Want to dominate a conversation and speak with confidence? Anyone can learn to speak with dominance and confidence—without becoming a jerk.

At The Power Moves, the #1 resource on social power dynamics, we’ve helped thousands of men become more confident and positively dominant.

This article shows you 10 communication strategies to dominate conversations with assertiveness and poise—without ever becoming a jerk.

Let’s dive in:

1. Lead The Conversation

Powerful men dominate conversations by controlling the:

• Tempo (rate of speech and topic duration)
• Tone (happy, sad, serious, etc.)
• Scope / Topic
• Frame
• Contributions (who speaks)

👉🏼 To lead with warmth get to know people:

• Ask questions
  • Genuine questions to get to know people, combining power and warmth
  • Probing questions when something feels off (e.g.: ‘Why would you do that’)

1.2. Control The Tempo

Expressions for dominating conversations include:

• Go ahead
• Get to the point
  • Let’s focus <— more power-protecting
• Slow down

1.3. Control Emotions

General principles:

👉🏼 Group conversations can differ.
Strategically men won’t chase attention like jesters.

1.4. Control The Tone

Great example of attractive conversational dominance with a woman:

For powerful conversations with girl, see:

• How to lead in dating
• How to be positively dominant and confident in dating

2. Enforce Boundaries

Powerful conversation is dynamic and dyadic.

Meaning, it isn’t just how you speak, it’s also how you react to others.

Dominant speakers may try to cut you off, undermine you, or disempower you.
You can’t let that happen:

2.2. Defend Your Right of Speech

Raise your hand with a serious expression to reinforce your words

2.3. Defend Against Power Moves

Ben knows how to handle his Charisma on Command cofounder:

3. Pursue Your Conversational Goals

Dominant men get things done.
If they have an objective, they pursue it.

3.2. Confirm Common Understanding

Ensure that teammates or subordinates understand:

• 🗨️ “Did you get it?“
• 🗨️ “Is it clear?“
• 🗨️ “… OK, if not clear please ask“

The most dominant form tells them to repeat.

3.3. Ask Questions, Expect (& Demand) A Reply

The Routledge Handbook of Communication Skills reports that asking questions is dominant.

However, you lose power if you ask and others don’t reply.

And while low-power men accept brush-offs or non-replies, higher-power men insist to get what they want.
It becomes a mini power showdown.

🔎 Example:

3.4. Push Through to Make Your Point

Principle:

⚖️ Dominant men plow through interruptions while others get sidetracked

This is especially true for important matters and public speakers.
You’re higher power than the crowd. But if they sidetrack you, you plunge at their level.

4. Teach

Principle:

⚖️High-status men teach, low-status men learn

And we respect teachers far more than learners.

Also see:

• Dominant teacher frames

However:

🙅🏼‍♂️ Don’t push lectures, make others want to learn
Lecturers are annoying and needy. Make others seek your expertise. Use achievements or sub-communicate expertise.

4.2. Give Feedback

Feedback sub-communicates high-status and high expertise.

🟡 Especially dominant is to correct others’ mistakes:

Host: (explains his mission)

Sadhguru: (corrects the supposed mistake) <— Power move 💪🏼

Host: (nods and looks in reverence) <— Too ‘nice’, relinquishes all intellectual authority

⬆️ Dominant, but also too disempowering towards the host

📽️ Video

4.3. Judge

• Give compliments when appropriate
  • “Good job” <— 📣🟰 I assess your work / you work for me
  • “You’re a good guy” <— 📣🟰 I judge your personality
  • “He’s a nice guy” <— 📣🟰 More dominant and dismissive if the recipient is present
    Trump does it often.

• Criticize when appropriate

At a higher level, powerful men judge people in general:

⚖️ High-power men set the frame of good/bad, and judge others accordingly

See more in:

• Judge power dynamics

4.4. Correct And Contradict Them (when appropriate!)

Correcting and contradicting are obvious power moves to display conversational dominance.

🔎 Example:

5. Control The Frame

Dominant men control the conversational frame.

At the most foundational level, they set the frame of what’s right, fair, and “normal”.

5.2. Answer From Your Frame

Mindset:

🧠 My answer is in my total control

“Yes” and “no” answers follow other people’s lead.

To dominate the conversation start a new sentence from scratch:

Her: Madrid first. Have you ever been there?
Him: I’ve heard they don’t eat dinner until midnight <—- Implies “no”

⬆️♟️ High power and ‘cool’
“No” would disempower him. And would end the conversation.
Instead, he answers while maintaining power and keeping the conversation going. Plus, he sounds cool.

📽️ Video here.

Even higher power:

5.3. Summarize & Close

Summarizes the conversation shapes the meaning.

Or, at least, you get a power boost with the last word.

