The Power Is in Your Handsclasses and taught them as business strategies, which, with a
little practice and application, can dramatically influence any
face-to-face meeting, as you will see.
Dominance is transmitted by turning your hand (striped
sleeve) so that your palm faces down in the handshake (see
below). Your palm doesn't have to face directly down, but is
the upper hand and communicates that you want to take
control of the encounter.Our study of 350 successful senior management executives
(89% of whom were men) revealed that not only did almost all
of the managers initiate the handshake, 88% of males and
31% of females also used the dominant handshake position.
Power and control issues are generally less important to
women, which probably accounts for why only one in three
women attempted the Upper Hand ritual. We also found that
some women will give men a soft handshake in some social
contexts to imply submissiveness. This is a way of highlighting
their femininity or implying that domination of her may be
possible. In a business context, however, this approach can be
disastrous for a woman because men will give attention to her
feminine qualities and not take her seriously. Women who
display high femininity in business meetings are not taken seri-
ously by other business women or men, despite the fact that
it's now fashionable or politically correct to say everyone is the
Taking control