Reading Body Language and Intention from Feet Position
Most people are not aware of their feet positioning, nor do they pay attention to the feet positioning of others. Even those who have a good understanding of body language often fail to pay attention to the feet. Yet the feet are honest. They are reliable indicators, giving away a person’s intent.
Reading Body Language to Improve Social Skills
Having a good understanding of other people’s feelings is an essential component of successfully navigating social situations and relationships.
Some people are intuitively good at understanding others without consciously knowing why. These people have a gut feeling about how someone feels. What’s at work here is the subconscious. Connecting the dots behind the scenes, absorbing sensory stimulus like visual and auditory cues, pulling information from past experiences and linking them together to form a certain perception. They can be spot on with accuracy.
And then some get it dreadfully wrong. Forming conclusions with potentially damaging consequences for interactions and relationships.
Whether you’re intuitively good at understanding others or completely hopeless–knowingly or unknowingly—all is not lost. Understanding others can be learned and practised consciously, improving social skills and the way you navigate interactions and relationships.
Feet positioning is a nonverbal communication cue that is super easy to understand, providing information that otherwise would be missed and most likely wouldn’t be mentioned. It can help to know when someone is engaged in you/your conversation or ready to take off and can help you know who to approach at a networking event or party.
Reading Body Language and Intention from Feet Position–What can you decipher from this image?
Body Language and Direction/Orientation of the Body
At the start of a conversation, bodies respectfully orient towards each other, so that the interaction can take place successfully. In most cases the head and torso turn to face the conversation partner, providing better access to visual and auditory cues to help interpret what is being said. Often the hips turn too, with the legs and feet in tow. Nonverbally, this signals respect and engagement—a readiness and willingness to converse, “You have my full attention”. Their mind honing in on you and the conversation–they intend to fully engage with you.
Sometimes, this doesn’t happen. It can be subtle, with just the head turned towards the conversation partner, “I don’t have time to talk right now”, or extreme where even eye contact is withheld. The interaction can still take place, but some things are missing.
In a nutshell, the more a person orients towards you, the more respect and attention they are giving you, whether it’s professionally, romantically or socially.
Visual Nonverbal Cues of Feet Direction
The images below show intimate moments or conversations where the participants are fully engaged–feet direction point towards each other.
Whether sitting or standing, if your conversation partner isn’t fully engaged, their feet will point elsewhere–to where they would rather be or where they should be—reflecting their intent.
Picture this. You're enduring the droning, one-sided conversation of your talkative colleague (you know the one). It's been going on for quite some time and all your polite efforts to end the conversation have gone unheard. Your head and torso face towards them, because you don't want to appear rude, but your feet speak the truth, giving the game away. They point in the direction of where you'd rather be or where you need to be—towards the exit, your workspace, someone else or even the bathroom. The next time you find yourself in a situation like this, pay attention to your feet to see how honest they are.
If your talkative colleague had a little more social intelligence, they would have concluded that it's time to bring the conversation to an end. They would have responded to the subtle cues that say—nonverbally—how you feel.
Studies on courtroom behaviour show that jurors point their feet towards the exit, when listening to a witness they don't like.
If you're in conversation with someone and their feet aren't pointing towards you it doesn't necessarily mean that they aren't engaged in what you're saying or that they don't like you. They may need to be somewhere else. Maybe they have a deadline looming, or an appointment to get to. This is your cue to end the conversation, respectfully, allowing them to get to where they need to be. If you still have important information to convey, you can schedule another time or offer to follow up via email.
We can observe and interpret feet direction to guide how we respond to others during interactions—like wrapping up a conversation, but we also use this behaviour as a communication cue, subtly signalling to others that we need to be elsewhere. It cuts both ways.
Feet Direction as a Guide to Approaching and Joining a Conversation
Understanding feet direction can also help to know when it's appropriate to join a conversation, or not. This can be particularly useful at networking events, when you're feeling out of your comfort zone and not sure whether to interrupt and join people you don't know, mid-conversation. You’ll get a warmer reception if you find the people who are ready to engage, avoiding networking awkwardness.
If there’s someone you really want to speak to, you certainly don’t want to start the interaction at an inappropriate time, potentially creating a negative emotional experience for them—since emotions drive behaviour.
When people are conversing, but still open to others joining, their feet will tell you so. Typically, one foot will be pointing slightly outward. This is your cue to approach. Look at this in the images below and compare the difference to when two people are fully engaged in a conversation and not as open to interruption.
Networking events can be unnerving for some people, especially for those that are more introverted. Knowing when it's safe to interrupt a conversation can make a significant difference in your comfort level, and in having more successful interactions.
Reading Body Language—Practise Observing Feet Direction
Work on this skill by observing feet direction in yourself and others. Start where it’s easiest, as an outside observer. It’s interesting to people watch, guessing what’s going to happen next. I’ll never forget being in a bar with my husband, watching people’s feet—both puzzled as to why a woman’s feet were pointing towards an unused area of the bar, absent from life.
What was puzzling was that it went on for so long. We just couldn’t figure out why she had the intention to be there. Her head and torso faced towards the group she was standing and conversing with. She seemed fully engrossed in the conversation and her eye gaze didn’t once move towards the direction her feet pointed.
After a while, she broke away from her conversation, turned and walked towards the unused area of the bar, placed her empty glass on the counter and walked back, rejoining her group and conversation. When you see this in action, understanding how honest and reliable the feet are in leaking intention, you'll find that it can be a useful tool to gauge the feelings of others, as well as an indicator to better influence your own behaviour.
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