All leaders are judged by their body language. If a female wants to be perceived as powerful, credible, and confident, she has to be aware of the nonverbal signals she’s sending. There are a number of behaviors I’ve seen women unknowingly employ that reduce their authority by denoting vulnerability or submission. Here are ten body language mistakes that women leaders commonly make.

1) They use too many head tilts. Head tilting is a signal that someone is listening and involved — and a particularly feminine gesture. Head tilts can be very positive cues, but they are also subconsciously processed as submission signals. Women who want to project power and authority should keep their heads straight up in a more neutral position.

2) They physically condense. One way that status is nonverbally demonstrated in a business meeting is by physically taking up room. Lower-status, less-confident men (and most women) tend to pull in their bodies and minimize their size, while high status males expand and take up space. So at your next meeting, spread out your belongings and claim your turf!

3) They act girlish. Everyone uses pacifying gestures when under stress. They rub their hands together, grab their upper arms, and touch their necks. But women are viewed as much less powerful when they pacify with girlish behaviors (twirling hair, playing with jewelry, or biting a finger.)

4) They smile excessively. While smiling can be a powerful and positive nonverbal cue – especially for signaling likeability and friendliness – women should be aware that, when excessive or inappropriate, smiling can also be confusing and a credibility robber. This is especially true if you smile while discussing a serious subject, expressing anger, or giving negative feedback.

5) They nod too much. When a man nods, it means he agrees. When a woman nods, it means she agrees – or is listening to, empathizing with, or encouraging the speaker to continue. This excessive head nodding can make females look like a bobble-head doll. Constant head nodding can express encouragement and engagement, but not authority and power.

6) They speak “up.” Women’s voices often rise at the ends of sentences as if they’re asking a question or asking for approval. When stating your opinion, be sure to use the authoritative arc, in which your voice starts on one note, rises in pitch through the sentence and drops back down at the end.

7) They wait their turn. In negotiations, men talk more than women and interrupt more frequently. One perspective on the value of speaking up comes from former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, who – when asked what advice she had for up-and-coming professional women – replied, “Learn to interrupt.”

They are overly expressive. While a certain amount of movement and animation adds passion and meaning to a message, women who express the entire spectrum of emotions often overwhelm their audience (especially if the audience is comprised primarily of males). So in situations where you want to maximize your authority — minimize your movements. When you appear calm and contained, you look more powerful.

9) They have a delicate handshake. Women with a weak handshake are judged to be passive and less confident. So take the time to cultivate your “professional shake.” Keep your body squared off to the other person — facing him or her fully. Make sure you have palm-to-palm contact and that the web of you hand (the skin between you thumb and first finger) touches the web of the other person’s. And, most of all, remember to shake hands firmly.

10. They flirt. Women gain likeability, but lose the competitive advantage in a negotiation when they flirt. In a UC Berkeley study female actors play the roles of sellers of a biotech business. Half were told to project a no-nonsense, business approach. Half were instructed to flirt (using the nonverbal behaviors of smiling, leaning forward suggestively, tossing their hair, etc.) – but to do so subtly. The outcome was that the “buyers” offered the flirts (dubbed “likeable losers”) 20% less, on average, than what they offered the more straitlaced sellers.

Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D., is an international keynote speaker, executive coach, and management consultant. Author of THE NONVERBAL ADVANTAGE – Secrets and Science of Body Language at Work, Carol’s new book, THE SILENT LANGUAGE OF LEADERS will be published by Jossey-Bass in the spring of 2011.For information contact Carol by phone: 510-526-1727, email: CGoman@CKG.com, or through her web sites: www.CKG.com and www.NonverbalAdvantage.com.

Forbes.com posted Carol’s video blog “Body Language Mistakes Women Make” http://video.forbes.com/fvn/forbeswoman/body-language-mistakes-women-make

We reveal a lot about our attitudes, emotions and motives by the way we hold our bodies, especially when using closed or open postures.

In the ultimate closed body posture, arms are folded, legs are crossed and the torso or legs are turned away. Rounding the upper body and hiding hands are closed signals that may also represent feelings of vulnerability or depression. More predictably than their male counterparts, women — when sitting — adopt an open-arm posture in the presence of someone they like, and tend to fold their arms across their chest when they feel indifferent to or dislike the other person.

In open and receptive body postures, legs are uncrossed, and arms are open with palms exposed or resting comfortably on the desk or conference table. If the arms are relaxed at the sides of the body while standing, this is also generally a sign of openness, accessibility, and an overall willingness to interact.

