body language - Winning Presentations

13 Jan 2026

Presentation gestures guide - confident hand movements and body language techniques for effective presenting

Gestures, Presentation Skills Mary Beth Hazeldine 0 comment

Presentation Gestures: Why Your Hands Reveal Your Confidence

Quick Answer: Your hands broadcast your confidence level before you speak a word. Purposeful gestures—open palms, numbered fingers, size indicators—project authority. Nervous habits—fidgeting, pocket-diving, fig-leaf position—undermine everything you say. The goal isn’t eliminating movement but channelling energy into gestures that reinforce your message.

I once watched a CFO destroy a £3 million budget proposal without saying anything wrong.

His content was solid. His slides were clear. His recommendations were sound. But his hands told a different story.

Throughout the presentation, he gripped the sides of the lectern like it might fly away. When he stepped out to make a point, his hands immediately dove into his pockets. During questions, he crossed his arms tightly across his chest.

The board saw a nervous executive who didn’t believe in his own proposal. They rejected it.

Afterward, he asked me what went wrong. “Your hands,” I told him. “They were screaming that you weren’t confident. And the board listened to your hands, not your words.”

He was genuinely shocked. He had no idea his gestures were undermining him.

⭐ Slides That Free Your Hands

The Executive Slide System creates presentations you can deliver without clutching notes or reading from screens. When your slides guide you naturally, your hands are free to gesture with purpose instead of grasping for security.

Get the Executive Slide System → £39

The Gestures That Command Authority

Confident presenters use their hands with intention. Here are the gestures that project authority:

Open Palms

Palms facing slightly upward signal honesty and openness. Politicians and executives use this instinctively when making important points. It says “I have nothing to hide.” This is foundational to effective presentation body language.

Numbered Fingers

“There are three things to consider…” accompanied by three raised fingers creates structure and memorability. It signals organisation and helps audiences track your points.

Size and Scale Indicators

Showing “this big” or “that small” with your hands makes abstract concepts concrete. When discussing growth, expansion, or comparison, let your hands illustrate the scale.

Steepling

Fingertips touching in front of your chest projects confidence and thoughtfulness. Use it during pauses or when listening to questions. It reads as authoritative without being aggressive.

Purposeful Pointing

Pointing at slides, referencing audience members (carefully), or emphasising key moments creates direction and energy. The key word is purposeful—random pointing looks erratic.

For more on how your physical presence affects your message, see our complete guide to presentation body language.

Confident presentation gestures versus nervous hand habits - open palms, steepling, and numbered fingers versus fidgeting, pockets, and crossed arms

The Nervous Habits That Undermine You

These gestures signal anxiety—even when you’re not feeling it:

The Pocket Dive

Hands in pockets reads as disengaged or hiding something. One hand occasionally is acceptable; both hands continuously is a credibility killer.

The Fig Leaf

Hands clasped in front of your groin is a classic defensive posture. It screams discomfort and makes you look smaller.

The Lectern Death Grip

White-knuckling the podium broadcasts fear. It also locks you in place, preventing natural movement that creates engagement.

Self-Touching

Playing with hair, touching your face, adjusting clothing—all self-soothing behaviours that signal nervousness. Your audience notices even when you don’t.

The Fidget

Clicking pens, jingling coins, rubbing hands together. Nervous energy has to go somewhere—but these outlets distract your audience and undermine your message.

The challenge is that most people don’t know they’re doing these things. That’s why awareness of your body language is the first step to fixing it.

Your “Home Base” Position

Between gestures, you need somewhere for your hands to go. This is your home base—a neutral position that looks natural and confident.

Best options:

Arms relaxed at your sides (harder than it sounds, but projects most confidence)
Hands lightly clasped at waist level (comfortable and neutral)
One hand holding notes, other at side (practical for longer presentations)

Avoid:

Hands behind back (looks like you’re hiding something or being interrogated)
Arms crossed (defensive, closed off)
Hands on hips (can read as aggressive or impatient)

Practice your home base until it feels natural. Then gestures become departures and returns—purposeful movements rather than constant fidgeting.

This is part of the broader body language framework that transforms how audiences perceive you.

🏆 Master Your Complete Physical Presence

The Executive Buy-In Presentation System covers gestures, posture, movement, eye contact, and voice—the complete physical toolkit that separates good presenters from commanding ones.

Learn More → £199

📧 Join 2,000+ professionals getting weekly presentation insights. Subscribe to The Winning Edge →

Frequently Asked Questions

What should I do with my hands during a presentation?

