Amy Klobuchar Body Language. Body Language of a Leader or a Bully,

Stories about Amy Klobuchar's mistreatment of her staff have dominated headlines since the Minnesota senator announced her run for president earlier this month.

Ex-staffers say Klobuchar emails at all hours of the night berating them for minor mistakes in all caps, humiliates them verbally and has even thrown objects, once accidentally hitting an aide with a flying binder, as BuzzFeed News reported. In multiple news reports, they describe an atmosphere of constant anxiety and fear that contrasts with the senator's outward "Minnesota nice" brand.

But other staffers have praised her for the high standards and expectations she has for her office, and for being a great mentor who's always there for them through major life events. And even though this behavior is clearly unacceptable for any boss, some have argued that there are gendered overtones in how her management style is discussed and the fact that it's overshadowing her presidential run. Consider that Klobuchar is high on the list of "worst bosses" in Congress because of her high staff turnover — but also that, according to Vox, in 2016 about a third of female senators were considered worse bosses than about 96% of male senators. Sounds like there might be another factor involved.  When asked about her behavior, Klobuchar reverts to a line about being as tough on America as she is on her staff. When George Stephanopoulos posed the question to her on ABC News, she replied, "I am tough. I push people, that is true, but my point is that I have high expectations for myself, I have high expectations for the people that work for me, and I have high expectations for this country." Then, when he asked whether she's ready to handle the scrutiny that comes with running for president, she made a point to say that she has "grit" and has overcome adversity, including her dad struggling with alcoholism and her daughter being sick when she was born.

Will this work with voters? Patti Wood, body language expert and author of Snap: Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language, and Charisma, said she thinks voters will absolutely care about Klobuchar's treatment of staff, and that they will, unfortunately, care more because she's a woman. Justifying her behavior by saying she has high expectations for the country was not quite convincing, said Wood. "She was tense, her voice got tight, she was very uncomfortable and trying to overcome that discomfort."

She added: "It worked. It was memorable, and I know people were quoting it afterward. These were well-crafted talking points."

Wood said she noticed that Klobuchar "grimaced" as she said, "I have high expectations for this country."

"I think it's because the line didn't work for her somehow. There was something she was conflicted about and she didn't sell that line. She didn't sound or look like she believed it," she said.

In a CNN town hall, Klobuchar struck a similar note, talking up her long career of managing people. "Am I a tough boss sometimes? Yes. Have I pushed people too hard? Yes. But I have kept expectations for myself that are very high. I've asked my staff to meet those same expectations. The big point for me is that I want the country to meet high expectations," she said.

Here, Wood said she sounded a little more convincing, but she still had her doubts. "The way it came out, it sounded like an excuse for her bullying rather than what it should have done, which is leave us with the impression that she's going to be tough on America because it's a great country. I found it interesting that she's being accused of bullying and she seems nervous and tense, that doesn't bode well."

When it comes to Klobuchar's "baseline," however — when she's talking about issues that aren't as touchy as her treatment of staff, such as student debt — Wood said she seems more comfortable, which is telling.

Wood noted that she thought it was interesting when Klobuchar showed some vulnerability. "When she started talking about her experience with her alcoholic dad, that tactic was so fascinating to me because it was appealing to her vulnerability and the pain she's been through in her life that has made her tough," she said. "It worked effectively, but a guy could probably not have pulled that off."

https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2019/02/225481/amy-klobuchar-body-language?fbclid=IwAR1wTwnXvKSBhLTQbL4o4Onu8s4BN-nWsFI2oYXudeEj2wh8VFw7iCbxieAPatti Wood, MA - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at www.snapfirstimpressions.com.
     

Rami Malek & Lucy Boynton's Oscars 2019 Kiss Reveals, Body Language Expert Patti Wood

In Elite Daily

Forget the awards — the real crowning moment of this year’s Academy Awards was Rami Malek kissing his girlfriend Lucy Boynton when he was announced as Best Actor winner. This couple has had everyone swooning since they confirmed their relationship back in January, so naturally, the internet collectively lost its cool on Sunday night when this went down. Since this is one of the couple’s first public appearances together, all eyes are on them — and Rami Malek and Lucy Boynton's Oscars 2019 kiss did not disappoint.

To catch you up to speed, Malek and Boynton met in 2017 while filming Bohemian Rhapsody in London, and they’ve been hanging out ever since. It’s assumed that they’ve been dating for quite awhile now, but Malek only recently went public about their real-life romance, calling Boynton “my love” as he accepted his Breakthrough Artist Award at the 30th Annual Palm Springs International Film Festival’s Film Awards Gala on Jan. 3. Since then, they’ve totally dialed up the PDA, and fans are here for it.

