Dr. Ruth Oji
Your body is communicating right now. Before you say a single word, your shoulders, your hands, your posture, and your breathing are already sending a message to everyone watching you. The question is: what message are you sending?
Nervous body language undermines everything you say. It doesn’t matter how brilliant your ideas are or how thoroughly you’ve prepared. If your body is trembling, if your shoulders are hunched, if your voice is shaky, people will doubt you. They’ll question whether you believe in what you’re saying. And if you don’t believe in yourself, why should they believe you?
What most people don’t realize is that when they stand in front of others, whether it’s a job interview panel, a departmental meeting, or a classroom presentation, people read their bodies before they process a single word. People see your shoulders and hands, and they watch how you stand. They notice how you breathe. All of these physical signals tell them whether to trust you and take you seriously.
I see this constantly in Nigerian workplaces and universities. A junior staff member has a brilliant idea in a meeting but presents it while hunched over, arms crossed defensively, voice barely audible. The idea gets dismissed — not because it’s bad, but because the delivery made it seem unimportant. A lecturer gives feedback to a student but does it while fidgeting with papers, avoiding eye contact, shoulders tense. The student leaves thinking the lecturer is angry with them personally, when really the lecturer was just uncomfortable delivering criticism. A job candidate answers interview questions perfectly but sits with their hands clasped tightly in their lap, knees pressed together, body rigid. The panel decides they “lack executive presence.” What they really mean is that the candidate’s body language made them doubt them.