Two things I know for sure about open and closed postures: 1) Individuals with open body positions are perceived more positively than those with closed body positions. And 2) Individuals with open body positions are more persuasive than those with closed body positions.

But see for yourself. Compare the body language of your co-workers. Watch the people who are the most convincing and successful. I bet you’ll find that they typically use open body positions when interacting with colleagues and presenting their ideas.

Physical posture can also show someone’s status in a group. I’ve seen meetings where all subordinates slumped, while the leader assumed a more erect posture that indicated her dominance. I’ve also watched two executives of similar heights meeting for the first time, and saw both men straighten their postures and stretch their bodies to increase the perception of “tallness.”

These positions were taken without any of the participants being aware of doing so. But sometimes awareness does play a role. People of equal status tend to mirror one another (unconsciously assuming similar or identical postures), but people who want to emphasize their higher status may deliberately adopt a different posture or stance to show they are not just “one of the gang.”

Leaning is another way your body indicates your emotions. Leaning backward usually signals feelings of dislike or negativity. It’s a hardwired response from the limbic brain; we subconsciously try to distance ourselves from anyone or anything that is unpleasant, disagreeable, or dangerous.

In a seated conversation, leaning backward can also communicate dominance. Someone feeling confident or superior will often sit leaning back with his fingers interlocked, hands behind his head and crossing one leg so that it rests on the other thigh and the knee opens up. This is a very masculine position that takes up a great deal of room and signals that the person is very sure of himself and of his place in the group.

Positive attitudes toward others tend to be accompanied by leaning forward – especially when sitting down. When two people like each other, you’ll see them both lean in. Research also shows that individuals who lean forward tend to increase the verbal output of the person they’re speaking with.

By the way, if you are using forward leans as a means to build positive relationships, be aware that leaning toward a person in the early stages of a conversation will generally be perceived as encroaching on his or her territory. Early leans can make people uncomfortable and decrease their perception of you as likeable. So wait until you’ve developed a level of rapport and interpersonal comfort. Then make your move.

You know that the way you feel affects your body. (If you are reluctant or depressed, you tend to round your shoulders, slump, and look down. If you are upbeat you tend to hold yourself erect and expand your chest.) But did you know that the reverse is also true? Your choice of posture has a powerful impact on your emotions. So the next time you go into a situation in which you want to project your most confident self, start by standing up straight, pulling your shoulders back and holding your head high. Just by assuming this physical posture, you will begin to feel surer of yourself.

Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D. is an executive coach, change-management consultant, and international keynote speaker at corporate, government, and association events. She’s the author of “The Nonverbal Advantage: Secrets and Science of Body Language at Work.” Her new book, “THE SILENT LANGUAGE OF LEADERS” will be published in the spring of 2011. Contact Carol about speaking or coaching at 510-526-1727 or email CGoman@CKG.com.  View video and testimonials on her websites: www.NonverbalAdvantage.com and www.CKG.com. You can also follow Carol on Twitter: http://twitter.com/CGoman.

1. You’ll feel better – even if you fake it

We all use the fake smile in business settings when we don’t really feel an emotional closeness to those around us; the real smile is reserved for those we truly care about. And we’ve had a lot of practice doing this. We’ve been displaying both real and fake smiles all of our lives. A fake smile is easy to produce. It takes only one set of muscles to stretch the lip corners sideways and create a grin.

There’s no doubt that the “best” smiles are genuine. They light up your face, crinkle the corners of your eyes and produces positive physiological changes in your body temperature and heart rate. But consider research findings that even if the smile is mechanically produced, positive feelings still emerge. This study matched samples of people looking at cartoons. The first group ranked every cartoon as funnier than the second group. The only difference is that members of the first group were asked to hold a pencil crosswise between their back teeth. The simulated smile caused by the pencil between their teeth effected their emotion – and their perception of the cartoons as funnier.

2. You’ll be unforgettable

Why do some people make a lasting impression while others are quite forgettable? The answer may be in their smile.

Research from Duke University proves that we like and remember those who smile at us – and shows why we find them more memorable. Using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the Duke researchers found that the orbitofrontal cortices (a “reward center” in the brain) were more active when subjects were learning and recalling the names of smiling individuals.

3. You’ll encourage collaboration

No one, regardless of how intelligent he or she may be, can succeed alone. We all need the knowledge and ideas of others. You know that. But did your know that by merely smiling or frowning you can influence how a speaker reports information and how it is subsequently remembered, and possibly passed on?

