Thankfully, we also use more legitimate measures to size up new teammates. These include expertise, competence and commitment - all good indicators of whether a person will command others’ respect. But although educational and professional credentials may testify to these assets, they can be difficult to assess immediately. So at first we often revert to easily observable characteristics to determine who is worthy of leading the group.
All these findings suggest that the influence you’ll have on a group is largely predetermined by factors beyond your control. However, through a series of experiments, we have shown that anyone can achieve higher status on a team by temporarily shifting his or her mindset before a first meeting. First impressions matter more than ever, and you can improve the ones you make with a simple five-minute exercise.

A Push toward Proactivity
Because you can’t change your demographic characteristics, personality or rank to get ready for a big meeting, our focus is on mindset and behavior. Research tells us there are certain “competence cues,” such as speaking up, taking initiative and expressing confidence, that suggest leadership potential. These proactive behaviors can be good indications that a person has useful expertise, or they might simply reflect deep-seated personality traits such as extroversion and dominance. However, there’s increasing evidence that people can propel themselves into proactivity by temporarily shifting their psychological frame of mind.
We start with the two motivation systems that underlie much of our behavior. One, the avoidance or inhibition system, pushes us to steer clear of threats and adverse outcomes. The other, the approach system, concentrates our attention on achieving positive outcomes, and it’s this latter system that can spark the behaviors that lead to higher status.
In our research, we studied the effects of triggering three approach-based psychological states: promotion focus (defined as a focus on aspirations and goals), happiness and a feeling of power. Previous work by others has shown that all three activate the same left frontal regions of the brain, reduce the stress hormone cortisol and increase optimism and confidence. And these neurological effects lead to behavioral changes: For example, people primed to focus on promotion and happiness offer more ideas in brainstorming and guessing tasks. In our studies, we wanted to know whether these mindsets would make people more proactive - and thus boost their status - in face-to-face group interactions.
Our priming method involved a simple exercise that you can do right now or before your next team project kickoff. To shift people toward a promotion focus, we asked them to write a few paragraphs describing their ambitions and what they hoped to achieve in life. To make them feel more powerful, we had them describe an incident in which they had power over another person. And to stimulate happiness, we had them write about a time when they felt excited and joyful. Other study participants were primed to be in the opposite avoidance-oriented psychological state (describing their duties and obligations rather than their aspirations, a time when someone had power over them or a sad experience). A third set of participants weren’t primed either way.
We then put people into same-sex groups of three - one person primed with an approach orientation, one primed with the opposite avoidance orientation and one in a neutral state. Their task was to work together to make a group decision, such as determining the best way to launch a company. Afterward, teammates rated one another on status and proactivity.
The effects were clear. People made to feel promotion-focused, powerful or happy before the group task behaved more proactively and achieved significantly higher status than those in other states. For example, in one experiment, 60% of those primed with an approach orientation were described by at least one teammate as the “leader of the group” - nearly double the rate expected by chance.
Our conclusion: It’s pretty easy to push yourself into the kind of proactivity that marks you as a person worthy of respect - someone others want to follow.

An Enduring Effect
How far does that first impression take you, though? We know from previous research that the behavioral changes stemming from a primed mind are fleeting: Duration estimates range from a few minutes to an hour. But our experiments offered evidence that the effects can last longer in the context of a newly formed group. This is because team hierarchies not only arise quickly but also produce reinforcing patterns that lock them in. Workers who are initially perceived as valuable and afforded high status on a team continue to be seen that way, even when their contributions are equal to those of others. And the way they are treated - for example, being given more valuable information or more speaking opportunities - leads them to perform at a higher level and protects their elevated position.
We confirmed our finding by having participants in two of our studies return 48 hours after their original group interaction and rejoin the same teams to complete two more tasks. They spent 20 minutes together generating an idea for an environmental organization and five minutes estimating statistics (for example, the percentage of Americans who use dental floss daily). Once the job was done, participants completed the same proactivity and status rankings as before, and the results were again clear. The people who had been made to feel powerful or happy two days earlier continued to wield more influence over their teammates.
Our conclusion: The temporary mindset that you bring to an initial group meeting can have a lasting impact on your status and influence with your teammates.

Putting it to Work
Before you embark on your next group project or have your first interaction with colleagues you don’t know well, try these priming tasks. We’ve found consistent results across all approach orientations - regardless of whether people thought about their aspirations and ambitions, their experiences with power or times they were happy. So pick the mindset that feels most authentic for you.
Conventional wisdom says that success comes from having the right attributes, or from being in the right place at the right time. Our research suggests that it is also a matter of being in the right frame of mind at the right time.

* Adam D. Galinsky is a professor of business at Columbia Business School. Gavin J. Kilduff is an assistant professor of management and organizations at New York University’s Stern School of Business.

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OTHER WAYS PRIMING CAN

Foster Success
Temporarily shifting to an approach-oriented mindset doesn’t just help you gain status in groups.
It can also improve your interviewing, negotiating and speaking skills.

Get the Position
In a study with colleagues from the University of Cologne, Insead, and Northwestern University, we explored how priming students for power affected their success in practice interviews for business school. One set of students heading into these interactions were told to think about a time they had power, and another to think about a time someone had power over them. Candidates in the former category saw their odds of acceptance increase by 81% compared with a baseline control group and 162% compared with those primed to feel low power. Interviewers, who weren’t aware that the students had been primed in any way, said the students in the high-power condition seemed more confident and persuasive.

Seal the Deal
In another experiment with colleagues from the University of Toronto, the University of Utah and the University of Cologne, we found that priming people with a promotion focus made them more successful in business deals. Participants were asked to engage in a mock sales negotiation for a pharmaceutical plant, and buyers were told to spend no more than $25 million. Those primed for promotion made more aggressive and confident first offers and paid almost $3 million less, on average, than their counterparts who were primed to avoid risks and prevent negative outcomes. We conducted another study, this time priming for power, and found similar effects - power-primed negotiators got better deals because they became more proactive at the bargaining table.

Nail the Speech
Finally, working with researchers from San Diego State University and using rigorous acoustical analysis, we learned that power priming can even alter one’s voice. After thinking about a time when they had power, study subjects varied their pitch less and their volume more. When we later played recordings of these and other voices for independent parties, they identified those primed for power as sounding more authoritative. Analysis of Margaret Thatcher’s voice before and after she became Britain’s prime minister (and reportedly after voice coaching) showed the same change. Like our study participants, she maintained a steadier pitch but shifted between loud and quiet more often as she gained authority and status. Keywords:Business, leaders, leadership, strategy, personality, priming, power, success, research, management.

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