> The fun part is watching people actually try to control their body language in reality. You can try, but if you aren't feeling what that "power pose" is broadcasting, you'll just look like an idiot to anyone even remotely paying attention.

The article describes a scientific (?) experiment that goes counter that intuition.

What I've noticed after years of trying to hack my emotional give-away, is that it's really hard to fake being confident when you're nervous, especially around people who know you for a while.

However, when dealing with people who don't know you, you can easily fake being important or nobody, for a short period of time. This is not always useful, and could backfire (especially if you are "elevating" your power), but I've found some limited scenarios where altered first impression gives you an edge.

I sort of agree. I find that avoiding bad sorts of physical signals is definitely useful, but consciously instantiating new signals in a convincing way is (surprisingly) very difficult.

That said, there are a few people who are really good at this stuff. One technique is based more on directly altering your mood rather than consciously positioning your body, and some people just seem better able to manipulate their mood than others.

There's some overlap between leadership and not caring too much what others think.

The stereotypical brash alpha-male behaviours aren't necessarily affected. They can stem from just not even considering for a moment that you're not entitled to succeed, or to do as you please. While this can be annoying, it's also magnetic.