INSPIRATION
11 signs someone is lying to you
How do you know if someone is lying? Body language expert Lillian Glass shares some common signs.
• The signs that someone is lying aren’t always easy to decipher.
• And, unfortunately, there’s no way to determine whether or not someone’s being honest with 100% certainty.
• But there are some obvious signs that someone might be lying to you that you can watch out for.
How can you to tell if someone is lying to you? It’s a question people have probably been asking themselves since lies were invented.
Research by Dr. Leanne ten Brinke, a forensic psychologist at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, and her collaborators, suggests that our instincts for judging liars are actually fairly strong — but our conscious minds sometimes fail us.
Luckily, there are signs we can look for when trying to detect a lie.
Dr. Lillian Glass, behavioral analyst, body language expert, and “The Body Language of Liars” author, said when trying to figure out if someone is lying, you first need to understand how the person normally acts.
With that in mind, here are some signs that someone is lying to you:
1. People who are lying tend to change their head position quickly
If you see someone suddenly make a head movement when you ask them a direct question, they may be lying to you about something.
“The head will be retracted or jerked back, bowed down, or cocked or tilted to the side,” wrote Glass.
This will often happen right before the person is expected to respond to a question.
2. Their breathing may also change
When someone is lying to you, they may begin to breathe heavily, Glass said. “It’s a reflex action.”
When their breathing changes, their shoulders will rise and their voice may get shallow, she adds. “In essence, they are out of breath because their heart rate and blood flow change. Your body experiences these types of changes when you’re nervous and feeling tense — when you lie.”
3. They tend to stand very still
It’s common knowledge that people fidget when they get nervous, but Glass said that you should also watch out for people who are not moving at all.
“This may be a sign of the primitive neurological ‘fight,’ rather than the ‘flight,’ response, as the body positions and readies itself for possible confrontation,” said Glass. “When you speak and engage in normal conversation, it is natural to move your body around in subtle, relaxed, and, for the most part, unconscious movements. So if you observe a rigid, catatonic stance devoid of movement, it is often a huge warning sign that something is off.”
4. They may repeat words or phrases
This happens because they’re trying to convince you, and themselves, of something, she says. “They’re trying to validate the lie in their mind.” For example, he or she may say: “I didn’t…I didn’t…” over and over again, Glass said.
The repetition is also a way to buy themselves time as they attempt to gather their thoughts, she added.
5. They may provide too much information
“When someone goes on and on and gives you too much information — information that is not requested and especially an excess of details — there is a very high probability that he or she is not telling you the truth,” wrote Glass. “Liars often talk a lot because they are hoping that, with all their talking and seeming openness, others will believe them.”
6. They may touch or cover their mouth
“A telltale sign of lying is that a person will automatically put their hands over their mouth when they don’t want to deal with an issue or answer a question,” says Glass.
“When adults put their hands over their lips, it means they aren’t revealing everything, and they just don’t want to tell the truth,” she says. “They are literally closing off communication.”
7. They tend to instinctively cover vulnerable body parts
This may include areas such as the throat, chest, head, or abdomen.
“I have often seen this in the courtroom when I work as a consultant for attorneys. I can always tell when someone’s testimony has hit a nerve with the defendant, when I see his or her hand covering the front of his/her throat,” said Glass.
8. They tend to shuffle their feet
“This is the body taking over,” Glass explained. Shuffling feet tells you that the potential liar is uncomfortable and nervous. It also shows you that he or she wants to leave the situation; they want to walk away, she says.
“This is one of the key ways to detect a liar. Just look at their feet and you can tell a lot.”
9. It may become difficult for them to speak
“If you ever watch the videotaped interrogation of a suspect who is guilty, you will often observe that it becomes more and more difficult for her to speak,” wrote Glass. “This occurs because the automatic nervous system decreases salivary flow during times of stress, which of course dries out the mucous membranes of the mouth.”
Other signs to watch out for include sudden lip biting or pursed lips.
10. They may stare at you without blinking much
When people lie, it’s common that they break eye contact, but the liar could go the extra mile to maintain eye contact in attempt to control and manipulate you.
