Presidential Presence

There have been a number of interesting articles about body use and language that have come out of the American presidential debates. Karen Bradley, head professor of the graduate program in dance at the University of Maryland, and a Laban movement analysis practitioner, has analyzed the movement of George Bush:

During a State of the Union address, Bush spent the entire speech swaying metronomically, straight down through his lower torso, a movement underscored, unfortunately, by the presence of a large vertical banner behind him. “Each shift ended with this focus that channels toward a particular place in the audience…It’s a little primitive, a little regressed.” The combination of the look, the sway, and the gaze was, to her mind, distinctly adolescent. When people say of Bush that he seems eternally boyish, this is in part what they’re referring to. He moves like a boy, which is fine, except that, unlike such movement masters as Reagan and Clinton, he can’t stop moving like a boy when the occasion demands a more grown-up response.

And recently on the Planet Waves blog the movement of McCain and Obama, Palin and Biden:

PALIN: Whenever she says “I am ready,” she’s really not answering the question. This means she isn’t adaptable to questions, nor is she listening. She’s all about persistence and no content. She’s really not saying anything, but she does it with great conviction.

McCAIN: Completely non-adaptable as well. Whatever is going on, he is not going to move. As maverick and leader of the “Straight Talk Express,” his stance didn’t shift or waffle. He owned the space he was in.　If he changes the message he believes in, he loses his grounding (meaning he verbally spurts, and his body lists like a ship). He wants you to believe he is holding down the fort, but it looks as though he doesn’t believe it himself. No moral center here.

BIDEN: Very consistent. What McCain should have been. He’s pointed, not broad. He’s got depth. He’s like grandpa: sometimes wise, sometimes goofy, but the goofiness is forgivable because he’s got depth.

OBAMA: He’s got challenges. Sometimes he wanders around the stage, but that’s when he is listening and thinking about how to respond. You don’t see this trait in any of the other candidates. He’s a very considerate and a good listener. He doesn’t appear to be impulsive. He decides deliberately. He has a center but also has tremendous range. Kids understand: This man is a grown up.

We like our leaders to have presence. We want them to be people we can trust. What we say with our bodies speaks volumes. And the body does not lie.

Next time you watch an organizational, community, political or global leader “speak” pay attention to what they are telling you with their body, energy and intonation and register. Pay attention to your responses. 

Ask yourself: what am I responding to? Words? Or something else?

Tags: biden, body language, leadership, mccain, obama, palin, somatics