Malek and Boynton are clearly great together on-screen, but to get some context for what all this might mean about their chemistry IRL, I reached out to body language expert Patti Wood. She had a lot to say about Malek and Boynton’s body language at the Oscars, but most of all, she found the kiss to be seriously revealing. Here’s how it all went down, in case you missed it:

mean… OMG. For starters, we can see that each of them is an active participant in this kiss. Malek leans in, Boynton pulls his head in toward hers to make it passionate, and then he leans in again for a tender smooch. Wood says this is a great sign of their chemistry. “You have both members of the couple initiating it — he initiates, she makes it passionate, he makes it tender,” she explains.

If you check out the full video, you can see that Boynton helps Malek wipe lipstick off his face before he goes onstage. "That tells me more than any other aspect that they have an intimate relationship,” Wood says. “She's care-taking.” It’s totally unplanned and shows how much attention she is paying to her man.

The couple also kisses three times in total here, which isn’t a coincidence. Wood explains what she refers to as the “theory of three” — when things happen three times in succession, it usually means something.

“The fact that this happens three times feels like completion,” she notes. “It’s a signal that it is real.” Nothing about this moment feels staged because the couple clearly can’t get their hands off each other, and they’re acting like there is no one else in the room.

Another sweet thing to notice is that when Malek’s name is announced, he turns immediately to his lady. “The kiss started when he was still seated, and that tells us that she is the most important,” Wood says. “He went to her first instead of getting up ... when you rise, you're making the focus on you.” Malek wants to share this moment with Boynton before acknowledging anyone else.

When you compare this kiss to the couple’s interactions the rest of the night, it makes the moment even more powerful. Wood notes that Malek has a tendency to look uncomfortable on the red carpet. “The rest of their photos indicate that he has a lot of tightness,” she says. “He's not at ease at all … but once he wins, there is a relief for them.” He’s gaining comfort, and by the time his name is announced, he seems more relaxed. Boynton is by his side the whole way.

If I wasn’t already obsessed when I saw this kiss, now I stan Malek and Boynton more than ever before. Who doesn’t love a couple with such an authentic, magnetic connection? I can’t wait to see them at more events together in the future, and maybe we’ll see Malek relax on the red carpet as he grows accustomed to the spotlight — because after that Best Actor win, it doesn’t look like his star status will die down anytime soon.

Ivanka Trump Is Acting. AOC Is Not. That's A Key Difference In Their Body Language.


Ivanka Trump Is Acting. AOC Is Not. That's A Key Difference In Their Body Language.Patti Wood, MA - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at www.snapfirstimpressions.com.
     

Ivanka Trump Is Acting. AOC Is Not. That's A Key Difference In Their Body Language.

Now that the House Oversight Committee is looking to interview Ivanka Trump, a real showdown between Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the first daughter might be in store.

NATALIE GONTCHAROVA

FEBRUARY 28, 2019, 3:05 PM

Earlier this week, sentient skim vanilla latte with no whip Ivanka Trump and straight-talking socialist/right-wing obsession Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez clashed on whether Americans have the right to jobs that pay a living wage. The millionaire who used to hang out with Paris Hilton in St. Tropez said absolutely not; the former bartender from the Bronx who lost her father to cancer and whose family went into debt, their house on the verge of foreclosure, said absolutely yes.

In a recent interview with Fox News' Steve Hilton, which will air in full on Sunday, Ivanka criticized the jobs guarantee in AOC's Green New Deal program.

"I don't think most Americans, in their heart, want to be given something," she said. "I’ve spent a lot of time traveling around this country over the last four years. People want to work for what they get. So, I think that this idea of a guaranteed minimum is not something most people want. They want the ability to be able to secure a job. They want the ability to live in a country where's there's the potential for upward mobility."

AOC fired back at Ivanka, tweeting: "As a person who actually worked for tips and hourly wages in my life, instead of having to learn about it second-hand, I can tell you that most people want to be paid enough to live. A living wage isn’t a gift, it’s a right. Workers are often paid far less than the value they create."

Ivanka's widely slammed statement was also widely shared, which was part of the intent to drum up the base for her father's reelection campaign and distract the media from the Michael Cohen hearing, where Trump's former lawyer and "fixer" said quite a few damning things about the fam.

Now that the House Oversight Committee is looking to interview Ivanka and Don Jr., a real showdown between AOC and the first daughter and White House advisor might be in store. Patti Wood, body language expert and author of Snap: Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language, and Charisma, analyzed the body language of both women and told us what we can expect.