Use purposeful gestures that match your words—open palms for honesty, numbered fingers for lists, size indicators for scale. Between gestures, rest hands at your sides or lightly clasped at waist level. Avoid pockets, crossed arms, or fig-leaf position. More techniques in our body language guide.

What hand gestures show confidence when presenting?

Open palms facing slightly upward signal honesty and openness. Steepling (fingertips touching) projects authority. Purposeful pointing emphasises key points. The key is intentional movement that matches your message, not constant motion.

How do I stop nervous hand gestures when presenting?

First, identify your specific habit (fidgeting, touching face, gripping lectern). Then practice with hands at sides as your ‘home base.’ Nervous energy needs somewhere to go—channel it into purposeful gestures rather than trying to eliminate movement entirely. This connects to broader presentation body language principles.

📥 Free Download: 7 Presentation Frameworks

Get the structural frameworks that let you present confidently—so your gestures can be purposeful rather than anxious.

Download Free →

Mary Beth Hazeldine spent 24 years at JPMorgan, PwC, RBS, and Commerzbank. She’s a clinical hypnotherapist and MD of Winning Presentations.

12 Jan 2026

presentation eye contact techniques - how to connect with individual audience members instead of scanning the room

Presentation Skills Mary Beth Hazeldine 0 comment

Presentation Eye Contact: Why Looking at Everyone Means Connecting with No One

Quick Answer: Scanning the room isn’t eye contact—it’s surveillance. When you try to look at everyone, you connect with no one. Effective presentation eye contact means focusing on one person for a complete thought (3-5 seconds), creating genuine connection, then moving to someone else. This builds trust and authority far more than nervous room-scanning ever could.

A director at RBS once asked me to watch her present and tell her why audiences seemed “disconnected.”

Within thirty seconds, I spotted the problem. Her eyes were everywhere—sweeping left to right, front to back, like a lighthouse beam. She was technically looking at everyone. She was connecting with no one.

“I was told to make eye contact with the whole room,” she explained. “So I keep my eyes moving.”

That advice had backfired completely. Her constant scanning read as nervous, evasive, even untrustworthy. Audiences sensed something was off, even if they couldn’t articulate what.

I taught her a different approach—one that transformed her presence within a single session. The technique is simple, but it contradicts what most people have been taught about presentation body language.

🎯 Master Every Aspect of Presentation Delivery

The Public Speaking Cheat Sheets include eye contact patterns, body language techniques, and voice control methods—everything you need to command a room with confidence.

Get the Cheat Sheets → £14.99

The “One Thought, One Person” Technique

Here’s the approach that actually works:

Pick one person. Make genuine eye contact with them—not a glance, but real connection. Hold it for one complete thought or sentence (typically 3-5 seconds).

Complete your thought. Finish what you’re saying while still connected to that person. They should feel like you’re speaking directly to them.

Move to a different section. Find someone in another part of the room. Repeat the process. Front, back, left, right—work the whole space, but through genuine individual connections.

This creates an entirely different effect than scanning. Each person you connect with feels seen. Others in that section feel included by proximity. And you project calm confidence rather than nervous energy.

For more on mastering your physical presence, see our complete guide to presentation body language.

One thought one person eye contact technique - diagram showing how to connect with individual audience members across different room sections

Why Scanning Backfires

When your eyes are constantly moving, several problems emerge:

You look nervous. Darting eyes are a universal signal of anxiety or evasiveness. Your audience reads this subconsciously.
No one feels connected. A glance isn’t connection. When you never settle on anyone, everyone feels like part of an anonymous crowd.
You can’t read the room. You need to hold eye contact long enough to register reactions. Scanning means you miss the signals that tell you how your message is landing.
You lose your train of thought. Constant visual movement is cognitively demanding. Your brain is processing new faces instead of focusing on your content.

The irony is that scanning is often taught as a confidence technique. In practice, it undermines confidence—both yours and your audience’s confidence in you.

What If Eye Contact Makes You Nervous?

If direct eye contact feels uncomfortable, use these adaptations:

Start with friendly faces. Identify people who are nodding, smiling, or visibly engaged. Begin your eye contact practice with them. Their positive feedback builds your confidence for tougher audience members.

Use the forehead trick. Look at the bridge of someone’s nose or their forehead. From presentation distance, this reads as eye contact. It’s less intense for you while appearing connected to them.

Section the room mentally. Divide the space into four to six sections. Make sure you connect with at least one person in each section during your presentation. This ensures coverage without requiring you to think about individual faces constantly.

