Amy Cuddy is a social psychologist who has reached millions with her widely known TED Talk “Your Body Language Shapes Who You Are.” For the opening keynote address at the Association for Talent Development’s Virtual Conference: Unleash Potential, she discussed how talent development professionals can bring their boldest selves to their biggest challenges.
Cuddy started her session by asking the audience to think of their most challenging situations. She characterized those as events that we “approach with dread,” “execute with anxiety,” and “leave with regret.” In those moments, we are not fully present, and we lack power, she contended. Cuddy continued, explaining that when we trade “approach with dread” for “approach with composure”; swap “execute with anxiety” for “execute with calm confidence”; and exchange “leave with regret” for “leave with satisfaction,” that’s when we are fully present.
Describing being present as being “attuned to and able to access and comfortably express your authentic best self,” Cuddy noted that presence is fleeting and that none of us can be permanently present. To help attendees conceptually grasp being present, Cuddy asked them to think back to their warmest, happiest memories. She said it is in those moments that our authentic best selves show up. That’s the version of us, Cuddy posited, that should surface when we are confronted with our biggest challenges.
She pointed out that when we are our authentic best selves, we tap into our personal power. The power Cuddy discussed is not associated with corruption. Personal power propels people to take action, and people who feel that power are more likely to act on behalf of themselves as well as others, she said. Feeling personal power (the power to)—juxtaposed to social power (the power over)—is important to professionals for myriad reasons. In her keynote, Cuddy discussed how personal power influences our thoughts, feelings, physiology, and behavior. “We interpret the world differently when we feel powerful,” she stated.
During her session, Cuddy highlighted research that explores the commonalities in displays of power, such as victory poses observed in athletes across cultural lines. When individuals feel powerful, they expand, she noted. The same is observed in the animal kingdom—for example, the male peacock’s expansion of his colorful feathers as a display of power and dominance. In exploring those empirical commonalities, Cuddy said it is during our victorious moments that we feel most powerful.
After sharing this information, Cuddy asked attendees: “Can we reverse engineer feeling powerful?” Coupling concepts popularized in her TED Talk with more recent research, Cuddy shared techniques on how to invoke feelings of personal power without being offputting or threatening.
She pointed out that adjustments to our breathing, posture, and even pace of speech can help us feel more powerful. Based on more than 70 studies, Cuddy explained that “adopting expansive breathing, speaking, postures, and movement make people feel powerful, confident, assertive, relaxed, happy.”
“Expanding gives us the courage to bring our authentic best selves to our biggest challenges,” she said and highlighted several benefits of being fully present: believing our story, demonstrating confidence without arrogance, and communicating harmoniously. Those benefits are valuable messages to send in the workplace.
Exuding power does not guarantee that the outcome will always be what we hope for, Cuddy cautioned. However, when we bring our best, authentic selves to interactions—whether professional or personal—we position ourselves to better accept the way things turn out.
In preparing for what promises to be an expansive week of learning, Cuddy’s finding about our personal power is already bringing attendees one step closer to unleashing their highest potential.
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