The Psychology of Seats: How To Boost Your Impact & Influence At Work

Squiggly Careers

AmazingIf

Business, Management, Careers

4.9 • 838 Ratings

🗓️ 28 October 2025

⏱️ 35 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

This week on the Squiggly Careers podcast, Helen and Sarah borrow brilliance from an unexpected source — the psychology of seats. Inspired by a conversation about how we choose where to sit, Helen talks about how your seating choices can shape the way you feel, behave, and influence others at work. From safe seats that help us feel in control to power positions in meetings and even virtual seating on video calls, this episode reveals how something as simple as your seat can affect confidence, inclusion, and collaboration. You’ll leave with small, practical shifts to help you show up differently — and boost your impact and influence at work. Episode 506 🦞 Pre-order Learn Like A Lobster: PRH US - https://bit.ly/3KxTeBn Amazon UK - https://amzn.to/3KcRZaR ⏱️ Timestamps 00:00 Introduction & Announcement 01:54 Borrowing brilliance from the psychology of seats 03:54 Why where you sit says more about you than you think 07:54 Seat safety — comfort, confidence, and control 12:34 Power seats — what your meeting position communicates 15:54 Round tables, rectangles, and creating collaboration 20:04 The height effect 20:54 No-seat meetings 22:54 Virtual seats 29:54 Inclusion, confidence, and creating space for others 🎯 What You’ll Learn Why your seat can shape your confidence and influence How seating choices affect team dynamics and inclusion How to use “seat psychology” to build better meetings and connections Simple ways to change where (and how) you sit to boost your impact 📚 Resources Mentioned Learning Cog: https://www.learningcog.com The Long Win by Kath Bishop: bit.ly/4he0Rt4 For questions about Squiggly Careers or to share feedback, please email helenandsarah@squigglycareers.com More ways to learn about Squiggly Careers: 📩 Download our free career tools: https://www.amazingif.com/toolkit/ 📮 Get Squiggly Careers in Action in your inbox: https://bit.ly/SquigglyCareersInAction 📚 Read our books: The Squiggly Career and You Coach You: https://www.amazingif.com/books/ Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hi, it's Helen from the Squiggly Careers podcast. And before you listen to today's episode, I just
0:05.0	want to let you know about some news that Sarah and I are very excited about. And that is that our new book,
0:09.8	Learn Like a Lobster, is ready to pre-order now. We really care about everybody learning and growing at work,
0:16.7	but we know it is not easy to do. And so we're borrowing some brilliance from lobsters to help you to do it.
0:22.9	The book takes three inspiring and surprising abilities of lobsters in terms of how they grow
0:29.0	and applies it to how we can learn at work. So if you want some inspiration and you need some
0:34.0	practical insights to support your learning, growth and development. This is the book for you.
0:38.9	And if you pre-order now and send your pre-order to hello at learn like a lobster.com,
0:43.8	you can join the lobster library where we have a community of lobster learners ready for you to learn with,
0:50.1	some live sessions, and this will all happen before the book arrives.
0:55.4	So pre-order the book now,
1:00.7	send it to hello at learn like a lobster.com and get started with your learning straight away.
1:07.8	Now let's get on to today's episode. Today, Sarah, we are talking about the psychology of seats.
1:10.9	How do you want to come across in whatever situation you're in?
1:14.7	I want to be collaborative.
1:15.9	I want to be a leader.
1:17.1	I want to be creative.
1:18.5	Choose your seating with that intention in mind.
1:22.5	If there is a meeting that you want to have more influence in, get there early so you can choose where you sit.
1:28.3	I definitely do this. You know, it wasn't like the first in the room. I actually didn't want to be the end towards the head of the table. I didn't want to be the other end either. I think I felt more ready to contribute, like more active, more in it. There are two sides of the seat. So there is, where are you choosing to sit? And then I think the other side of the seat is you looking at where other people are
1:48.2	choosing to sit and how that might influence how you engage them.
1:54.4	Hi, I'm Sarah.
	...

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