"Here's the problem with her: So much of what she does is a performance, I don't see very much real there. It's pretty difficult to see what's real for her and what's not," Wood told Refinery29 when asked whether she thinks Ivanka's statement seemed auåthentic.

It's no surprise that Ivanka's words rang hollow to everyone but the most diehard Trump loyalists: Even if we, for one minute, allowed that she had a point, does anyone really think she believes what she's saying? And not just believes it, but actually cares about it?

For a bunch of transparent talking points, the statement was well-written, said Wood. But it wasn't the spontaneous delivery of a person who knows what they're talking about — which is what Ivanka is ostensibly supposed to be — it was a crafted-to-death GOP message delivered through the most attractive vessel they have.

Ivanka appeared unusually uncomfortable and "very frozen" as she anticipated Hilton's question, said Wood. "It was very odd. It's on Fox News! She should be fairly relaxed." She also adjusted her hair, which is an "anxiety cue." When she talked about traveling the country, Wood said it seemed particularly inauthentic. "Personally, I found it bizarre, the fact that she was drawing these conclusions about the American people. She's isolated with security guards when she travels."

As someone who coaches politicians on public speaking, Wood said she is confident that Ivanka has been extensively tutored to change her voice in order to sound "more authoritative, knowledgeable, and intelligent." While she used to sound more "flirty" with interviewers, she has made a lot of effort to lower her pitch, articulate more, and slow down her delivery. Over time, she's also developed an affect to her voice. This type of vocal change can work wonders on the right audience — and clearly it already does.

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As Ivanka finished her answer, Wood noted that she looked flustered and her eyes closed. "I think it's because she's finished acting — she kind of stretches out and shuts her eyes, like she's done performing."

Contrast Ivanka's body language with that of AOC, who recently tweeted that bartending and waitressing in NYC, where she's had to talk to thousands of customers, has prepared her for her skilled, deliberate questioning of Michael Cohen in Wednesday's hearing.

AOC's delivery is stronger, faster, and there's an energy underneath it, said Wood. "Her gestures show that she's trustworthy and honest. When identifying integrity or deception in a statement, you look for when the gesture occurs. When someone is being authentic, they gesture just before or at the moment of their statement," Wood told us in December, pointing out how AOC gestures to emphasize key points. "She does that, over and over again. What happens in your primitive brain is that you trust, you believe, because it's in sync. It almost musical, it makes you feel good to watch her."

When analyzing someone's body language for authenticity, Wood said, she also looks for emotion. "There's a chutzpah when AOC speaks. So you know she's feeling what she's talking about, it's what she believes in and there's an authenticity there." She recommended watching both women speak with the sound off and taking note of who makes you feel more comfortable. For her, that's AOC.

While that's a subjective question, this is for sure: If it indeed happens, we'll be tuning in to see Oversight Committee superstar AOC grill Ivanka on her family's business dealings. Either way, we'd watch these two debate any day — not on Twitter or through proxies, but in real time. CNN, you know this town hall would get much higher ratings than the Howard Schultz one. Make it happen.

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https://youtu.be/IkSprbfcFMc



Patti Wood - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at www.snapfirstimpressions.com.
     

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Body Language Questioning Michael Cohen

From an article, I contributed for Bustle with the full link below to the article.

Ocasio-Cortez, on the other hand, gained praise for the way she sharply got Cohen to give the committee a list of names of Trump associates who have inside knowledge of certain troubling practices by the president and because she pushed the case for Democrats to subpoena his tax returns. "It was very clear that she was prepared ... She was deliberate and forceful — but not rude, which was distinctly different from a lot of the Republican representatives who yelled and screamed," Patti Wood, author of Snap: Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language, and Charisma, told Refinery29. She added: "What I found most interesting is she was listening to what he said. That's actually unusual. She listened and then she did follow-up questions based on what he said instead of going into the next question. ... She was focused on her goal: To get information."

The 29-year-old congresswoman, who sexist critics have often derided as a "bimbo" who has no place in Congress because she used to be a bartender, spoke frankly of how the new crop of freshman congresswomen — specially those who are millennials like her and Hill, or people of color like her, Tlaib, and Pressley — consistently face the fatal duality of nearly impossible standards to meet and the absolute lowest of expectations they will get there. "People think it’s a joke when folks say we have to work 2x as hard for the same seat. Whether you believe it or not, the upside is when we do get here,we’re used to being held to a diff bar," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted. "To being doubted. To getting new hoops thrown @ us last min. So we know how to perform."

If Wednesday's hearing was any proof, however, the freshman congresswomen are only getting started.

https://www.refinery29.com/en-us/2019/02/225652/alexandria-ocasio-cortez-questions-michael-cohen-freshman-congresswomen?fbclid=IwAR1Vbyh-AFwB7FzAUEgMXYiKpsApUCpr9tcBxgSrMLUV3_-9rQj4tj_C0T

Patti Wood, MA - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at www.snapfirstimpressions.com.
     

