Vanessa Van EdwardsScience of People, Science Of People · Behavioral Researcher, Founder, Author, Harvard Instructor

You Have 200 Milliseconds To Sound Confident

29 May 2026 · 1 min

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In this YouTube excerpt, Vanessa Van Edwards explains that listeners form judgments about a speaker's confidence within roughly 200 milliseconds of hearing them speak. She warns leaders against using question inflections when they feel nervous, as questioning sounds insecure. Instead, she advises delivering the first ten words in a low, natural tone without a question intonation, and framing statements declaratively rather than as questions. This vocal strategy, she argues, projects confidence and is contagious among teams.

Chapters

One of the mistakes that leaders use when they sense nervousness is they begin to question. Research has found that someone decides how confident we are within 200 milliseconds of hearing someone speak. I always make sure that my first 10 words, I say them in the lowest natural tone that I have without a question inflection. We don't like leaders who question. Question inflection sounds like this. I'm so happy to be here. My name is Vanessa Van Edwards. Excited to be back. We want our leaders to tell us. We want our leaders to be confident what they say. And so as a leader, you need to make sure you're not asking your name, you're not asking your opening line, you're not asking your statements, you're not asking your mission. You are stating, and that is very contagious.