You can choose your words carefully, prepare for your conversations and believe you are presenting as calm, confident and collaborative.
But what are other people actually experiencing?
One of the hidden challenges of leadership is that we communicate far more than the words we use. Stress, fear, frustration, previous experiences and assumptions can all affect how we show up, often without us consciously realising it, and the more senior you become, the greater the impact.
Your team notices whether you actually want to be challenged, stakeholders sense whether you are being open with them, and colleagues can pick up on tension between what you are saying and what your behaviour suggests.
This was at the heart of my fascinating podcast conversation with Jude Jennison, founder of Leaders by Nature, who works with executives and teams alongside her herd of horses to reveal unconscious non-verbal behaviours.
It may sound an unusual approach to leadership development, but it exposes something very human- the difference between the leader we think we are presenting and the leader other people actually see, hear and experience every day.
Uncertainty amplifies what is already there
Jude talked about how our previous experiences continue to shape us, even when we think we have moved on.
Take redundancy as an example, someone who has previously experienced a difficult redundancy may walk into a new period of organisational change carrying emotional scars their colleagues know nothing about.
Externally they may look composed, but internally, fear is building, and that can show up as resistance to change, heightened stress, defensiveness or a need for excessive control.
This matters enormously in today’s workplace where many people are navigating restructures, change, increasing workloads and uncertainty about what comes next. Under pressure, our default patterns become louder.
Connect with your Non-Verbal Communication
The gap between intention and impact
One of Jude’s most interesting observations was what happens when someone approaches a horse feeling nervous but pretending not to be. The horse detects the incongruence between what is happening internally and what is being presented externally, and may choose not to engage.
When the person acknowledges their uncertainty instead, their behaviour subtly changes and the horse often responds differently.
There is a useful leadership parallel- sometimes we work extremely hard to appear confident because we believe leaders should have things under control, yet people can be sensitive to the mismatch between words and energy.
Credibility does not necessarily come from hiding uncertainty, sometimes it comes from being aligned and grounded enough to say, ‘I don’t know yet’, or ‘I’m concerned about this too’, or even ‘here’s what I do know and what we’re going to do next.’
That is not weakness, but creating clarity in uncertainty, being vulnerable and honest about the situation, and creating trust through this.
What is underneath the behaviour you are judging?
One story from our conversation particularly stayed with me- Jude described a leader whose team experienced him as aggressive and lacking compassion, yet when he approached one of the horses, he behaved with enormous gentleness.
His team were astonished, but it emerged that underneath his ‘professional’ behaviour at work was a fear that if he showed too much compassion as a leader, people would respect him less, so he showed up in a certain way at work.
We give feedback at work which might relate to the behaviours we experience, for example, ‘You’re too x.’ However, those labels describe what we experience, and not necessarily explain what is driving the behaviour, the motivation.
For leaders, understanding motivations is key to understanding the drivers of a team member’s behaviour, as well as getting curious about what is motivating your own behaviour. The shift comes from addressing the pattern underneath, not simply adjusting the outward behaviour.
How do people experience your leadership?
Cultural Intelligence means adapting without becoming someone else
Our conversation also raised an important Cultural Intelligence tension in non-verbal behaviours. Jude shared the experience of a leader from the UAE who believed he should spend significant time building relationships because of the cultural environment in which he worked, yet personally, he felt drawn to move more quickly towards achieving results.
The answer was not to ignore cultural norms or mechanically follow them, instead, he found a way to honour the importance of relationships while balancing it with behaving more authentically. The result was stronger, more genuine connection.
This is an important distinction in global leadership. Cultural Intelligence does not mean becoming a chameleon or assuming everybody from one culture behaves identically. National culture is one influence, alongside organisational culture, professional background, personality, behavioural preferences and individual experience, so the skill is adapting intelligently while remaining genuine.
Is your behaviour limiting your impact?
You cannot change the other person
Perhaps the most valuable point I took away was also one of the simplest- when relationships become difficult, we naturally focus on what the other person needs to change.
If only they communicated differently. If only they were less defensive. If only they listened.
But you cannot directly change somebody else’s behaviour, you can only change yours, and when you alter how you communicate, you have the opportunity to change the relationship, creating the possibility of a different response and a different outcome.
Questions to reflect on
How do people experience you when you are under pressure?
Where do you need to better understand the drivers of your team’s non-verbal behaviour to know what’s really going on?
I explore these ideas further with Jude Jennison in the podcast episode, The Non-Verbal Behaviours Shaping Trust.
If you are thinking more deeply about your own leadership behaviours, communication and Cultural Intelligence, these are central themes in my book Become a Global Leader.
And if you are navigating personal leadership challenges for your or your team, you can book a clarity call with me to explore what might need to shift.