Michael Cohen's Body Language During His Congressional Hearing

Feb. 27, 2019, will be remembered as the day President Donald Trump's former fixer Michael Cohen publicly spilled the tea to Congress. The former Trump attorney spent the better part of Wednesday fielding questions from members of the House Oversight Committee about his decade-long history with the president. A lot was discussed, but there's a whole other layer of the public hearing that's worth taking a look at. Michael Cohen's body language during his congressional hearing shows he was prepared.

On the second day of a three-day stretch of testimonies, Cohen appeared before the House Oversight Committee on Feb. 27 for the only public hearing he'll be taking part in. While Cohen shared a lot about his time with Trump, including more on Stormy Daniels' alleged affair with Trump — which the president denies— there was one glaring portion of the hearing that couldn't be overlooked: Cohen has a history of lying to Congress. In December, Cohen was sentenced to three years in prison after pleading guilty to multiple crimes, including lying to Congress about the length of time the Trump Tower in Moscow deal extended into Trump's 2016 presidential campaign, according to CNN. He will begin his sentence in May.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told Newsweek in a statement that "it’s laughable that anyone would take a convicted liar like Cohen at his word."

But clearly, people were interested. On Feb. 27, Cohen appeared before Congress in an intense hearing that addressed a lot of the things we all wanted to know, including details of the hush-money payment Cohen admittedly made to Daniels over the alleged affair, alleged conversations about the 2016 Trump Tower meeting with a Russia-associated lawyer, and even whether the 2016 Trump campaign may have colluded with Russia. But, what can we believe?

Body language expert Patti Wood tells Elite Daily by email that figuring out whether Cohen is telling the truth or not is "difficult to discern because he is a practiced, rehearsed, known liar." She added, "If someone has justified for decades doing unethical things and lying on a regular basis, tells dissipate," she said, referencing the physical cues that indicate a lie.

However, Wood did say that when it came to Cohen saying negative things about Trump — like in his opening statement where he called him a "con man" and a "cheat," she thinks Cohen believed what he was saying, thanks to the "strength in his voice and definitiveness in his head movements and small spontaneous forward movements."

"He was honest and authentic [in] his delivery of those specific statements about Trump," Wood added.

One of the most memorable moments in Cohen's testimony was when he castigated lawmakers, as well as himself, for supposedly enabling President Trump. In response to Rep. Jim Cooper (D-Tennessee)'s question about when he reached his "breaking point" with the president, Cohen said,

Helsinki, Charlottesville, watching the daily destruction of our civility to one another. Putting up silly things like this. Really unbecoming of Congress. It's that sort of behavior that I'm responsible for. I'm responsible for your silliness because I did the same thing that you are doing now for 10 years. ... I can only warn people the more people that follow Mr. Trump as I did blindly are going to suffer the same consequences that I'm suffering.

Wood thinks that yes, his anger is real. "The synchronicity of his statements with his facial expressions and head movements indicate that he is honestly angry and indignant," she notes.

On the other hand? Cohen may be performing, she says. "There was also a moment here where he asked for a break and he breathed and relaxed and smiled little bit," she says. "That made me realize he thinks he’s doing a really good job, and again, there there is bit of performance."

Wood has some insight into another one of the biggest moments of the hearing — when Cohen said he doesn't know of any "direct evidence" of Russian collusionbut "has [his] suspicions."

"Under that one line of questioning Cohen immediately changed his body language and vocal delivery," she says. She points out that Cohen took more than a few pauses and "hemmed and hawed" while looking around, taking on the appearance of someone "not very smart." She thinks it appeared to be an act, due to its lack of spontaneity. "It was clear to me he was actually very smart, well prepared, [and] very careful about his wording," she says. "For example, he was correcting those who questioned him [and was] very particular about certain words like 'collusion.'”

It's an interesting situation to have a witness who is also going to jail for lying while dishing on the president. It just goes to show — nothing is impossible in 2019.

https://www.elitedaily.com/p/michael-cohens-body-language-during-his-congressional-hearing-says-a-lot-16407547?fbclid=IwAR0Kpltljs-rqkKqbOt2hszBqqkrDQV7ztrxPtVgCsOCCruLmzgx5OFuJIc

Patti Wood, MA - The Body Language Expert. For more body language insights go to her website at www.PattiWood.net. Check out Patti's website for her new book "SNAP, Making the Most of First Impressions, Body Language and Charisma" at www.snapfirstimpressions.com.