These techniques work together with your overall body language to create a presence that feels authoritative and trustworthy.

⭐ Slides That Let You Focus on Connection

The Executive Slide System gives you slide structures you can present without memorising scripts. When you’re not worried about what comes next, you can focus on genuine eye contact with your audience.

Get the Executive Slide System → £39

📧 Join 2,000+ professionals getting weekly presentation insights. Subscribe to The Winning Edge →

Frequently Asked Questions

Where should I look when giving a presentation?

Focus on one person for a complete thought (3-5 seconds), then move to someone in a different section. This creates genuine connection rather than the ‘scanning’ effect that makes you look nervous. See our full guide to presentation body language for more techniques.

How long should I maintain eye contact during a presentation?

Hold eye contact with one person for one complete thought—typically 3-5 seconds. Shorter feels nervous and darting; longer can feel intense or uncomfortable. Complete your thought, then move on.

What if eye contact makes me nervous when presenting?

Start with friendly faces—people who are nodding or engaged. Build confidence there before including neutral or challenging audience members. You can also look at foreheads or the bridge of the nose; from presentation distance, it reads as eye contact.

📥 Free Download: 7 Presentation Frameworks

Get structures that support confident delivery—so you can focus on connection instead of content.

Download Free →

Mary Beth Hazeldine spent 24 years at JPMorgan, PwC, RBS, and Commerzbank. She’s a clinical hypnotherapist and MD of Winning Presentations.

20 Dec 2025

How to look confident when presenting - 7 techniques to project confidence even when nervous

Presentation Skills, Public Speaking Mary Beth Hazeldine 0 comment

How to Look Confident When Presenting (Even When You’re Not)

7 techniques that project confidence to your audience — while your nervous system catches up

Here’s a secret from someone who’s trained over 5,000 executives: the most confident-looking presenters aren’t always the most confident-feeling presenters.

They’ve just learned what confidence looks like — and they do those things deliberately until their nervous system catches up.

I know this because I lived it. For my first five years in banking, I was terrified of presenting. But I learned to look confident when presenting long before I actually felt confident. And eventually, the feeling followed the behaviour.

Here are the seven techniques that make you look confident when presenting — even when you’re shaking inside.

🎁 Free Download: Get my Executive Presentation Checklist — includes pre-presentation confidence techniques you can use before any high-stakes talk.

1. Plant Your Feet (And Stop Swaying)

Nervous presenters shift their weight, sway side to side, or pace without purpose. It’s one of the most visible signs of anxiety — and your audience registers it immediately.

How to look confident instead:

Stand with feet shoulder-width apart
Press your feet firmly into the floor
Distribute weight evenly on both feet
Move only when transitioning between points (purposeful movement)

This “grounding” technique does double duty — it makes you look confident AND activates a calming response in your nervous system. I used this with hundreds of anxiety clients in my hypnotherapy practice before bringing it into presentation training.

2. Slow Your Speech (Especially at the Start)

When we’re nervous, we speed up. It’s a fight-or-flight response — our brain wants to get through the “danger” as quickly as possible.

The problem? Fast speech signals anxiety. Slow speech signals confidence and authority.

How to look confident instead:

Deliberately slow your first three sentences by 30%
Pause between sentences (count “one” silently)
Drop your pitch slightly — nervous voices rise

Your audience can’t tell you’re nervous if you don’t sound nervous. Control your pace, and you control their perception.

3. Make Eye Contact With Friendly Faces

Nervous presenters do one of two things: avoid eye contact entirely, or scan the room so fast they connect with no one.

Confident presenters hold eye contact with individuals — typically 3-5 seconds per person.

How to look confident instead:

Before you start, identify three friendly faces in different parts of the room
Rotate your eye contact between these three people
Ignore the sceptics (crossed arms, phone-checkers) — they’re not your audience

This technique makes you look confident while creating genuine connection. And connection reduces your own anxiety — it reminds your brain these are humans, not threats.

4. Use Pauses Instead of Filler Words

“Um,” “uh,” “so,” “like,” “you know” — filler words scream nervousness. But the instinct behind them is right: you need a moment to think.

The solution isn’t to think faster. It’s to pause silently.

How to look confident instead:

When you need to think, stop talking completely
Take a breath
Then continue

Here’s the counterintuitive truth: pauses make you look MORE confident, not less. Watch any skilled speaker — they pause constantly. It signals that you’re in control, not rushing.

🎯 Want a Quick Reference for Confident Presenting?

