Power & Influence

People decide how competent you are in 100 milliseconds.
Deborah Gruenfeld

When people want to make an impression, most think a lot about what they want to say. Stanford Business Professor Deborah Gruenfeld cautions you to think twice about that approach. The factors influencing how people see you are surprising: Words account for 7% of what they take away, while body language counts for 55%. There is a body language of power. Gruenfeld introduces the body languages of authority and being approachable. Becoming fluent in matching body language to each situation can be a source of power and influence. Gruenfeld also shares leading social science research on the ways in which body language affects your psychology, in addition to influencing how others perceive you.

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View Power & Influence Resources

For Women Leaders, Body Language Matters: In Gender News, Professor Deborah Gruenfeld explains her research on body language and power, showing that women's body language and posture often "give away power."

The Confidence Game - How to Bring Out Your Inner Hotshot: An Oprah.com article details how one of Professor Deborah Gruenfeld's students used body language to shift power dynamics.

Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are: In a TED talk, Professor Amy Cuddy discusses her research on how body language not only affects how others see us, but it may also change how we see ourselves.

Researchers - How Women Can Succeed in the Workplace: This article details a Stanford Graduate School of Business study that demonstrated how, in the business world, women who can turn on and off the traits of agression and confidence get more promotions than either men or other women.

Power Moves: Lessons From AMC's Mad Men: Psychology Today summarizes research on dominant or submissive postural stances in response to other's posturing, finding that these adaptations are an unconscious behavoral response to competition.

Power Sitting: How you sit influences how powerful you feel: Different seating postures literally make you feel more powerful and more comfortable moving ahead in risky endeavors, according to a study summarized in Psychology Today.

Improv Wisdom: Don't Prepare, Just Show Up: Author Patricia Ryan Madson explains how to use the attitudes and techniques of improvisational theater to address everyday challenges.

Impro: Improvisation and the Theatre: Keith Johnstone explores the use of body language to establish status when performing in the theater, finding results widely applicable in professional and personal situations.

View Power & Influence Biographies

 

Deborah Gruenfeld

MOGHADAM FAMILY PROFESSOR OF LEADERSHIP AND ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR

STANFORD GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

CO-DIRECTOR OF EXECUTIVE PROGRAM FOR WOMEN LEADERS

CLAYMAN INSTITUTE FACULTY RESEARCH FELLOW, 2010-2011

EDUCATION MODULE PRESENTER

FACULTY ADVISORY COMMITTEE, CENTER FOR WOMEN’S LEADERSHIP

Deborah H Gruenfeld is the Moghadam Family Professor of Leadership and Organizational Behavior and the Codirector of the Executive Program for Women Leaders. She is a social psychologist whose research and teaching examine how people are transformed by the organizations and social structures in which they work. The author of numerous articles on the psychology of power, and on group behavior, Gruenfeld has taught popular courses on these and related topics to MBA students and executives at Stanford and at Northwestern University’s J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management. Gruenfeld joined the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 2000.

Gruenfeld received her BA in psychology from Cornell University in 1983, her MA in journalism from New York University in 1985, and her PhD in psychology from the University of Illinois in 1993.


Angela Taylor

PRESIDENT & GENERAL MANAGER, THE ATLANTA DREAM

CLAYMAN INSTITUTE ADVISOR

Angela Taylor is President & General Manager of the Atlanta Dream of the WNBA.  The marketing and branding strategist and philanthropist was a 16-year veteran of the sports industry prior to founding her start-up, NetWorks Sports Consulting, LLC.  Taylor is also the co-founder of the Burrell-Taylor Leadership Institute for Women of Color, a co-host of Game Changers Live and GCL SportsBiz Brief, and is an Adjunct Professor for the University of San Francisco Graduate Sports Management Program. In 2006, Taylor co-founded The CHANCE Foundation.  She currently serves on the Stanford Buck/Cardinal Board and the Advisory Council at Stanford’s Clayman Institute for Gender Research.

Taylor graduated from Stanford University with a BA in Economics and earned her MBA (with an emphasis on Marketing and Management) at New York University’s Stern School of Business.


Cynthia Barnett

PERFORMANCE COACH AND PROJECT MANAGER

EDUCATION MODULE INTERVIEWEE

Cynthia Barnett has extensive background in business coaching, management consulting, financial sales, and business development. She began her career with an institutional brokerage firm covering the emerging Asian markets and transitioned to creating financial plans to grow and protect assets for business owners. Since 1999, she has been a student of human performance and effectiveness and has been coaching business owners to produce extraordinary results. Barnett has lived and worked in London, New York and Tokyo and presently resides in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Barnett earned her BS in Economics with Financial Application from Southern Methodist University.


Laura Jones

PRODUCT MARKETING MANAGER, GOOGLE COMMERCE

EDUCATION MODULE INTERVIEWEE

Laura Jones is a Product Marketing Manager on the Commerce team at Google. She works on Google Shopping and Wallet, with a focus on leading creative teams. She also teaches workshops on design thinking and innovation to Googlers around the world. Prior to Google, she worked on eCommerce and mobile payments at Visa.

Jones received her MBA from Stanford with a focus on product design at the d.School (Institute for Design). She graduated from Dartmouth magna cum laude with majors in Economics and Government.

