Smiles bridge miles…. Smile often.
Prof. Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel Laureate for Economics in 2002, has studied extensively the effect and influence that words and actions have on our behaviour. In his book, Thinking Fast and Slow, Kahneman writes that in addition to words influencing our behaviour, “Simple, common gestures can also unconsciously influence our thoughts and feelings.” He cites a simple illustration of this concept, which you can try now.
Take a pencil and hold it between your teeth for a few seconds, with one end of the pencil pointing to your left and the opposite end of the pencil pointing to your right. Then hold the pencil between your teeth with the tip pointing straight in front of you, “by pursing your lips around the eraser end.”
Kahneman explains that, unknowingly, one of the actions forces your face to frown and the other to smile.
Can you guess which is which?
Holding the pencil across your mouth makes you ‘smile’ while the pencil pointing straight ahead of you makes you ‘frown.’
Kahneman argues that when smiling we are in a state of ‘cognitive ease’, and while frowning we are in a state of ‘cognitive strain.’
He explains the two states, “When you are in a state of cognitive ease, you are probably in a good mood, like what you see, believe what you hear, trust your intuitions, and feel that the current situation is comfortably familiar. You are also likely to be relatively casual and superficial in your thinking.”
On the other hand, with cognitive strain, “you are more likely to be vigilant and suspicious, invest more effort in what you are doing, feel less comfortable, and make fewer errors, but you also are less intuitive and less creative than usual.”
The best leaders appreciate that leadership is mental, they do not under-estimate the impact of the mental side of leadership.
As a leader, how do you and your people (team members) think and behave when smiling or frowning?
GAICD, M.Comp (Monash)
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