“When people tell the truth, most will occasionally shift their eyes around and may even look away from time to time,” Glass said. “Liars, on the other hand, will use a cold, steady gaze to intimidate and control.” Also watch out for rapid blinking.
11. They tend to point a lot
“When a liar becomes hostile or defensive, he is attempting to turn the tables on you,” says Glass.
If confronted about an untruth, a liar may take up aggressive gestures, like pointing.
Business
Managing, Leading, Building Institutions And Sustainability
The two primary tasks of a top-level leader are to exploit and explore the organisation with people for now and in the future.
By Babs Olugbemi
One of my concerns for leaders is their capacity to be ambidextrous. Regardless of years of experience, knowledge, and leadership capacity, the lack of a clear distinction between managing and leading on the one hand, leading and building institutions on the second layer, and ultimately focussing on sustainability is a significant threat to successful leadership change.
I have followed events and people at C-suites, coached some, and developed frameworks for leadership development. Based on the personalities and styles of the new leaders, I have confirmed my fears about leadership sustainability in most African organisations.
“Successful leaders can aptly differentiate themselves and their roles without necessarily seeing activities as performance, focussing on what is required of them with appropriate tenacity and influence.”
The challenge for leaders is how to lead for the present and future without losing sight of the stakeholders’ immediate performance expectations. Successful leaders can aptly differentiate themselves and their roles without necessarily seeing activities as performance, focussing on what is required of them with appropriate tenacity and influence.
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In my walk as a leadership coach, I have keenly observed leaders who are managing rather than leading. Managing involves ensuring that processes achieve their intended outcomes. Leaders are above managing and should focus on creating an enabling environment for innovation, inventions, and team collaboration. The primary role in leading is not to monitor process outcomes, though critical to the company’s overall objectives, but to align corporate values with the people’s aspirations to create an engaged and ownership-thinking mindset ready to take on challenges and explore opportunities. An alignment of corporate and personal goals will not only deliver the present performance expectations. Still, it will also incubate innovations to adapt to future market demands and the sustainability of the business.
Unfortunately, the capacity for ambidexterity is rare and often marked by leaders’ exposure, approach and styles, perception, and perspective of their roles in the organisation. A leader with a wrong foundation in these areas is set for failure and awaits unfavourable decisions from the board of directors. A top-level leader might manage their teams instead of leading them. Not all leaders can combine leading for the present with building institutions. However, anyone able to submit themselves to an institution-building mechanism can champion sustainability. Aside from being a leadership coach, I help leaders achieve sustainability.
Mathematically, creating an ambidextrous organisation is beyond leading. It is to lead and build an institution that focuses on sustainability in all aspects of the organisation—employee fulfilment, customer retention, strategy effectiveness, performance evaluation, stakeholder management, process improvement, and goal congruence.
In a nutshell, the role of successful leaders in ambidextrous organisations is striking a balance between exploiting current assets and capabilities to ensure short-term success and allocating enough energy and resources to exploration to ensure future viability. The two primary tasks of a top-level leader are to exploit and explore the organisation with people for now and in the future. The two seemingly contradictory aspects—exploitation and exploration—encompass different strategies and processes and have different targets and outcomes (March 1991; O’Reilly & Tushman, 2004; O’Reilly & Tushman, 2013).
O’Reilly and Tushman described the two concepts as follows:
- Exploiting: Exploiting involves building on an organisation’s achievements and maximising returns on previous investments. It focuses on responding to current business demands to remain efficient and competitive within an established market niche, as well as on maintaining an existing customer base and stakeholder relationships. Examples of exploiting are activities focused on continuous improvement, benchmarking, and redesigning business processes.
- Exploring: Exploring focuses on expanding an organisation’s knowledge and capabilities, pioneering new products and services, and discovering and venturing into untapped markets.
The common area of practical bottlenecks in exploiting and exploring in organisations is a need for foundational trust and cohesion among the resources, especially the human capital, which are often treated as costs rather than assets to the organisations. Among all the factors of production, only humans can be ambidextrous with the capacity to think about changes in economic parameters and adjust their behaviours to match the time, content, and contextual requirements.
