What Michele Bachmann says without saying

This piece is part of a roundtable with Post columnist Steven Pearlstein and three of our On Leadership expert contributors — Theresa Amato, D. Michael Lindsay and Carol Kinsey Goman — about Michele Bachmann’s leadership credentials and challenges.

Researchers call it “baby face bias”.

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Carol Kinsey Goman is an author and body language expert. Her books include “The Nonverbal Advantage” and “The Silent Language of Leaders.”

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Last week’s Republican debate was the first time this primary season that GOP presidential contenders went head to head before a national audience, and the coverage that followed showed Rep. Michele Bachmann emerging from the pack. Of course what she said played a major role, but perhaps what grabbed viewers’ attention even more was how she said it.

Today’s political figures are fully aware of, and heavily coached on, the impact of body language. They know that, when it comes to nonverbal cues, everything matters: gender, age, skin color, hair style, attractiveness, height, clothing, facial expressions, hand gestures, posture—audiences judge it all. Superficial? Maybe. But this potent, and often unconscious, process is also hardwired in the human brain. Two sets of nonverbal signals are especially important for presidential candidates to project: warmth and authority. Warmth cues project likeability and candor, and authority cues denote power and status. The most appealing politicians are those whose body language reflects both sets of signals, which Bachmann did—and more successfully than anyone else on stage that night.

Authority is nonverbally displayed through height and space, and Bachmann made up for her smaller physical stature by wearing high heels, standing tall and keeping her shoulders back. She also used arm and hand gestures that were sweeping and commanded space. Like Rick Santorum, Herman Cain and Newt Gingrich, Bachmann used a popular political hand gesture to emphasize her main points. All of them squeezed their fingers against their thumbs to make an “ok” type of gesture, and then rhythmically kept a beat as they spoke. This “finger tip touch” sends an image of authority but not aggression.

Yet unlike the other candidates, Bachmann also had the warm-cue advantage of “baby face bias,” a term used to describe the tendency found in human beings across all age ranges and cultures to read innocence and candor in faces with features that are similar to an infant’s. (These characteristics include a round head, big eyes, small nose, high forehead and short chin.) Add to that Bachmann’s gestures with open palms, which signaled candor and inclusion, and her smile. Research from Duke University proves that we like and remember those who smile at us, though using such cues deliberately but moderately is one of the most difficult balances for candidates to strike.

As Harvard Business School professor Teresa Amabile described in an aptly titled article, “Brilliant But Cruel,” we often see competence and warmth as being negatively related—warm leaders don’t appear as intelligent or skilled as those who are sterner, and tough leaders are judged far less likeable.

This was one of the main body language errors made by Sarah Palin, another subject of baby face bias. In the 2008 vice presidential debate, she overused  warm gestures, especially winks and smiles, which in turn lowered the perception of her authority and power.