A downward palm traditionally has a power signal of 4x more power. However, it also communicates that your audience is lower under your authority and can create resentment.

The power of downwards palms is apparent in history where we see Hitler’s salute included a strong downward palm – in order to assert dominance.

If you were to flip the palm to an upward position, for example, in the salute it would communicate a completely different story.

This topic was inspired by a TEDx talk I recently watched about the effects of body language, “Body language, the power is in the palm of your hands,” by the enthusiastic Allan Pease at Macquarie University.

Body language is key to understanding how you are communicating your positions. How are you holding yourself, is it in a way that comes off as dominate or friendly?

Allan Pease notes that “That the palm up speaker had up to 40% more retention of the deal than the palm down speaker. Palm up speaker had the best adjectives, laid-back, friendly, humorous, engaging. Palms turned over, authoritative, telling me what to do, pushy. ”

As you reflect on the signals that an upward vs downward palm convey, you may notice that you exhibit some authoritative behaviors that may dispell your audience. The good news is you can change and modify with practice.

Body language is an outward reflection of your emotional condition, but also you can influence your emotions and how you are feeling through your gesture, movements or posture.

Motion creates emotion.

If you take on good posture, keeping your back straight and focus during a meeting, you create emotion and are less likely to fall asleep and therefore convey disrespect.

How can we intentionally take certain physical positions and practice them to change how people perceive you and even change your own physiology?

I believe that increasing reflections and consciousness of your behaviors will result in better insight on how to create positive reactions to your proposals and ideas.