The Public Speaking Cheat Sheets include confidence techniques, power poses, recovery phrases, and vocal warm-ups — all on printable cards you can review before any presentation.

Get the Cheat Sheets (£14.99) →

5. Open Your Posture (Uncross Everything)

Closed posture — crossed arms, hunched shoulders, hands clasped in front — signals defensiveness. Your audience reads it as insecurity.

How to look confident instead:

Keep arms uncrossed and relaxed at sides (or use gestures)
Roll shoulders back and down
Keep chin parallel to the floor (not tucked down)
Take up space rather than shrinking

Before you present, do a quick “power pose” in private — hands on hips, chest open, for 60 seconds. Research is mixed on whether it changes your hormones, but it absolutely interrupts the closed posture that anxiety creates.

6. Gesture With Purpose

Nervous presenters either freeze their hands (stiff at sides or gripping notes) or gesture frantically. Neither looks confident.

How to look confident instead:

Use gestures that match your words — open palms when welcoming, counting on fingers for lists
Keep gestures in the “power zone” — between waist and shoulders
Let hands rest naturally between gestures (don’t wring them)
If you don’t know what to do with your hands, hold a clicker or pen

Purposeful gestures don’t just look confident — they help you think. Research shows that gesturing while speaking actually improves verbal fluency.

7. Recover From Mistakes Without Apologising

Every presenter makes mistakes. The difference between looking confident and looking nervous is how you handle them.

Nervous presenters apologise profusely, call attention to errors, or freeze up. Confident presenters recover smoothly and move on.

How to look confident instead:

If you lose your place: Pause, look at your notes, continue. No apology needed.
If you say something wrong: “Let me rephrase that…” and continue.
If technology fails: “While we sort this out, let me tell you…” and keep talking.

Pre-plan your recovery phrases. When you know you can handle anything, you look confident because you genuinely feel in control.

Why Looking Confident Leads to Feeling Confident

There’s a psychological principle at work here: behaviour shapes emotion, not just the reverse.

When you adopt confident body language, your brain receives signals that you’re safe. Your nervous system calms down. And over time, the feeling of confidence follows the appearance of confidence.

I discovered this accidentally in my first five years of banking. By forcing myself to look confident when presenting, I gradually became more confident. The techniques became automatic. The anxiety faded.

You don’t have to wait to feel confident before presenting well. You can look confident now — and let the feeling catch up later.

Want to Build Real, Lasting Confidence?

These techniques help you look confident. My AI-Enhanced Presentation Mastery course helps you become confident — combining psychology techniques from my hypnotherapy practice with frameworks that eliminate uncertainty.

January cohort: £249 (increases to £499 in April)

Only 60 seats. Early bird ends December 31st.

See the full curriculum →

Frequently Asked Questions

How do I look confident when my hands are shaking?

Hold something — a clicker, a pen, or your notes. This gives the shaking somewhere to go without being visible. Also, the shaking usually subsides within 60-90 seconds of starting. If you can get through your opening, your body will calm down.

What if I can’t make eye contact without feeling more nervous?

Look at foreheads instead of eyes — the audience can’t tell the difference. Or focus on the friendly faces only. You don’t need to make eye contact with everyone, just enough people to create connection.

How do I slow down when my instinct is to rush?

Memorise your first three sentences word-for-word and practice them at half speed. When you start slowly, you’re more likely to maintain that pace. Also, build in deliberate pauses — after your opening, after key points, before your conclusion.

Does “fake confidence” actually work?

It’s not about faking — it’s about doing what confident presenters do. The behaviours (grounding, eye contact, pauses, open posture) are real skills you’re building. Over time, the feeling follows the behaviour. You’re not pretending; you’re practising.

Your Next Step

Pick one technique from this list and use it in your next presentation:

Plant your feet — the easiest to implement immediately
Slow your first three sentences — sets the tone for everything that follows
Replace filler words with pauses — makes the biggest visible difference

Master one technique before adding another. Within a few presentations, you’ll look confident without thinking about it.

Go deeper: Presentation Confidence: How to Build It (And Why “Fake It Till You Make It” Doesn’t Work) — the complete guide to building lasting confidence.

Mary Beth Hazeldine is a qualified clinical hypnotherapist and Managing Director of Winning Presentations. After spending her first five years in banking terrified of presenting, she learned to look confident before she felt confident — and went on to present successfully for 19 more years at JPMorgan, PwC, RBS, and Commerzbank. She has since trained over 5,000 executives to present with confidence.