Episode #199: Why Your Posture Is Important When Presenting

“Don’t round your back”, “Stand up straight”, “Pull your shoulders back”, are common parental commands when we were growing up. Kids do tend to have rounded shoulders and don’t stand up straight, but so what? Why are parents worried about their kids deciding to have a rounded rather than straight posture? The concerns relate to health based on a straighter posture allows better breathing to take place and better aligns the spine. The concerns also relate to public perception. A confident person has a straight back and stands tall, ergo anyone slouching around, obviously lacks confidence. We have all seen those studies that correlate height, with those in leadership positions. This leads to an idea that being taller and therefore standing straighter to enhance our height is a good idea. Now this may or may not be true, but there is that perception.

A speaker whether striding across the stage or plonked down in front of their laptop on screen, has to be sure they have the right posture. As speakers, we are trying to convince others to buy our philosophy, ideas, decisions, direction, strategy or suggestions. We want to marshal all of our resources behind that aim. Standing up straight and holding our chin up, so that we are looking ahead, rather than looking down is a good idea, if you want to instil confidence in you from the audience. We may choose to drop our chin and even lean forward toward the audience if we want to make a strong assertion, as we literally point our body language at the audience. That is a conscious choice, as opposed to a posture achieved through habit, that is permanently leaning forward.

When we get older, we start to lean forward from the hips. We can no longer stand up straight, as our backs become bent over. We basically look physically weaker compared to younger people standing up ramrod straight. Consequently, there is a mental linkage to poor posture and weakness in the common mind. As the presenter, we don’t want to appear to be weak, as this will negatively impact our credibility. So straight posture becomes associated with trust, reliability and respect.

When we are presenting online we have to be conscious of posture as well. I was on a webinar recently with multiple expert speakers, talking about how the current Covid-19 crisis has impacted their businesses. Two of them stood out, but in a negative way. One speaker had excellent, straight back posture but no clue on how to align the camera lens. He had the laptop on the desk and the lens was pointing up at him. He looked distant, superior, disdainful and aloof, because of the way he was engaging the camera. If he had raised the camera lens to eye level, he would have been projecting a completely different image, as a respectful, knowledgeable businessperson.

Another speaker had better height control of the camera lens, but was rounding his shoulders and leaning down and into the camera. It really stood out on the broadcast, how his rounded posture compared with everyone else. He didn’t look confident or knowledgeable. He also did a lot of umming and ahhing as well, which didn't help his cause to appear an expert member of the panel. So the speech hesitation, combined with the posture hesitation, added up to a big loss of credibility on what he was saying.

We need to get that camera height up to eye level. If we can stand up when presenting all the better. One of the speakers did just that and he was much better able than the others to use his body language to support the points he was making. He had the most authority amongst all of the speakers, just by how he presented himself. When presenting online, we need to sit up straight and keep looking into the camera lens. We have to maintain that posture throughout the session. Absolutely never sink into the back of your chair or slump into the back support. It looks way too casual when presenting. Sit up and a few centimetres away from the back support and try to be as vertical as possible in front of the camera.

Perception becomes a bigger factor when we are on the small screen of webinars. We have limited ways of expressing ourselves and so we have to make the most of the tools available to us. Getting the correct eye line and straight back doesn’t cost anything or take any great preparation. Having the right posture can make a huge difference to how we are perceived and how well our message is received.