5 Body Language Signals Every Leader Should Recognize (and What to Do When You See Them)

Your influence isn’t just in what you say, it’s in what you notice. This episode breaks down five essential body-language tells that appear with bosses, clients, peers, and direct reports. 

You’ll learn what each signal means, how to read the room with precision, and the practical steps to take when someone is confused, disengaged, overwhelmed, or resistant. If you want to communicate clearly, build stronger relationships, and lead with intention, this episode shows you how.

• The subtle cues that reveal disagreement, doubt, or disconnection
• How to adjust your communication in real time—without overreacting or assuming
• What to say (and avoid) when you spot tension, resistance, or appeasement

Transcript

Why Body Language Matters For Influence

SPEAKER_00 1:06

Hi, I'm Jill Griffin, host of the Career Refresh, and today we are talking about body language. Isn't that a fun one? All right. I want you to influence more effectively. And in order to influence up, across, down, aside, every which way, we need to pay attention to what is going on in the room. Or in the room, whatever the environment that we're in, in order to notice it's not just what people are saying, it's what they're saying when they're not saying something. Right. Body language is often this truth, this nuance beneath words. And learning how to read it can really help you to adjust, de-escalate, and deepen connection and collaboration in real time. So today I want to talk about the five body language tells, as I call them, that are going to matter and probably show up in your career at one point or another and what to do when you see them. All right, let's dig in. The first, I call it the microfreeze. There's a split second pause. Maybe they're widening their eyes or they're slightly holding their bath. They might be furrowing their brow in some way. And it usually signals, dude, you've lost me, or I'm totally surprised, or I'm not sure we agree. It may show up because, you know, your supervisor, your boss, your skip level, they may have hit a risk or see that there's a risk or a gap in what's being presented or the data, and they're like, huh, you didn't see this? There could be a client or customer. You may have triggered doubt with your recommendation. Or if there's a peer or a direct report, they may be confused by what you're saying, but they're not comfortable or ready to push or ask more. So those are some of the different dynamics that I see it shows up from. So what to do? Well, I want you to slow down and check for clarity. When someone gives you a visual cue like that, let me pause. Does this match what you're thinking? I just want to pause and see if you have any questions or concerns with what I've said so far. Right? Giving them an opportunity to catch their breath and then be able to reframe the message or to reframe their question so you can reframe your message. And then really think about like, is there a low stakes question you could ask? Um I just want to pause and see how you're feeling about this. And um, would you like to go into this section or this area a little bit deeper, right? Giving them an opportunity because even if it's not that, they then can say, no, I'd rather talk about this. And now they've given you more feedback as to why they were in the microfreeze. All right. Really, really simple of just slowing down and pausing and giving them an opportunity. You get curious and giving them an opportunity to speak. The next we call the pullback. And this might be an actual lean away from the table. This can signal like I need space or I'm not convinced or something feels off at various levels of who you're talking to and dealing with. You know, if it's a skip level or a both, it may be that like they don't buy it yet. They're not seeing the business case for what it is that you're asking. Same thing with a client, they're not sold, or they're mentally calculating the risk or the um the cost of what this is, you know, what this product is. And then uh a peer, a direct report, someone that you're working with regularly. It may be because they're feeling a little bit of judged or overwhelmed. They might get quiet, they might, you know, kind of fold in a little bit. So just shift at that point from selling your ideas to inquiry, asking questions, right? We try to avoid did you or do you type questions because those can feel um a little bit accusatory or they can feel a little bit like you're getting backed into a corner. Um, just say, like, what are you thinking about this? Do you see um what what might you see is any challenges that we're having, right? So really getting curious with them and going into inquiry, bringing the conversation back to any of the shared goals. If you have a brief, bringing it back to the brief and showing maybe how it aligns, but you're not selling, you're in this inquiry. And then, you know, if needed, lower the pressure. You know what? We don't need to decide on this today. Why don't we reconnect on Friday and we'll go through and answering your questions at time, giving them a little bit of a pause or a beat for them to catch their breath. Not everyone can think clearly, especially when um they're having a reaction to what you're saying, right? Some people are verbal processors where you're gonna know everything and other people aren't. And this is an opportunity to give them space where they're not gonna then feel overwhelmed or threatened or pushed the next time you meet. The next time is the overnodding or the visual signs of agreement, right? Depending on what it is culturally, it may be a left to right, it may be an up and down type of nod, right? Excessive nodding nodding can sometimes look like appeasement and not necessarily agreement, right? This may be um, uh-huh, uh-huh, uh-huh. Yep, yep, yep. I want this to end. Um just, you know what? I'm not, I'm not even listening anymore. Um, I'm not bought in enough to disagree, or I don't feel safe to disagree or give feedback. Um, across the board, it if it's your lead or your skip level, it may be that they're checked out. If it's a client, they're being polite, they're being they did it, but they don't actually um, they haven't actually been persuaded by whatever it is that you're saying. And then again, if it's a peer or a direct report, it could also be that they're overwhelmed or they just want to avoid conflict. So if you see it, I want you to consider saying something like normalizing that there's going to be different opinions here. You know what? We don't have to agree right here, right now. I would just love to know what you're thinking about this, right? Sort of diffuse it a little bit. Ask them to reflect and uh, you know, what stuck out for you? Is there anything of what