Nonverbal communication principles in groups

The following are two nonverbal communication principles I chose to provide examples for how they operate in a group or team.

It became quite obvious to me that our nonverbal communication affects the quality of our relationships when our church had a pastor who had difficulty looking people in the eye. He appeared standoffish to most people, and individuals and groups did not respond well to requests he made; in fact, they demonstrated resentment and didn’t work well with him. The few people that got to know him learned that, rather than standoffish, he was basically shy. These people worked well with him and the groups accomplished a lot with him.

I’ll use another example from my church of an example that demonstrates that our nonverbal communication is likely to be believed more than our verbal communication. We had a youth minister who talked the talk but didn’t walk the walk. He talked to the youth about many things, including honesty and integrity. However, he taught them how to roll coins for the bank that had a few good looking coins on either end of the roll, but coins the bank probably wouldn’t accept further into the roll. I shudder to think of the lessons the youth were actually learning in the youth group and taking out into the real world. That they can’t trust what leaders say because it conflicts with what they do? That it’s okay to cheat when you’re part of a group because the leader and everyone else is doing it too? That there’s ways to cheat that okay because you can get away with it?