Where do you sit in the conference room?

When we are all peers bonded behind a common cause, amazing things can happen.

"In medieval times, where you sat at the table defined your relative importance and nobility…Business meetings sometimes have place tags, but more often it's up to the participants to sort out where to sit. What ensues is a competition for status.” Geoffrey James

As a leader, you send messages all day. Facial expressions, your tone of voice, and even how you dress and groom yourself are all things your people are watching and measuring. The best leaders are conscious of this, especially quirks they have which may be misunderstood. I’m a bit of a comedian so I must be cautious of when to use and with whom to use humor. Let’s visit the conference room.

There actually exists some etiquette behind where the boss and others sit. Author and business consultant Geoffrey James wrote a fascinating piece in INC Magazine about this. “In medieval times, where you sat at the table defined your relative importance and nobility. Arguments over who belonged where often erupted into swordfights. Business meetings sometimes have place tags, but more often it's up to the participants to sort out where to sit. What ensues is a competition for status.” Here is a leadership philosophy on that.

Don’t sit at the head of the table. Scrap the name tags. In fact, ensure all the chairs are the same and place yourself at various positions in meetings (buy a round vs. rectangle table). When you sit at the head of the table you send the message that you are in charge. You are the “noble” one.