Amy Cuddy

Amy Joy Casselberry Cuddy

Amy Joy Casselberry Cuddy (born July 23, 1972) is an American social psychologist, author and speaker. She is a proponent of "power posing", a self-improvement technique whose scientific validity has been questioned. She has served as a faculty member at Rutgers University, Kellogg School of Management (at Northwestern) and Harvard Business School. Cuddy's most cited academic work involves using the stereotype content model that she helped develop to better understand the way people think about stereotyped people and groups. Though Cuddy left her tenure-track position at Harvard Business School in the spring of 2017, she continues to contribute to its executive education programs.

Amy Cuddy

Quotes

• Our nonverbals govern how we think and feel about ourselves. Our bodies change our minds.
• I introduced my AP Physics students to power posing last spring. One student in particular was always so nervous during assessments and therefore her test scores did not represent her abilities at all. We all know that old saying about correlation and causation — and this was no scientific study — but from that day forward that student power posed before every physics test and her grades went from high 'C's and low 'B's to where she belonged — in the mid to lower 'A's. I'm convinced that power posing helped her even if it is difficult to prove.
  • Some examples of how power posing can actually boost your confidence TED Blog (1 October 2012).

• First, we have to define power: social or formal power is control over other people, their choices, their outcomes, and control of resources and decisions that affect other people,
• To have control over our own internal resources – so skills, knowledge, emotional intelligence, empathy – activates the behavioral approach system,” Cuddy notes. “It makes us more optimistic, able to take risks, create and be cognitively agile, courageous and even willing to protect or stand up for others when necessary. I think there’s a much greater focus on that kind of power today than there was 10 years ago.
• I still see men using body language that conveys dominance rather than confidence, “Feet too far apart, speaking too loudly, looking as if they’re trying to control, not connect with, the audience. And that just doesn’t work.
• Effective body language conveys a combination of confidence (not dominance) and trustworthiness, "It tells people, 'I'm comfortable and I’m worth listening to,' and also, 'I respect you and I'm interested in learning about you and earning your trust.' It's body language that's less choreographed, less scripted and more responsive to what's happening in the present.
• The 'bold, confident' leader as someone who never asks for help, who has all the answers, who shows little emotion or compassion – they're a thing of the past,
• A person's ability to be bold enough to take some personal risks and confident in a genuine, grounded way will, in my opinion, always be helpful to them in getting in the door and being heard.
• What 'boldness' and 'confidence' mean for leaders in the workplace has, to the benefit of everyone, evolved in the last decade, and even more so in the last few years, given the COVID-19 pandemic.
• I love working with the World Business Forum [...] I find the participants uniquely engaged and optimistic – they’re really happy to be there and always eager to understand and apply what they’re learning about.
• I have a different take, which I learned from Bob Chapman, CEO of Barry-Wehmiller and author of the bestselling leadership book Everybody Matters.
• He's a phenomenally successful leader and he does that not by focusing on recruiting new people, but by genuinely, compassionately taking care of and rewarding the people who are already working for him. He always tells me, "It's not about getting the right people on the bus; it’s about having a safe bus, and making sure that the person driving the bus – the leader – knows how to take the people to a better place.'"
• They're less tolerant of and more likely to reject abusive workplace situations [...] If employers want to keep good people, they're going to have to ask their employees what works for them and actually listen and adapt to their answers.
• It's this sense of company-wide empowerment that has the potential to take your business to new heights [...] We should strive to help everyone in our places of work to feel more powerful, because it tends to bring out the best in us.
  • How empowering employees can have exciting consequences for your business The CEO Magazine (5 March 2023)