While organisations might have the resources to deploy in fighting competition, technology to obtain first-mover advantages, and production capacity to maximise output from input, none is compared with the potential of an engaged workforce.
Therefore, for leaders to be successful, they must refrain from operating in the realm of managing. They should operate in the capacity of institution builders, with the mindset of creating sustainable leadership and growth with people first and other factors of production second.
Consequently, only the leaders who prioritise their people over profits, pride, and organisational arrogance will be successful in the long term.
Business
BUSINESS: 3 Non-Financial Factors That Could Impact Your Business’ Value-JESSICA FIALKOVICH
we also look at factors like the level of owner involvement, company goals and growth opportunities.
Jessica Fialkovich, an entrepreneur leadership network contributor, has listed three important non-financial factors that could impact business value.
In a business publication on Entrepreneur, Fialkovich revealed that, to come up with the true value of a company or business, “we also look at factors like the level of owner involvement, company goals and growth opportunities.”
She explained that, “Determining a business’ value is not all about adding up revenue and subtracting expenses. While an important piece, these hard numbers are only half the equation for computing what a company is worth. To come up with the true value, we also look at factors like the level of owner involvement, company goals and growth opportunities. When we use the complete equation, we get a comprehensive picture of a business and can better understand the story of its past, present and future.”
“Calculations may vary depending on the company, but in a healthy one, there is about a 50/50 split between the quantitative (financial) and qualitative (non-financial) sides of performance. If the business isn’t profitable, it’s more important to focus on the quantitative side and fix the numbers first. Many owners don’t want to hear that, but if they’re not hitting their numbers, it may mean the business is not working. They must fix the quantitative issues before moving to the qualitative side” she added.
The first factor is what is called:
The owner’s Goal
We’ve found significant research showing that if an owner has defined goals and plans for the future that are in line with market expectations for their company’s value, they’re going to have a much stronger exit. What is the owner’s defined goal for exiting the business — to get the most money, to take care of their employees and to ensure a legacy? You must then get to the “why” behind the goals and devise a plan of action. It almost doesn’t matter what the answers to the questions are; having achievable goals and a strategy for reaching them can increase the company’s value because it keeps the owner focused on improving the other areas of the business.
The second factor is called:
The owner’s role
The extent of the owner’s involvement is a critical indicator, but perhaps not for the reason you think. The more involved the owner is in day-to-day operations, the more central they are to the business, the less the business will be worth down the road. If the owner is the linchpin that holds everything together, what will happen to the company when they leave? Evaluating operations is more about the system and the structure of the team. Look at the organizational chart and who’s on it – are they good employees or bad employees? Examine the company’s processes and procedures and how new team members are trained and onboarded. The owner sets the vision, but it’s the team that increases company value by carrying out the vision.
The third factor is called:
Growth opportunities
Nobody wants to buy a business and keep it exactly as it is. They want to see potential for growth in the future, especially the potential for return on their investment as a buyer. Whether it’s a simple price increase or new locations, whoever buys the business is going to ask about growth opportunities. Indicators like product or service diversification in both the company and the industry it’s in give a good sense of whether the company is moving forward or standing still (and at risk of going backward). The more potential you can show, the more upside there will be for the next owner — adding up to greater value.
Popular Nigerian columnist, philanthropist, writer, publisher and founder of Genevieve magazine, Betty Irabor has taken to social media to speak on the increasing rate of suicide in Nigeria.
Irabor who is a former columnist with Black & Beauty magazine UK in her post disclosed that she has attempted suicide in the past while also revealing that no one should be judged for taking such actions.
According to her, no one understands what the victims had been passing through, then they shouldn’t make assumptions on how they should have acted.
She wrote,
“suicide!!! don’t label or judge what you do not understand. if you haven’t walked in a man’s or woman’s shoes you cannot make assumptions about what they do or why they do it.
at the time i attempted suicide, i was sick and in pain. there was a volcano somewhere inside of me that needed to erupt and suicide seemed like an option to avoid the eruption. don’t trivialize anyone’s pain just because it’s not physical and you cannot see it.”
Irabor is also the founder of a foundation that promotes breast cancer awareness, early detection and treatment.
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