Make your staff feel ten feet tall - Business Works
BW brief

Make your staff feel ten feet tall

Adi Gaskell A s a rather stumpy individual I’ve had an interesting relationship with my height throughout my life. It’s reasonably well known that taller people generally have an easier time of things, earning more money, getting better dates, jobs and so on.

Anyway, before you think I have a complex, the point of this blog. Some new research from Cornell has revealed that power actually makes people feel taller.

The research team conducted experiments with 266 people. They found that when these people were made to feel powerful, their perception of their own height changed significantly.

The findings chime with previous research into the topic. For instance, in the 60s, an Australian experiment found that observers believed a man to be taller when they believed him to be a professor than when they thought he was a student. The perceived difference was worth an extra 2 inches.

We often tell people to stand up tall and have strong posture to make them seem professional. This research suggests a flipside of that basic principle, ie if you’re already in a position of power and you want to appear humble and approachable, maybe slouching a bit could help you out.


Adi Gaskell is a manager at Process Excellence Network and a management writer for Professional Manager magazine.


Tweet article
BW on TwitterBW RSS feed