• Practice good posture. Take your personal grooming and dressing routines seriously. Look in the mirror and see a confident person staring back at you.

 People with low self-confidence tend to compare themselves to unrealistic idealizations of others, and thereby find themselves always coming up short. Instead of holding yourself to impossible standards and focusing on your failures, work on training yourself to emphasize your successes. Focus on why you deserve to have authority.^[17]

• Keep an updated list of personal accomplishments and positive attributes if that helps. Take note of compliments and positive feedback from others (and take them seriously). Surround yourself with positive reinforcement.

• You might feel silly reciting famous speeches from Shakespeare’s works in your bathroom mirror, but doing so can in fact be helpful. Think of yourself as a great actor on the stage, tackling Hamlet or Macbeth. Speaking with authority will come naturally.
• More practically, you can practice the speech you’re going to give in a similar manner. Take note of your tone, pacing, volume, gesturing, and so on. Consider recording yourself so you can examine your practice run.

• Walk around the stage or the part of the room you are occupying, as if you are marking it as your territory. You don’t need to stalk it like an animal, but walk and stand with confidence — as mentioned, it will be reflected in your voice.
• Don’t be afraid of hand gestures either. Keeping your hands glued to the podium or clasped together may appear like fear or submission. No one needs to see you pound your shoe on the desk or anything of that sort, but some confident, deliberate gesturing will add weight to your words and your appearance.

• Don’t go to ridiculous lengths to deepen your voice, but adding just a bit more depth can help make what you say sound more authoritative.
• Practice not allowing your voice to trail off at the end of a sentence. Some people tend to raise their voice inflection at the end of every sentence, making even declarative statements sound like questions. Don’t let it seem like you doubt what you’re saying.^[12]

. Some people feel like silence is a sign of weakness, and want to fill any gaps by talking. Prattling on, however, is more likely to be taken as a lack of seriousness or certainty. Taking time to think through what you want to say, and using pauses and silence for effect while speaking, helps to bestow authority to your speech.

• Always think through what you want to say before speaking. Even when you’re “on the spot,” take a couple seconds to gather your thoughts before you begin. That small period of silence will demonstrate that you are serious about addressing the topic at hand and saying exactly what you mean.^[13]
• Practice getting rid of “fillers” like “um,” “uh,” “I think,” etc. Even if you aren’t using them because you’re uncertain of what you want to say, they tend to sound that way. A silent pause is preferable.
• Use “chunking” while speaking — pause for effect between bursts of speech that each emphasize a key point. Give people a chance to soak in what you are saying.

• If you are looking for a way to gain more authority by appearing more authoritative at work, you may want to try standing at a meeting while others are sitting. This makes you more noticeable and commanding in appearance. See if you can arrive at the perfect time so that you aren’t late but there are no seats left.
• Stand even while you’re talking on the phone. When you sit, you tend to talk in a more reserved, less enthusiastic (and commanding) voice. Standing tends to make you speak with more energy and urgency.

• To appear authoritative, you want to act like you “have it all together,” and by the same token you should look “put together.” Choose a style of dress that generally approximates what those around you will be wearing, but with extra emphasis on a crisp, clean look. If “dress casual” is the norm, emphasize the “dress” part without abandoning the “casual.”
• Your wardrobe need not be bland, but a more subdued color palette and styling may give you a bit more gravitas

• Unless you’re a drill sergeant, getting angry and shouting are not usually the best ways to demonstrate your authority. Likewise, appearing defensive when questioned or challenged tends to indicate weakness, not strength.^[4]
• Some people think being authoritative means making snap decisions and sticking with them no matter what. In reality, taking the time (whenever possible) to think through a problem and making a calm, reasoned decision — and then sticking to it — demonstrates secure authority.^[5]
• To convince others of your authority, you have to convince yourself first. Once you embrace the authority you know you have, you won’t feel the need to try so hard to prove it to other people. Your confidence will speak for you.^[6]

• Nobody wants to be hated, of course, but you’ll probably find that being direct, making the tough decisions, and doing what must be done will earn the respect of others. If you focus too much on trying to please everyone, you’re likely to sacrifice respect for the sake of some superficial likeability.^[3]
• Deep down, most people would probably rather follow someone they respect than someone they like.