🔎 Trump does it with Schumer and Pelosi:

Trump: I will do XYZ, thank you (ends the discussion)

6. Dominate Removing Words

Remember the social power matrix:

Higher status men invest less by using fewer words (exceptions apply)

So communicate more non-verbally.
Bonus points, research also shows that higher expressiveness is more attractive (examples in PU).

6.2. Use Pregnant Pauses

Principle:

⚖️ Confident men hold the pauses, anxious men rush to fill them

Good tips for when you have power:

• Sit with the silence (without rushing to fill it)
• Speak slow (🧠 “What I say matters”)
• Use pregnant pauses for effect
• Wait 2 seconds before replying

🔎 The most famous cinematic example of “pregnant pauses”:

Godfather: Fredo, you’re my older brother, and I love you <— Notice the collaborative frames
(pregnant pause)
But don’t ever take sides against the family again.
(pregnant pause)
Ever.

6.3. Wield Pressure With Silences

Social pressure creates fear or at least discomfort in the submissive party.
🔎 Example:

De Niro: (direct, dominant questions with little warmth)
Stiller: (nervous and over-reactive)

⬆️♟️ Stiller makes a joke to relieve pressure. But instead of accepting it -a friendly move- De Niro piles more pressure, culminating with the “but you didn’t pick it” power move.

If Stiller wanted to defend, he could have said:

De Niro: They say geniuses pick green…. But you didn’t pick it
Stiller: Who says it <— Question his authority

Then, he could have taken the judge role with “Hmm, I’m not convinced. Anyway… “.

🟡 7. Be ‘Positively Aggressive’ (when needed)

Aggression is the darker side of dominance.

We don’t recommend it as your standard approach.
It makes enemies, destroys social capital, and research also found that aggressive language is less persuasive.

BUT… There is a place and time for almost anything, and it can be useful for self-defense.

So, it’s good to know when and how to be aggressive.

🟡 7.2. Speak Over Others

Dominant and aggressive individuals trample your right to speech if you let them.

If you saw Trump’s debates, it’s shocking how many times he interrupted, spoke over, and robbed opponents of their right to speak.
And whenever others fought him, he won almost all the times.

🔎 Example:

🟡 7.3. Cut People Off

Domineering men cut others off.

If others accept it, they confirm their lower status.

🔎 Example:

Sergeant: Elias is a troublemaker… (gets interrupted, and turns to Barns)
Barns: (louder, without looking at the sergeant) Elias is a water walker…

⬆️ Barns hollows the sergeant’s authority.

🟡 7.4. Criticize & Attack

Criticism mixes aggression with judge powers.

🔎 Example:

Trump: What a stupid question. What a stupid question that is (walks away shaking his head)

👆🏼♟️Dominant, but poor leadership
Trump made the mistake of telling her “I watch you a lot”, subcommunicating what she says matters to him (narcissism plays a role there). We enocurage men to be high-quality, honorable leaders here.

Video here.

7.5. Push Others On The Defensive

The dynamics of attack and defense are a critical dimension of frame control.

The attacker controls the frame and dominates, while the defender reacts.

🔎 Example:

Defender: And that’s where the confusion is coming from
Aggressor: There is no confusion
Defender: (smiles nervously, keeps apologizing)

⬆️ The defender isn’t really sorry. He apologizes because he is out-dominated.

We see here once again that “dominant” is not always “good”. The interviewer crucifies a guy without giving him any chance to speak (⛏️ see full analysis here).

8. Display Rationality & Logic

Rationality and logic are associated with agency and masculinity, and also signal high value as cues of high IQ.

For example:

If we do X, we likely get Y—a logical outcome, as seen in…

9. Speak With Charismatic Conviction

The pinnacle -or nadir- of dominant speaking are dictators, populists, and cult leaders.

🔎 Benito Mussolini:

Mussolini: (confident, optimistic, pompous, loud, R-syllables mimic roaring, pregnant pauses) <— A public speaking genius

Mussolini says “(we declared war) to give a long period of peace and justice”.
It’s illogical, but it’s persuasive to reframe aggression as ‘just’ and ‘for the greater good’ 🐍.

It won’t convince empowered men, but works with disempowered followers.
They bask in the strongman’s power and the (supposed) “group glory”.

👉🏼 Mussolini and many dictators mix a poetic use of language similar to Peterson, Jay Shetty, and Russell Brand. BUT add dominance and power.

Also see:

• Empowered individualism: the ultimate guide for personal power

Bonus: Use Dominant Expressions

• (Yo) listen (to me)
• Wrong!
• And you think there is nothing wrong with that? <— Judge power move
• No, answer my question
• Sorry, I don’t wanna hear about it right now
• Tell me something more interesting
• Shut up! / Silence! / Quiet!

Use Loaded Keywords

The Routledge Handbook on Persuasion lists these ‘power words’:

Learn More

• Confident social behavior
• Low-confidence social behavior
• Unconfident conversation signals you must avoid

❗ This is a preview from Power University. Alumni go to the curriculum for the advanced version + exercises ❗