The greeting is one of the most important steps in order to establish a relationship with another person we just met. Each country has its own particular greeting style, although the most common and international way to greet someone is the handshake.
It is crucial that we learn how to give a proper handshake, we do not want to make a mistake in such an important step of making a positive first impression. What are these common mistakes people make while giving a simple handshake?
1. You’re giving a handshake, not the tip of your fingers.
Have you ever met someone who instead of giving you the hand, will only offer the tip of their hand. This way of greeting is wrong and should never be done.
2. Rigid hand.
You are a human being; not a robot, that being said, we must bend our fingers! By offering a rigid hand, we appear cold and indifferent.
3. The endless handshake.
Yes, these people will shake your hand and it will never end. Please, do not leave the other person’s hand captive for too long as it becomes weird and uncomfortable. The handshake must be firm and brief. We also need to be gentle when moving the hand up and down, it is not appropriate to move the hand as if you want to stay with the other person’s arm, be gentle, some people make the mistake of thinking that it is important to transmit a high level of effusiveness, when in reality it makes people feel uncomfortable and a little scared.
4. The crushing handshake.
This is not a competition to see who is stronger, squeezing the hand too much will not only cause a bad impression, but it will cause pain and discomfort. Furthermore, people who give this type of handshake usually want to transmit a message of superiority, dominance, and arrogance.
5. Using your other hand to touch the person.
You might have seen people who give a handshake and with the other hand they will either touch the wrist, grab the arm, touch the shoulder or grab the hand with both of their hands; this is not correct, again they might make the other person feel uncomfortable and it might send messages of dominance and superiority.
Keep in mind these five tips because although we might not realize it, a handshake is one of the first steps to making a positive connection, we communicate a lot about us with the way we give a handshake. It is very difficult to change an impression once it is already made, so let’s make sure we “Start with the right foot!”.
