Is your voice undermining your credibility? Can simple gestures make you appear more capable?
In personal and professional settings, it’s important to send the message that you know what you’re doing. In her book Cues, Vanessa Van Edwards outlines techniques you can use to convey competence through your speech and behavior.
Read on for Van Edwards’s advice on how to show competence in any situation.
How to Show Competence
Van Edwards argues that charisma is a balance of warmth and competence. In her book, she provides specific techniques to convey both of these qualities. Here, we’ll discuss her advice on how to show competence with both vocal and behavioral cues.
Show Competence With Vocal Cues
#1: Drop your voice’s pitch as low as you can comfortably go. The deeper your voice, the more confident you’ll seem. Van Edwards stresses that comfort is key here—if you drop your pitch too low, it may be hard to speak consistently and others might perceive you as inauthentic.
#2: Project your voice. Breathe in deeply, then speak loudly as you exhale (but not before you exhale, or you’ll run out of breath before you finish speaking). Van Edwards explains that this will help you avoid speaking too quietly or with vocal fry (a gravelly voice quality), two vocal cues that signal a lack of self-confidence.
#3: Vary your volume to match the content of your speech. Van Edwards suggests that this approach signals that your emotions and ideas are aligned, creating higher confidence in your claims. Raise your volume to emphasize your passion. Lower your volume to create the sense that you’re including your listeners in something private and important. (Shortform note: Modifying your volume situationally can be difficult for some people. For example, some people with ADHD find voice modulation difficult and talk loudly when it’s not appropriate, and some people with anxiety speak too quietly. Speech therapy can help you learn to vary your volume appropriately.)
#4: Pause instead of using filler words. It’s common to use filler words like “um” and “so” to buy time when you’re not sure what to say next and don’t want listeners to mistakenly think you’re done talking. However, Van Edwards says that filler words signal low confidence in the content of your speech, which encourages others to interrupt you. She recommends that you replace filler words with pauses, but only in the middle of a sentence, not at the end. Pausing mid-sentence creates a sense of anticipation that draws listeners in, while pausing at the end suggests that you’re done speaking.
| Some Vocal Competence Cues May Rely on Sexist Stereotypes To seem more competent, Van Edwards recommends that you drop your pitch, project your voice, and avoid using filler words. But what is it about these cues that make you seem more competent? Experts say there’s a link between each competence cue and sexist stereotypes that can disadvantage women and reinforce gender biases. Let’s explore those links now. Classicist Mary Beard argues that women’s voices have been undervalued since antiquity. In ancient Greece and Rome, only men had the right to public speech, so men’s deeper voices came to be associated with strength, power, and authority while women’s higher voices were perceived as weak, untrustworthy, and overbearing. This persistent stereotype leads to criticism of contemporary women with higher-pitched voices, especially when they’re seeking power in business or politics. Van Edwards’s advice to project your voice is similarly gendered. Many women are taught to be demure and speak quietly, which can undermine their persuasiveness and credibility in contexts where louder, more reverberant voices are more highly respected. And although men and women speak with vocal fry in roughly equal measures, women catch the most flack for it. The same is true of filler words: Although they serve a purpose and although men and women employ them equally, we devalue them because they’re associated with femininity, a quality that’s stereotypically associated with lower intelligence.Although the stereotypes underlying these cues are unfair, that doesn’t necessarily mean you shouldn’t adopt any of the cues. |
Show Competence With Behavioral Cues
#1: Narrow your eyes. Narrowing your eyes makes you seem thoughtful and intense. It signals to others that you’re paying attention and trying to understand—though narrowing your eyes for longer than a few seconds seems unnatural. Van Edwards also says you can watch for eye narrowing to find opportunities to reinforce your competence: When someone’s eyes suddenly narrow, it suggests that they just started analyzing something. This might mean you said something confusing or controversial, so you should pause to address the possible issue.
(Shortform note: On her website, Van Edwards explains that depending on your gender, this cue (which she refers to as a smolder) could make you more attractive. She says that straight women are more attracted to men who smolder because smoldering conveys power and, therefore, masculinity; in contrast, straight men prefer women who smile rather than smolder. She also explains that narrowing your eyes can signal unexpressed anger, contempt, or disagreement—states of mind that are better tolerated in men than in women. Women who narrow their eyes might be perceived as “bitchy” or standoffish, especially during disagreements, since women face pressure to be agreeable and accommodating.)
#2: Steeple your fingers. Van Edwards says this cue conveys that you’re earnest, self-assured, and a deep thinker. You’re displaying your hands for everyone to see, which symbolically expresses that you have nothing to hide. Since you’re suggesting that you’re a deep thinker, steepling gives others a reason to think about (and believe in) what you’ve said—or if you’re listening to someone else, it communicates that you’re carefully considering what they’ve said. However, Van Edwards warns against a gesture she calls “evil fingers,” where you steeple your hands and tap the tips of your fingers together. Evil fingers suggest that you’re concocting a sinister plan.
(Shortform note: Steepling is also known as finger-tenting, and some say that, in film and television, it can signal malevolence even if the character doesn’t tap their fingers together. These observers note that, instead of conveying competence, the gesture conveys arrogance, which might explain why it’s particularly common among “diabolical masterminds”—brainy villains who revel in their own evil brilliance. But, while steepling is associated with evil in cinema, law enforcement behavioral analyst Joe Navarro argues that this association doesn’t hold in real life. Instead, he says, people who steeple in real life convey competence, as Van Edwards suggests.)
#3: Use explanatory gestures. Moving your hands and arms while you speak helps you convey information to others more efficiently (for example, you can use gestures that indicate the shape of something). When you gesture with purpose and grace, listeners pay more attention, understand you better, and find you more credible. However, Van Edwards warns against using very large or forceful gestures—if you notice people looking at your hands or moving away when you gesture, dial it back.
(Shortform note: Experts say there are several categories of gestures to choose from. Deictic gestures indicate a location or a target object or person, like when you point in the direction of an object you’re discussing. Batonic gestures are rhythmic and convey emphasis or punctuation, helping listeners focus on important information. Iconic gestures visually represent objects or actions and can help you think spatially and solve physical problems, like how to pack your car for a road trip. Finally, metaphoric gestures represent abstract ideas and are culturally determined— for example, the sign of the horns means “rock on” to metal enthusiasts but offends some Christians due to its association with Satan.)
