Specific Behaviors Can Close the Gap Between Intent and Impression

“Show more confidence,” “be more assertive,” and “be more approachable” sound like feedback, but they do not tell someone what to do differently. Cara Alter says that what gets described as a character flaw is often a specific, observable behavior—a skills gap that may be easier to address than a verdict on someone’s personality.

Lauren, a student Alter taught at Stanford, described herself as painfully shy and timid around new people. At a new job, however, her manager told her that coworkers found her aggressive and judgmental. Lauren could not reconcile that assessment with how she felt.

Alter noticed that when Lauren was nervous or intimidated, her face became unusually still and her posture rigid. What felt internally like panic looked externally like a cold stare. Alter suggested that she loosen her facial expression and reach outward rather than close up when uncomfortable. The mismatch was not necessarily between Lauren’s intentions and her character, but between what she felt and what her behavior communicated.

Eugene’s experience involved a different signal. He was frustrated that people in meetings did not acknowledge his ideas. Alter told him his voice was very soft—level two or below on her five-point scale—and that she was missing about half of what he said. When Eugene asked the other seminar participants if they had noticed, they nodded. They had been too polite to tell him.

Eugene had been carrying the belief that the problem was his character: perhaps his ideas were weak, or he was not worth listening to. The more immediate explanation, Alter told him, was that people could not technically hear him. In both cases, translating an impression into a behavior offered a more specific place to start than treating the impression as a judgment of the whole person.

Alter’s broader claim comes from her 25 years studying nonverbal communication. She says that assessments of credibility, confidence, and leadership presence are not entirely subjective: certain behaviors tend to produce predictable impressions. Recognizing those cues, in her account, can give people more control over the image they project. That general claim is distinct from any single prescription: the specific behaviors she recommends are practical cues she says many people can adopt, not a complete or universal formula for credibility.

Alter focuses on two behaviors she calls keystones of “visible credibility”: posture and voice. The advice may sound familiar—sit up straight and speak up—but she argues that familiarity can lead people to assume these habits do not need deliberate practice.

Her definition of strong posture is specific. When standing, balance weight equally over both feet. Standing or sitting, keep the spine and shoulders arranged in a T. Alter describes this as requiring “literal core strength”: a steady spine rather than one that collapses or wavers. In her demonstration, she contrasts the aligned posture with a more flexible, slackened spine, which she says diminishes the appearance of leadership presence.

She also advises keeping the head level and allowing it to move independently on the shoulders, “like a camera on a tripod.” The nose and eyes should point in the same direction. When looking at someone, both should turn toward that person rather than the eyes moving independently of the face. Alter says that when the cues separate, a speaker may look uncomfortable, sneaky, mischievous, judgmental, or skeptical, regardless of what they feel.

Her shorthand is to let physical alignment support the impression a person wants to convey: a strong spine and level head for groundedness; a straight-on orientation for directness; and an open posture that reaches outward to create connection.

Voice volume, in Alter’s demonstration, is a matter of calibration rather than simply speaking as loudly as possible. On her five-point scale, level two is audible, but listeners have to do the work. Level three is average: adequate, she says, but likely to leave opportunities for connection and influence unused. Level four is optimal for the situation, taking account of the room, its acoustics, and the circumstances. At level five, the speaker has gone one step too far; what felt connecting at level four can begin to make listeners put up boundaries.

The narrow gap between enough and too much helps explain why people may settle for average delivery. Average feels safe, Alter says, and may draw no corrective feedback because it is “fine.” But staying there can mean missing the chance to be exceptional. Her target is not maximum volume: the appropriate level depends on the setting, and level five can produce the opposite of the connection the speaker wants.

Some people, Alter says, have a mismatch between their internal measure of how loud they are and the volume others hear. She calls this a “meter issue.” The point of her scale is to make the calibration concrete: the aim is to be audible and connecting in a particular room, not to be loud for its own sake.

Jamie, a young woman in one of Alter’s programs, saw herself as a capable go-getter and a future leader, but felt that senior colleagues did not believe in her. During an on-camera coaching exercise, Alter noticed a mismatch between that self-image and the signals Jamie was sending: a small, asymmetrical posture, eyes cast down, and a thin voice with upward inflections.

Alter coached her to balance her weight over both feet, level her shoulders, raise her gaze, open her gestures, use a fuller voice with downward inflections, and make eye contact with the people in front of her. After making the changes, Jamie looked to Alter like the self-assured aspiring leader she believed herself to be. Asked how it felt, Jamie replied, “Phony. This isn’t me.”

Alter says that stepping outside familiar habits can feel unnatural. But she argues that a familiar posture or vocal pattern is still a habit; familiarity alone does not make it more authentic. She defines authenticity as alignment: the adjectives a person uses to describe themselves are the same ones other people would use. If someone sees themselves as ready for more responsibility but their behavior obscures that potential, changing the behavior can represent them more accurately rather than make them inauthentic.

Video helped Jamie see the difference. Alter says Jamie was surprised by the before-and-after footage and became motivated to practice the new behaviors until they felt second nature. Alter acknowledges that people often dislike watching themselves on video, but says that improvement can depend less on ability than on awareness. Most people, she argues, are capable of changing a behavior; they may simply not know it needs to change.

Alter’s own example of a blind spot is deliberately small. After playing with her children one morning, she took them to preschool and went about her errands. People greeted her with unusually warm smiles. She interpreted their friendliness as a change in the world around her. At home, she saw in the mirror that she had forgotten the kitty nose and whiskers she had drawn on her face while playing.

No one had mentioned them. Alter’s explanation was that people assumed she knew: the marks were so obvious that they seemed unlikely to be accidental. She draws two lessons from the incident. People may not provide outside feedback because they assume someone is already aware of what they are doing. And people respond to the signals they receive, whether or not the person sending them knows those signals are there. Those reactions can, in turn, affect how the sender feels. By the time Alter got home, she said, she was bubbling over with positive energy and had credited the change to everyone else.

Her advice is to seek an outside view deliberately, even by recording oneself on a phone at home. A recording can help someone notice their posture, gaze, and voice rather than rely only on their internal sense of how they come across. Alter’s proposed starting cues are a grounded stance, strong spine, level shoulders and head, and full voice. She does not present them as the only route to credibility, or as requirements for everyone: people who cannot use a particular guideline can demonstrate visible credibility in other ways. But she argues that these behaviors are relatively easy for many people to adopt, and can make a substantial difference.