 

While there are many factors that go into being an effective leader, it’s the confidence that cements your efforts. 

It’s a trait that comes naturally to some, but to most, it’s more of a learned skill. Here are three things you can do right now that will portray confidence:

Tips to Portray Confidence

1. Stand Tall

One of the first dead giveaways of a confident person is their posture. Portraying confidence means standing tall. Taking up space by keeping your shoulders back. Slouching and minimizing your body has been proven to be a negative social cue. Instead, signal strength by posing upright – there’s a reason the saying goes “hold your head up high.” 

Confidence starts with body language, after all. This will help as you dramatize your ideas and compel others to show support for what you are saying. Exuding it signals to listeners that you are a person of interest. Someone who genuinely buys into his or her own plan.

Related article: How Listening to Employee Opinions Can Strengthen an Organization

2. Make Eye Contact

Another way to signal to others that you are a confident individual is to make eye contact. This immediately shows your audience that you mean what you say and aren’t afraid of their judgment. Eye contact metaphorically throws the ball in their court, creating moments of undivided attention with the person you are speaking to. 

It indicates decisiveness, and when combined with rules #5 (smile) and #7 (Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves) from Dale Carnegie’s Golden Book, it can really make an impact with the people you are interacting with. When in front of a larger audience, be sure to look around the room and meet eyes with different people. Your viewers will notice, and the level of confidence you are portraying will grow along with it. 

Related article: The Importance of Encouraging Employees to Improve

3. Speak With Conviction

When speaking, whether to one person or to many, make sure to be deliberate with your voice. Take your time to think about what you will say, and activate your audience through the substance in your words. Speak slowly so as not to stutter, and clearly so as not to mumble. You want each and every part of your message to be heard and processed. Practice articulating your sentences and maintaining a strong tone when you speak. 

In Carnegie’s “How to Stop Worrying and Start Living,” he writes, “Ask yourself, ‘What is the worst that can possibly happen?’” Speaking with conviction acknowledges that at the end of the day, you’re above any potential adverse result. That is true confidence… Forging ahead because you believe in yourself. All of this comes together to create an interaction that immediately makes an impact. 

Related article: Five Tips For Better Public Speaking

Learn More About Dale Carnegie Leadership Training 

If you are interested in learning more about how to portray confidence without coming across as aggressive or ingenuine, then our next Dale Carnegie of Orange County training course may be right for you. You’ll explore ways to increase your visibility, approach new people, and, most importantly, boldly deal with difficult situations with composure.

Contact us today to register for our course

 

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