Body Language Analysis №3975: Travis Kalanick and Sheryl Sandberg — and Uber’s Need for Empathy, Sincerity, and Emotional Intelligence (VIDEO, PHOTOS)
Travis Kalanick was forced to resign as the CEO of Uber yesterday. After a tumultuous year, the company’s shareholders made it clear his continued leadership in that office was both unsupportable and unwise. Uber board member, Arianna Huffington is pushing for Facebook’s COO, Sheryl Sandberg, to replace Mr. Kalanick.
Whenever you evaluate another person’s personality, whether it be in the act of interviewing, being interviewed, a negotiation, a testimony, dating, or any kind of business interaction — we all — to some extent, size-up the many qualities of the other person’s character — both consciously and unconsciously. Perhaps the two most important attributes are sincerity (which although wider in scope, also includes honesty) as well as their empathy level.
There’s no doubt that Travis Kalanick and Sheryl Sandberg are both creative, intelligent people with many skills. Yet after viewing several interviews of Mr. Kalanick and Ms. Sandberg, if you are skilled at nonverbal communication and emotional intelligence assessment, you should be able to discern that Kalanick’s empathy and sincerity quotients are low while Sandberg’s are both quite high. Moreover, Mr. Kalanick also displays indications of poor impulse control — which is not exhibited by Ms. Sandberg.
Summary: The ability to accurately vet is a skill for which there is no substitute. Yet such competence is rarely learned or taught. Qualities which should always be determined are the candidate’s:
- Empathy Quotient
- Sincerity Quotient
- Susceptibility to Poor Impulse Control
With each these three characteristics, Sheryl Sandberg’s scores are far superior to Travis Kalanick’s. Ms. Sandberg’s leadership will greatly benefit Uber — but will certainly be Facebook’s loss.
How skilled are you at qualifying and quantifying these attributes?
See also:
Body Language Analysis №3974: Elle Fanning, Robert De Niro, and Easter
Body Language Analysis №3972: Vladimir Putin, Oliver Stone, and a Facial Expression Red Flag
Body Language Analysis №3968: The Grenfell Tower Fire, Empathy, and Emotional Processing
Body Language Analysis №3965: Manspreading, Madrid, and a Business Faux Pas
Nonverbal Communication Analysis №3060: Bradley Cooper, Air Guitar, Neil Young & the R2E2 Expression
Nonverbal Communication Analysis №3292: Empathy, Yawning and Dogs
This post and the associated website serve as reference sources for the art and science of Body Language/Nonverbal Communication. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author. In an effort to be both practical and academic, many examples from/of varied cultures, politicians, professional athletes, legal cases, public figures, etc., are cited in order to teach and illustrate both the interpretation of others’ body language as well as the projection of one’s own nonverbal skills in many different contexts — not to advance any political, religious or other agenda.
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