The Definitive Book of Body Language - Barbara Pease [108]
Superior people can sometimes get on their “high horses,” “rise to the occasion,” “put themselves on a pedestal,” or become “high and mighty.” And no self-respecting God would ever live down in the boondocks, on the salt flats, or in the valley. They live in Valhalla, on Mount Olympus, or in Heaven above. And everyone understands the significance of standing to speak to a meeting to gain control.
We reduce our height to show subordination to
others and increase height to gain status
Most women curtsey when they meet royalty and men incline their heads or remove their hats, making themselves appear smaller than the royal person. The modern salute is a relic of the act of removing a hat to make oneself appear shorter. The person symbolically goes to remove their hat and the salute is the modern result. Today's hatless man can still be seen giving a simple tap to his forehead when he meets a woman, as a relic of his hat-doffing ancestors' habit. The more humble or subordinate an individual feels toward another, the lower he stoops his body.
Some people described Roger as the backbone
of the organization. Others didn't go that high.
Some Japanese businesses have reintroduced the “bowing machine,” which teaches staff the exact angle to bow to a customer, usually fifteen degrees for a customer who is “just looking” and up to forty-five degrees for a purchaser. In business, the people who continually “bow” to the management are labeled with derogatory name-tags such as “bootlickers,” “crawlers,” and “brownnosers.”
He's a Big Man Around Town
Despite what it may be politically correct to believe about height, studies convincingly show that taller people are more successful, healthier, and live longer than short people. Dr. Bruce Ellis, Head of Experimental Psychology at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, found that taller men also have greater reproductive success than shorter men, not only because increased testosterone levels are linked to tallness but also because women choose men who are taller than they are as partners. Taller men are seen as more protective and can pass this advantage on through their genes. Men prefer shorter women because it gives men the apparent height advantage.
The shorter you are the more likely it is that you will be interrupted by men. One of our clients, a five-feet-one-inch female senior manager in a predominately male accounting firm, complained that she was continually being interrupted by her peers at management meetings and it was rare for her to present her ideas fully or even finish her sentences. We devised a strategy that required her to stand and go to the coffee table and, when she returned to her seat, remain standing as she spoke and presented her thoughts. She was amazed at the difference it made to how she was received. While she can't use the coffee routine every time, it allowed her to see how, by simply adjusting her height perspective, she could gain more authority.
You always see taller men with shorter
women, but rarely the reverse.
In our seminars, we constantly observe how top-level managers are significantly taller than everyone else. Through the Institutes of Management, we recorded the height and salaries of 2566 managers at company director level and found that every inch of height above the company norm added almost $683 to that person's salary package, regardless of whether the person was a man or a woman. Research in the U.S.A. showed that height is also linked to financial success: on Wall Street, every inch of height added $583 to each person's bottom line. The same correlation has even been found in government departments and universities, who supposedly promote people based on their competence level and equality, not their height. One American study showed that tall people not only got the best jobs in American firms, they received higher starting salaries. Those over six feet two inches got 12 percent more than those under six feet.
Why Some People Seem Taller on TV
People who are “perceived” as