Editor’s Note: Kimberly Dozier has been a CBS News correspondent since 2003. A Wellesley graduate, she started her career at CBS radio in Cairo in 1992. She moved to Israel, where she has had a home outside Jerusalem since 2003. Her new book, Breathing the Fire, is about her surviving — and what it took to recover from — a car-bomb attack while she was on assignment in Iraq.

Yes, I’ve been among the missing for the past couple weeks.

I spent this last week running around the beaches of Coronado, CA, in the cold, wet rain, with would-be SEALs. But that’s another story for another day.

Midweek, I spoke to the "Women in Defense," a nonprofit group of women in the military and defense industry, who’ve banded together to draw wisdom from each other’s experiences working in what has been – and still mostly is – a male-dominated world.

You would think that a TV correspondent who has made a couple hundred speeches, goes live to millions of people, has recovered from a car bomb and has no trouble hanging out with military types would be confident in every way – and project that in every way, including how she looks to others.

I was about to learn otherwise, thanks to the speaker before me – one executive coach named Cynthia Burnham. She was the luncheon speaker and was going to tell us the three things that mark a person as a leader when they walk into a room: posture, eye contact and nodding. Okayyyy, I thought. Check, check, check – got all that, where’s the coffee?

Not so fast.

And with that, she proceeded to show us we’d been standing all wrong for most of our lives – and pulled the unwitting out of the crowd to demonstrate. She proceeded to have the various victims stand just as I have been standing — and still catch myself standing.

See if you recognize yourself here: standing in a cocktail crowd, listening, with hips contraposto (one hip up, one down), one shoulder lower than the other, perhaps even – the horror! – arms crossed. Or worse, arms or hands clasped low in front of you, a bit like a praying nun. Head down, maybe cocked to the side, listening.

I said to myself, "Oh, I don’t do that." And then I caught myself doing it – talking to Cynthia Burnham after her speech. Ouch. Hands clasped in front of me, one hip jutting … like a schoolgirl.

Here’s how you look from the crowd: uncertain, unsure, defensive and body conscious.

Here’s how you should stand: hips square, shoulders square, chin up and hands loosely at your sides. Maybe one foot stepped slightly forward. Your hands? No "blocking" gestures with your hands, and no “self-reassuring” gestures – i.e., touching yourself by running your hands through your hair, or touching your face, neck, ears, lips, etc. "These tend to calm us – like a mother’s hand – while showing the world we are … nervous," Burnham says.

Trust me – the person who does that onstage looks like she is in command. You feel better. Bonus: You look ten pounds lighter. (Who doesn’t need that?)

Here’s how Cynthia puts it, in a paper she sent us after the conference: "If your body is in a defensive, weak, nervous posture, you will feel defensive, weak and nervous, even if you weren’t before. Your body is warning you of danger." However, "If your body is in an open, strong, confident posture, you will feel open, strong and confident, even if you weren’t before. Your body is telling you that you are safe." In short, "If you stand like a leader, you will be more likely to feel, act and think like a leader."

Here’s the other thing: During conversation, when you are listening to someone else, maintain eye contact with the speaker. If you don’t, you look bored or uninterested. That’s how legendary communicators like Bill Clinton give that impression they are looking into your soul. No matter what you say or they say back to you, they gaze at you with intensity.