I've said that has stuck out to you that um be helpful to talk about a little bit more, right? Really finding ways to gauge if there is alignment or where some of the gaps might be is slowing your space, softening your tone, matching some of their body language in negotiation. It's called mirroring, either saying back what they're saying. You want to create psychological space, letting them know that they have time to think. Again, everybody's brain works differently. And when you slow down your space, your pace and soften your tone, this is a way to give them time to think. Um, the next one is gonna show up in different ways. Some of it can be gender specific, um, maybe like playing with the hair. Um, but are people touching jewelry, you know, playing with rings, spinning watches, twirling hair, or flipping hair? Are they doing anything like that? Rubbing their neck, folding their hands, fidgeting. I mean, I sat in a meeting recently in which I was so bored out of my mind. I looked down and I was twirling my thumbs. I was like, oh my God. I was just trying to find a way to stay connected in the meeting because the topic to me was so boring and just not very interesting. And I didn't really want to be there. So I was twiddling my thumbs. But these can, I mean, for me, I was anxious because I was like, when is this gonna end? And how is this going? What questions are they gonna ask me because I'm not buying this thing, right? It could be I'm anxious or I'm bracing or I'm unsure how this lands. Those are some of the vibes that be coming at you. Um in a direct report, they might be again overwhelmed. A client or customer might be not sure that you can deliver. So they're sort of trying to find a way to fill the space. And then a boss or a supervisor might be uh mentally forecasting like what's the risk here, and should I really take this? So when you see this, you might want to use some grounding and facts, right? Lower the emotional temperature. This could be, all right, so here's what we know so far. Let's regroup, right? Giving time for people to digest and take it in. You may want to re-anchor on objectives, or again, as I said, if there's a brief or something to respond to, but you want to break the tension with clarity or some level of a practical next step. All right, the next one is the turn away. They're looking out their window, they're picking up a trusty device, their side angle. This might be harder to tell if you're in Teams or a Zoom meeting because depending on the angle of a camera, um, you know, my camera is up there, some people's camera is down here. Uh, it just really depends. So it might be a little harder to tell if it's around um uh a video conferencing environment. But if they're looking away, they're looking past you, they're not looking at you, uh, this is a signal that they are disengaged, there's some sort of uncomfortableness there. It might be that they don't agree, but they don't want to say it. They might be done with the conversation. If it's your boss or a senior leader, relevance is missing, they've moved on. Um, if it's a client or a customer, you perhaps have lost the narrative or you haven't showed them the value proposition. And if it's a direct report, they might feel misunderstood or called out, or maybe they've shut down. So if you see this, you want to think through and make the conversation relevant again, right? So let me connect in with why this matters, remind them of why we're here and why this matters. Um, you know, you might want to say, like, so what are you thinking right now? Or how's this landing with you? And just see, asking those open questions, those open-ending questions where they can go anywhere they want to go with it. And then also inviting them back for some level of collaboration, right? What option feels most aligned for you today? What option feels, you know, if you were to stack rank with the things that we talked about, how would you rank them, right? Asking them things that's not about their opinion per se, but it's about their opinion about the work or the content that you've been talking about. And these are some ways that can really help diffuse and start to read the body language. I find it interesting when people miss body language. I know I've missed body language at times. And when I'm in my head, I may not catch the body language of what's going on with someone. But when you start to point out the signals and know that someone is disconnecting or disengaging, even if they're physically there, you know something is off. Because if you compare it to a conversation that you're having with a friend or a relative or someone you love, when they're engaged, you know the difference. And that's what we're looking at. Um, it's also a good time to check in with them. If it's uh someone senior to you or someone you report to, or a client or a customer, you might want to check in with them also and say, like, look, I know you're busy, so I just want to know where you would want to go with this conversation. And that's also another way for all of these examples as to how you might re-engage and reconnect. Body language is not about being a mind reader, it's really about thinking through leadership presence. And the difference between pushing harder or selling more or trying to convince more, it's not gonna always work. You really want to think about is there a time to pause? And that space, you can hold that space. We don't have to fill every moment with words. Um, where we want to lean towards collaborating and engaging people versus convincing people or having it feel like it's too hard of a sales, right? When you start to see these signals, you're gonna notice them a lot more in other conversations. You might even notice them when you're watching content, right? You're watching uh any of your streaming networks, or if you watch a real, I'm a reality show girl, you watch the reality shows, you can totally tell um how how people are disengaged and they're not, but they're for whatever reason, they're not totally comfortable to say, you know what? I think I'm good for now. Can we wrap this and come back later? Right. And that's what would be an open and a courageous conversation, but not everyone's ready to do that. All right, friends, when you see these signals, I want you to really think about how you can pause, slow down, shift your response, and therefore have a greater chance of creating impact and influencing the outcome of what the conversation is. All right. You know, I want to hear from you. Tell me, are you noticing body language? What, how did you pivot in the moment? Teach me. What did you learn? Right. So send me an email at hello at JillGriffincoaching.com. I always love to hear from you. And as always, stay in possibility, be intentional, and always be kind. I'll see you soon.