Appearing confident

Once upon a time, I had a manager who cared very deeply about appearances. I don’t want to say it’s a bad thing, there are many people who care about appearances and I had already worked with a few, but when I started my job it caused me some surprising headaches. Let me rewind a little bit and describe the situation - just in case you find yourself in a similar place.

My manager, let’s call him Paul, would always come to work well dressed. Shiny shoes, pressed shirts, well trimmed hair, and he drove a nice car. I tend to be on the scruffier side and my 2005 Sunfire wasn’t exactly a sweet ride even 10 years ago. Because I was starting a new job though, I did make an extra effort to dress up a little and keep my hair in check. Every now and then Paul would say something like “why do you wear those old shoes?” or “do you think it’s time for a haircut?”. Not in a mean way, but it was my first clue that my appearance mattered to Paul and he was watching me. As the months went by, and we got to know each other, Paul would occasionally mention how much his parents cared about their appearance while he was growing up. That was a second clue. Finally, as I spoke with Paul during our one-on-one meetings, I got the feeling he sort of looked down on me. I don’t think I can describe it exactly, this happened many years ago and there were lots of other things going on at the time, but I had a sense he didn’t trust me. At 5 months into the job, I remember him saying something to me about my nonchalant attitude toward my work and “I wouldn’t have hired you”. Not a pleasant situation. I don’t recall anyone ever calling me nonchalant and I am very passionate about my work so something was going wrong here.

In fairness to Paul, whether he trusted me or liked me or not, he tried to work with me and eventually set me up with a mentor - let’s call him Nick. Nick happened to be a manager as well and as we talked about this situation - and Nick cringed at the way Paul was speaking to me - he did point out that the way I communicate didn’t inspire confidence.

Body Language

I’m not a confident person. I don’t exude confidence. If you spoke to me, you’d probably get the impression I’m doubtful about my abilities and opinions. There are people out there who can say something ridiculously false but say it so confidently that you’ll believe them. In 2024, it’s not hard to find people like that. That is just not me. For most people I’ve worked with, they notice my work and my work ethic and forgive my lack of confidence. For Paul, my lack of confidence or my average appearance came across as: I don’t care about my work.

As Nick and I talked, he recommended a book called Louder than Words written by a former FBI agent, Joe Navarro. The book talks about the importance of body language, how we speak, and the importance of making others around us comfortable. This book and the discussions with Nick changed things with Paul. It wasn’t an overnight change, but I made a few notes to myself on specific things:

• Use the same words as the person speaking to you. For example, when you are talking to your colleague about reporting a bug, are you “reporting the issue” or “filing a bug report” or “cutting a ticket”? Using the same words as the person you’re talking to takes a little burden off the other person. They will like working with you just a little bit more and they may not even be conscious of why.
• Make people comfortable. People work better with you when they are comfortable. Make eye contact, ask questions to make the person comfortable and listen to the answers, mirror their words back. Smile. If you can’t be confident, you can at least make people comfortable!
• Body language. Gravity defying behaviours (raised eyebrows, chin, fingers, feet) tends to show happiness or comfort or excitement. The opposite (slouching or dragging or pointing down) shows discomfort and so does pacifying behaviour like rubbing hands together or rubbing your legs. People generally want to work with others who are happy or comfortable or exciting.

The body language one in particular helped. There was a paragraph in the book about how you should never hide your thumbs. After reading that I made an effort to keep my thumbs out of my pockets during standup. I probably made other adjustments I don’t remember but I do remember the change was quick. It didn’t take more than a few weeks for Paul to stop pointing out my nonchalant attitude about my work. Maybe my attitude changed, maybe it just appeared to change, but it was working. Even if you are not a confident person, you can still do a few things to give people confidence in who you are. It matters. To quote from the book:

Act like you care (even when you don’t) because people won’t take you seriously if they think you don’t care about them or the discussion.

Looking ahead

It’s been years since I’ve seen Paul. We ended up working together for three years and I do think I eventually earned his trust. I’m writing this to remind myself of the importance of at least appearing confident. People will subconsciously read my body language while figuring out if they are comfortable around me. If I do a few small things like use their words in discussion, smile and ask them about themselves, or use optimistic gestures with my hands, it can make a big difference towards whether they want to work with me or not.