Kim Zoller explains why reading people matters for executives: it's about catching behavioral shifts like finger tapping or foot movements that signal when someone's attention has dropped. Emotional intelligence and relationship management depend on noticing these nonverbal cues.
In Chapter 5 of Enhancing youg Executive Edge, we talk about how to read people. So first of all, reading people is critical to our executive edge because it is a major part of our emotional intelligence, our self management as well as management of our relationships. We have to be aware that people are giving us feedback all of the time. They're telling us through their bodies, are they engaged? Are they with us? Do they want to be listening? Do they want to be a part of that conversation? So it is awareness of what feedback they're giving us verbally and non verbally. For instance, if you're sitting with someone and they're still and they're engaged and then all of a sudden their body starts moving like they start tapping their finger or they start tapping their foot, we have to realize that something's changed. We need to read that situation and realize that they're not as engaged as they were a minute ago.