According to research conducted reported by the British Psychological Society, positive and negative emotional responses systematically alter the use of language. Speak to a positive listener and people will likely use more abstractions and subjective impressions. But if people talk to a negative listener, they’ll probably stick to the relative security of objective facts and concrete details.

Researchers speculate that this is because the smiles and nods of a positive listener are interpreted as a sign of agreement and understanding, encouraging the speaker to provide more of their own opinions and speculations. By contrast, negative listeners provoke speakers to adopt a more hesitant and cautious thinking style.

4. You’ll improve your productivity

Charles Garfield, the author of Peak Performance, once coached the Russian Olympic weight-lifting team. Garfield noticed that when team members lifted to exhaustion, they would invariably grimace at the painful effort. In an experiment, he encouraged the athletes to smile when they got to that point of exhaustion. This seemingly minor difference enabled them to add 2-3 more reps to their performance.

No matter the task, when you grimace or frown while doing it, you are sending your brain the message, “This is really difficult. I should stop.”  The brain then responds by sending stress chemicals into your bloodstream. And this creates a vicious circle: the more stressed you are, the more difficult the task becomes.

When you smile, your brain gets the message, “It’s not so bad. I can do this!”

5.You’ll positively contaminate others

Some nonverbal behaviors can bring out the best in people. Smiling is one of them, as it directly influences how other people respond. When you smile at someone, they almost always smile in return. And, because facial expressions trigger corresponding feelings, the smile you get back actually changes that person’s emotional state in a positive way.

Maybe that’s why a DePauw University study found that people whose smiles were weakest in snapshots from childhood through young adulthood were most likely to be divorced in middle or old age. (1 in 4 compared to 1 in 20 for the widest smilers.)

And if you ever go to trial, keep this in mind: Although courtroom judges are equally likely to find smilers and non-smilers guilty, they tend to give smilers lighter penalties, a phenomenon called the “smile-leniency effect.”

Want to brighten your mood, make a lasting impression, encourage collaboration, lighten your work load, and positively influence others? Then smile – really smile. Think of someone who genuinely amuses or delights you. But if you can’t do that, then fake it . . . or hold a pencil in your mouth.

Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D. is an executive coach, change-management consultant, and international keynote speaker at corporate, government, and association events. She’s the author of “The Nonverbal Advantage: Secrets and Science of Body Language at Work.” Her new book, “THE SILENT LANGUAGE OF LEADERS” will be published in the spring of 2011 To contact Carol about speaking or coaching, call 510-526-1727, email CGoman@CKG.com. Carol’s websites are http://www.NonverbalAdvantage.com and http://www.CKGcom. You can also follow Carol on Twitter: http://twitter.com/CGoman.

Email CGoman@CKG.com to subscribe to Carol’s monthly articles.

And it’s not just corporate profits that suffer when collaboration is low: the workforce loses something too. Individuals lose the opportunity to work in the kind of inclusive environment that energizes teams, releases creativity and makes working together both productive and joyful.

From my upcoming seminars, here are seven insights for harnessing the power of collaboration:

1. Collaboration is a leadership issue. In trying to capture and communicate the cumulative wisdom of a workforce, the public and private sectors have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in portals, software, and intranets. But collaboration is more than the technology that supports it, and even more than a business strategy aimed at optimizing a organization’s experience and expertise. Collaboration is, first and foremost, a change in attitude and behavior of people throughout an organization. Successful collaboration is a leadership issue.

2. Collaboration is essential for organizational change. Over the past 25 years, I’ve worked with a variety of very talented leaders, and one thing I know for sure: Regardless of how creative, smart and savvy a leader may be, he or she can’t transform an organization, a department or a team without the brain power and commitment of others. Whether the change involves creating new products, services, processes – or a total reinvention of how the organization must look, operate, and position itself for the future – success dictates that the individuals impacted by change be involved in the change from the very beginning.

3. Visioning is a team sport. Today’s most successful leaders guide their organizations not through command and control, but through a shared purpose and vision. These leaders adopt and communicate a vision of the future that impels people beyond the boundaries and limits of the past. But if the future vision belongs only to top management, it will never be an effective motivator for the workforce. The power of a vision comes truly into play only when the employees themselves have had some part in its creation.

