How To Increase Your Authority Through Finding Your Voice

Ever observe a verbal interaction between two people of different professional and / or social statuses?  Actually, that sounded too complicated.  How about this, ever listened to a conversation between a boss and their employee?  I do this all the time as part of my work and it’s always easy to pick out the employee from the employer just from the way they speak and stand.

The Wolf Analogy

See, human beings are pack animals and, much like other pack animals, we instinctively show dominance or submission through our voices and postures.  Just like a wolf that approaches the alpha (leader) wolf with its tail between its legs and then bears its throat, so too do humans give off these signs of who’s in charge and who’s not.

Unfortunately, many of us use this kind of submissive approach more than we should.  We use it with everyone, from our boss to the store clerk we interact with when we shop, and it causes us to lose authority.  In effect, we constantly  behave like that omega wolf, begging for scraps, even when we’re among equals or when positions are unknown.  Sadly, this is a self fulfilling prophecy.  When we behave as though we have no authority, people lose respect for us.  By talking and acting like we’re on the bottom of the social pecking order, we essentially place ourselves there.

Fortunately, the reverse is also true.  When we behave as though we have authority, people will naturally assume we do.  If we hold a conversion like an alpha wolf, people will treat us like one and accord us the respect they give to a leader.  Of course, we then have to back those words up with actions if we want to keep the respect that instinct gave us but that’s a matter for another post.  So for today, let’s focus on a few tips for holding a conversation like an alpha wolf.

• Don’t raise the pitch of your voice.  If you pay attention to the way people talk, you’ll notice that they tend to raise the pitch of their voices when they speak to their superiors.  Try to avoid this by keeping your voice at it’s natural pitch.
• Take up some space.  Alphas take all the space they want, omegas make do with the little space they get.  You’re an alpha remember?  Stretch out, don’t hunch down.  Straighten your back, hold your head up and take up all that space that you deserve.  If you’re sitting, relax and stretch out a bit.  This is especially applicable to women by the way.  Women have been taught that a “proper lady” crosses her legs and assumes a pose that minimizes her personal space.  This is just plain wrong and loses you quite a bit of that subconscious respect.
• Speak in measured tones – When we’re nervous, we tend to speak quickly.  If you want to appear confident, you’re going to speak in at a normal pace.
• Speak in normal volume – As with speed and pitch, we tend to modify our volume when we’re nervous.  In this case we tend to be quieter than usual.  While I don’t advocate yelling, you should speak with a normal tone.
• Maintain eye contact – Looking away (especially looking down) is another sign of weakness or lower social status among pack animals.  Maintain eye contact when appropriate and don’t look down.
• Stop fidgeting – Another nervous gesture, fidgeting could mean playing with something like keys or a pen, nervously touching your clothing or minor ticks like biting your lips.  Remember, the whole purpose here is to appear confident.
• Stop apologizing – When you’re afraid, you tend to say sorry for everything even when you have nothing to be sorry for.  Stop saying things like “I hope you don’t mind if we do this, it’s not intended to offend you…”  Just be polite and firm and say “This is what I think we should do.”  See the difference?  In the first example you seem unsure and apologetic, in the second example you seem like you know what you’re doing.
• Stop making jokes to lighten the mood – This is one I used to be guilty of.  When the conversation got a bit serious, I would make a joke to lighten the mood.  Guess what, this is another sign of weakness.  Some conversations are hard and some are serious.  Always going for the laughs guarantees that you’ll be seen as the joker, not as someone in authority.

All of these are ways in which you can appear more confident.  Once you start adopting these, you’ll find that people’s attitude towards you changes.  We are after all creatures of habit and instinct, and we tend to react by instinct to behaviors we have become accustomed to.  You should also note that these behaviors will actually increase your self confidence over time.  Even though it may feel a bit fake and forced at first, once you become accustomed to them, these behaviors will actually make that confidence a reality instead of a mask.  This is because you too are a creature of instinct.  Just as you reacted to your previous omega like behavior by reducing your confidence and increasing your nervousness, your new alpha mode will increase your own self confidence.

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By the way, as an interesting experiment, try observing the people around you and see how quickly you can spot the alpha and the omega in every conversation.  Once you start picking up the tricks, it’s not that hard.