 

 


Maxie McCoy

COMMUNITY MANAGER, LEVO LEAGUE

EDUCATION MODULE INTERVIEWEE

Maxie McCoy is the community manager for Levo League, a thriving community of young professionals, role models, and innovative companies, “taking Gen Y by storm.” As community manager, McCoy oversees the development and management of LocalLEVO offline communities, spanning over 15 cities around the world. McCoy is the co-writer of “Less Work More Money,” and previously hosted for Fox Sports Southwest. She was awarded the 2009 Lehigh Presidential Scholarship and was a 2009 UWEMP/UPI National Writing Contest Finalist.

McCoy graduated from Lehigh University with BA and MA in Journalism and Media, respectively.

 


Katie Miserany

MARKETING COMMUNICATIONS, RELATEIQ

EDUCATION MODULE INTERVIEWEE

Katie Miserany currently oversees marketing communications for RelateIQ, a Palo Alto-based start-up leveraging technology to help people build better professional relationships and make smarter decisions at work. Before RelateIQ, she was part of the communications team at Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati. Previously, Miserany worked in consumer marketing for several years at Tiny Prints, seeing the company through its acquisition by Shutterfly.

Miserany graduated Phi Beta Kappa with a BA in English and a minor in professional writing and editing from the University of California, Santa Barbara

 

View Power & Influence References

Power Posing: Brief Nonverbal Displays Affect Neuroendocrine Levels and Risk Tolerance

Carney, Dana R., Amy J.C. Cuddy, and Yap, A.J. 2010. "Power Posing: Brief Nonverbal Displays Affect Neuroendocrine Levels and Risk Tolerance." Psychological Science vol. 21, no. 10: 1363–1368.

When Professionals Become Mothers, Warmth Doesn't Cut the Ice

Cuddy, A. J. C., Fiske, S. T. and Glick, P. 2004. "When Professionals Become Mothers, Warmth Doesn't Cut the Ice." Journal of Social Issues, 60: 701–718

Status, Sex, and Smiling The Effect of Role on Smiling in Men and Women

Deutsch, Francine M. 1990. "Status, Sex, and Smiling: The Effect of Role on Smiling in Men and Women." Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin. 16, 3: 531-540.

Decoding Visual Dominance: Attributions of Power Based on Relative Percentages of Looking While Speaking and Looking While Listening

Dovidio, J.F. and Ellyson, S.L. 1982. "Decoding Visual Dominance: Attributions of Power Based on Relative Percentages of Looking Whing." Social Psychology Quarterly, 45, 2:106-113.

The relationship of social power to visual displays of dominance between men and women

Dovidio, J. F.; Ellyson, S. L.; Keating, C. F.; Heltman, K.; Brown, C. E. 1988. "The relationship of social power to visual displays of dominance between men and women." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 54, 2: 233-242.

Organizational Preferences and Their Consequences

Gruenfeld, D. H. and Tiedens, L. Z. 2010. Organizational Preferences and Their Consequences. Handbook of Social Psychology, 1252-1287.

Power and the objectification of social targets

Gruenfeld, Deborah H.; Inesi, M. Ena; Magee, Joe C.; Galinsky, Adam D. 2006. "Power and the objectification of social targets." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95, 1:111-127

License of Obligation to Smile: The Effect of Power and Sex on Amount and Type of Smiling

Hecht M.A. and LaFrance, M. 1998. "License of Obligation to Smile: The Effect of Power and Sex on Amount and Type of Smiling." Personaltiy and Social Psychology Bulletin, 24: 1332.

Powerful postures versus powerful roles: Which is the proxiate correlate of thought and behavior?

Huang, L.; Galinsky A.D.; Gruenfeld, D. H.; and Guillory, L. E. 2010. "Powerful postures versus powerful roles: Which is the proxiate correlate of thought and behavior?" Psychological Science published online 13 December.

Power, approach, and inhibition

Keltner, Dacher; Gruenfeld, Deborah H.; Anderson, Cameron. 2003. "Power, approach, and inhibition." Psychological Review, 110, 2: 265-284.

The contingent smile: A meta-analysis of sex differences in smiling

LaFrance, M., Hecht, M. A., & Paluck, E. L. 2003. "The contingent smile: A meta-analysis of sex differences in smiling." Psychological Bulletin, 129, 2: 305-334.

Decoding of Inconsistent Communications

Mehrabian, Albert; Wiener, Morton. 1967. "Decoding of Inconsistent Communications." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 6, 1: 109–114.

Inference of Attitudes from Nonverbal Communication in Two Channels

Mehrabian, Albert; Ferris, Susan R.1967. "Inference of Attitudes from Nonverbal Communication in Two Channels." Journal of Consulting Psychology, 31, 3: 248–252.

Prescriptive Gender Stereotypes and Backlash Toward Agentic Women

Rudman, L. A. and Glick, P. 2001. "Prescriptive Gender Stereotypes and Backlash Toward Agentic Women." Journal of Social Issues, 57: 743–762

An Unconscious Desire for Hierarchy? The Motivated Perception of Dominance Complementarity in Task Partners

Tiedens, L.Z., Unzueta, M. M., and Young, M.J. 2007. "An Unconscious Desire for Hierarchy? The Motivated Perception of Dominance Complementarity in Task Partners." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, vol. 93, no. 3: 402–414.