4. Diversity is crucial. Experiments at the University of Michigan found that, when challenged with a difficult problem, groups composed of highly adept members performed worse than groups whose members had varying levels of skill and knowledge. The reason for this seemingly odd outcome has to do with the power of diverse thinking. Diversity causes people to consider perspectives and possibilities that would otherwise be ignored. Group members who think alike or are trained in similar disciplines with similar bases of knowledge run the risk of becoming insular in their ideas. Instead of exploring alternatives, a confirmation bias takes over and members tend to reinforce one another’s predisposition.

5. Relationships are key. The outcome of any collaborative effort is dependent upon well-developed personal relationships among participants. Not allowing time for this can be a costly mistake. For example, all too often, in the rush to get started on a project, team leaders put people together and tell them to “get to work.” This approach proves less than productive, as the group hasn’t had time to get to know one another, to discover each other’s strengths and weaknesses, to build trust, nor to develop a common understanding and vision for the project.

6. Trust is the glue. Trust is the belief or confidence that one party has in the reliability, integrity and honesty of another party. It is the expectation that the faith one places in someone else will be honored. I recently conducted a survey of middle managers in an attempt to pinpoint the state of trust and knowledge sharing in their various organizations. What I found is a crisis of trust: suspicious and cynical employees are disinclined to collaborate — sharing knowledge is still perceived as weakening a personal “power base.” And, despite lots of lip service to the contrary, too many corporate leaders still don’t trust employees with the kind of open communication that is the foundation of informed collaboration.

7. Body language matters. I’m writing a new book on the role of body language in effective leadership, and am collecting examples of the “body language blunders” that leaders make. (BTW: If you have an example, I’d love to hear from you.) Here’s one that highlights the fact that when a leader’s verbal support for collaboration conflicts with his or her nonverbal behavior, an audience will disregard the words and believe the body language:

I was in an important meeting, and the presenter was telling the group how much he welcomed any input we could provide. But at the same time he was using both his hands to nonverbally push the entire group away. The amazing thing was that he repeated this sequence several times, always saying that he would welcome our input while making the exactly the same “push back” gesture. It was all I could do not to absolutely lose it and laugh out loud. I almost did, but that would not have been good!

Today’s corporation exists in an increasingly complex and ever-shifting ocean of change. As a result, leaders need to rely more than ever on the intelligence and resourcefulness of their staff. Collaboration is not a “nice to have” organizational philosophy. It is an essential ingredient for organizational survival and success.

Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D. is an executive coach, change-management consultant, and international keynote speaker at corporate, government, and association events. She’s the author of “The Nonverbal Advantage: Secrets and Science of Body Language at Work,” and her new book, “THE SILENT LANGUAGE OF LEADERS” will be published in the spring of 2011 To contact Carol about speaking or coaching, call 510-526-1727, email CGoman@CKG.com. Carol’s websites are http://www.NonverbalAdvantage.com and http://www.CKGcom. You can also follow Carol on Twitter: http://twitter.com/CGoman.

In reality, these children had been chosen at random, not as a result of any testing. It was the teachers’ belief in their potential that was responsible for the extraordinary results. The children were never told they were high achievers, but this message was delivered subtly and nonverbally through expectancy behaviors such as facial expressions, gestures, touch, and spatial relationships.

In much the same way, a leader’s expectations of employees and their expectations of themselves are also key factors in how well people perform at work. Pygmalion leadership is in operation when staff excels in response to the manager’s message that they are capable of success and expected to succeed. This effect was described by J. Sterling Livingston Harvard Business Review article, Pygmalion in Management: “The way managers treat their subordinates is subtly influenced by what they expect of them.”

Of course, we’ve all seen instances where the reverse is true – where a leader’s verbal and (my special interest) nonverbal communication undermine staff performance and lower productivity.

I’ve also noted that sometimes these negative nonverbal behaviors aren’t all that subtle. Take, for example, this email I received recently: My boss drives us crazy with her mixed messages. She says things like, “You are always welcome in my office” and “You are all an important part of the team.” At the same time, her nonverbal communication is constantly showing how unimportant we are to her. She never makes eye contact, will shuffle papers when others talk, writes email while we answer her questions and generally does not give her full attention. In fact, we don’t even rate her half attention! Then she wonders why we’re all so demoralized.

Here’s a suggestion from my book, The Nonverbal Advantage: Secrets and Science of Body Language at Work: Imagine that you found out that everyone on your staff had been identified as a high achiever.  And imagine that this was a secret you couldn’t share with anyone on your staff – except through your body language. How would you use to let people know they were special? (More eye contact? Appreciative nods? Smiles?) Remember that what you tell them is motivating only if your nonverbal signals corroborate it.

