GROWing Better Body Language

The scoff. The eye roll. The exasperated sigh. The furrowed brows. The shrug. We’ve all seen examples of disrespectful, dismissive, and outright rude body language in the workplace, and I doubt it’s an exaggeration to say that we all wish this body language was far less frequent among some of our employers and employees!

As leaders, one of our responsibilities is guiding our employees to embody their best, most professional selves in the workplace, and coaching them to improve their body language falls under that umbrella. Today, we’re going to walk through a few key strategies for addressing negative body language in employees, so straighten your shoulders and get ready to dive right in!

Focused Feedback

For starters, I recommend this video by leadership consultant Joe Mull as an introductory point for learning how to manage negative body language in employees, and as such I will walk us through the key points Mull addresses!

First and foremost, the most effective way to improve poor body language in employees is through focused, one-on-one conversations that specify and provide feedback on the negative behavior the employee is (likely unwittingly) embodying. In other words, we must enter these meetings with specific examples and circumstances during which the employee has displayed the negative body language that we want to help them fix.

Step 1: Prepare ourselves to describe the physical details of a person’s negative body language.

What do we mean by this? Let’s look at the following two descriptions:

“Jess, you’ve been holding yourself really negatively during team meetings lately.”

Although there is mention of posture, this description doesn’t offer much specificity about how the employee has been negatively communicating with their body.

“Jess, I’ve noticed that during the last few team meetings, you tend to roll your eyes or furrow your eyebrows and shrug when someone presents a new idea. This behavior reads to me like you aren’t receptive to others’ suggestions, and it tends to stifle inter-group discussion.”

Not only are there specific examples of the employee’s negative body language, we can also see how this body language is having a detrimental impact on the entire team. Again: specificity is everything! Because body language so often occurs unconsciously, our employees will struggle to correct their negative body language if they are not aware of what specifically needs to be improved.

Step 2: Invite continuous engagement.

Once the employee has agreed that they need to address their body language—more on how to get to that point later!—we should ask them, “How should I let you know if I witness this behavior again?” In other words, we want to a) reassure our employees that we don’t expect them to magically improve their body language overnight and b) remind them that they are not undertaking this journey alone—we will be there to support them and guide them through mistakes.

A solid starting point, right? Let’s dive into some ways we can flesh out this approach even further!

GROW Model

While the above advice provides a clear introduction to addressing poor body language in employees, there are few key components missing. For example, how do we get our employees to agree that their body language needs improvement in the first place? How do we ensure our employees are engaged and inspired to present more positive, professional body language?

The GROW Model is a key tool leaders can employ to help fill in some of these gaps, as this model offers us a step-by-step method to successfully coaching employees in any arena! Allow me to direct our thoughts to utilizing the GROW Model specifically as a means to help employees improve negative body language:

G is for Goal, meaning the first step a manager should take when invoking the GROW Model to coach an employee on body language is to ask about and acknowledge the employee’s goals. Importantly, these goals do not have to be literally related to body language—that connection will come later. Where do they see themself in the organization within a year? Two years? Five years? In what direction do they want their career to go? The point of the G in GROW is to develop an understanding of what our employees want, because only then will we be able to truly tailor our feedback in a way that is productive and engaging for them.

R is for (Current) Reality, and in terms of helping an employee improve poor body language, R means laying out for our employee what their body language currently suggests and how those implications might impact their future goals. This step is where the focused feedback from earlier comes in, as leaders must be able to clearly describe the poor body language they have observed and how that body language could be detrimental to the employee’s vision for the future. For example, let’s say we have an employee who is struggling to project confident body language; they tend to keep their shoulders hunched, unconsciously making themself smaller, and they have difficulty maintaining appropriate eye contact. However, this employee’s Goal is to one day be a team leader themselves. As we give feedback on this Reality, we might say:

“I’ve noticed that your body language currently suggests you don’t have a lot of confidence, which could get in your way of achieving your goal to be a team leader. I’ve observed how you hunch your shoulders often, and you tend to fidget with your pencil and look down during our team meetings.”

Once we’ve presented the specifics of our employee’s body language and how that Reality may hinder their Goal, we move onto the O of the GROW Model: Options and/or Obstacles. This step is crucial, as this point is where we invite the employee to share their own ideas about how they might begin the journey of improving their body language. In other words, we ask the employee what Options they think they have as well as what Obstacles might be in their way. To return to the previous example, we might say:

“How do you think you can present yourself more professionally in meetings? What changes might you make in your body language to project more confidence?”

The O of GROW should not be rushed past in a meeting, as this is the opportunity for the employee to develop solutions attuned to their own self-improvement.

Once multiple Options are on the table, we turn to the final step: W, also known as Will—what will they do to move forward? As leaders, our responsibility when walking through the Will step is guiding our employees to narrow down their Options into a practical, solution-oriented plan to improve their body language. We should emphasize the importance of aligning their body language with their goals, and we should also reassure the employee at hand that we will provide observation and support throughout the journey. This step is also where we might schedule a follow-up meeting to provide continuous feedback about their body language—praise if we see improvement, and constructive criticism if we are not yet seeing positive results.

I want to emphasize the importance of ensuring the final two steps of the GROW Model—Options/Obstacles and Will—are led by the employee. People are more committed to personal and professional growth when they come up with their own solutions to get there! As such, the GROW Model is particularly apt as a method for coaching employees to improve their body language because it easily allows us to link that improvement with the employee’s aspirations. Rather than unintentionally coming across as a personal attack about how someone holds themself, feedback through the GROW Model is clearly about learning, moving forward, and dismantling obstacles to help ensure our employees can successfully reach their goals!

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Dima Ghawi is the founder of a global talent development company with a primary mission for advancing individuals in leadership. Through keynote speeches, training programs and executive coaching, Dima has empowered thousands of professionals across the globe to expand their leadership potential. In addition, she provides guidance to business executives to develop diversity, equity, and inclusion strategies and to implement a multi-year plan for advancing quality leaders from within the organization. Reach her at DimaGhawi.com and BreakingVases.com.