Once you get a good idea of what you would do, take one full week and treat everyone who works for or with you as if they were potential stars. See if at least some of them don’t start living up to the high expectations your body language signals send.

Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D. is an executive coach and international keynote speaker at corporate, government, and association events. She’s the author of “The Nonverbal Advantage: Secrets and Science of Body Language at Work.” To contact Carol about speaking or coaching, call 510-526-1727, email CGoman@CKG.com. Carol’s website is http://www.NonverbalAdvantage.com. You can also follow Carol on Twitter: http://twitter.com/CGoman.

My article about one of the original participants from the British version of the show has just been posted in The Washington Post “On Leadership” section. Stephen Martin, CEO of the Clugston Group, was wonderful to interview – and his experience on the show taught so much about what it really takes to communicate with his workers.

Take a look and leave a comment: http://views.washingtonpost.com/leadership/panelists/2010/02/would-you-be-an-undercover-boss.html

As a speaker at business conferences, I’ve addressed organizations around the world, and I’ve seen the genuine commitment that many companies have made to develop the leadership abilities of female employees and to create workplace environments with family-friendly policies and flexible work arrangements — all in hopes of attracting, retaining and grooming women for top management roles.

But despite this effort and this progress, far-too-many talented females, still bump their heads on a glass ceiling: Only 2% of the senior leaders of America’s largest companies and 5% of their peers in Britain are women.

In my book, “The Nonverbal Advantage: Secrets and Science of Body Language at Work,” I talk about the power of silent signals in the workplace. So I was fascinated to come across research that helps explain why even the best-intentioned efforts at developing women leaders are failing.

This is research that deals with emergent leadership in groups of equal status. And the findings have everything to do with body language.

Doré Butler and Florence Geis at the University of Delaware compared the nonverbal affect responses to male and female leaders and found that intellectual assertiveness by women in mixed-sex discussions elicits visible nonverbal cues of negative affect. Females taking a leadership role in the group received fewer pleased responses and more displeased responses from fellow group members than male leaders speaking up and offering the same input.

From earlier research, we know that displeased expressions by fellow group members cause a leader’s contribution to be rated less valuable than the identical contribution when

embedded with cues of approval. So you can see how women’s ideas can be devalued simply by receiving less positive and more negative responses than men’s contributions of the same objective quality.

Here’s what can happen in a team meeting: A woman states her opinion. In response, negative nonverbal affect cues — frowns, head shakes, eye contact avoidance, etc. — are displayed, processed, and often mimicked by the entire group to produce a negative consensus about the value of her contribution. And all of this occurs without individuals on the team being aware of what’s happening.

At a time when conscious responses (direct answers on questionnaires, etc.) are becoming increasingly egalitarian, covert, unconscious responses still reflect discrimination against women taking a leadership role. Since hiring, salary, and promotion (especially to top leadership positions) often depend on being recognized as an emergent leader, this puts females at a distinct disadvantage.

Three key points:

1. This was a study of leadership behaviors in peer groups. There is no evidence to suggest that women in formal leadership roles generate any greater negative (or less positive) emotional cues than do their male counterparts.

2. This was not about men discounting the contribution of women. The groups in the study had an equal mix of male and female members.

3. The power of nonverbal communication lies its unconscious nature — and bringing the covert into awareness can help nullify its effect. (So, circulate this article!)

So, if you want to groom women for top positions in your organization, keep doing those things that have proven to be helpful: Offer females the coaching, mentors, and career opportunities that develop leadership potential.

But, in addition, pay attention to your own body language. Employees look for and emulate the nonverbal signals they get from their bosses. Current leaders can help create a level playing field for emergent leaders by providing the same cues of positive affect (eye contact, smiling, nodding, leaning forward, etc.) when listening to women as they do when listening to men.

Carol Kinsey Goman, Ph.D. is an executive coach, change-management consultant, and international keynote speaker at corporate, government, and association events. She’s the author of “The Nonverbal Advantage: Secrets and Science of Body Language at Work.” To contact Carol about speaking or coaching, call 510-526-1727, email CGoman@CKG.com. Carol’s websites are http://www.NonverbalAdvantage.com and http://www.CKGcom. You can also follow Carol on Twitter: http://twitter.com/CGoman.

Happy, happy holidays!