How to Read a Person in Fifteen Minutes — The Art of Reading People I Learned From Interviewing Leaders
People assume that after interviewing so many heads of state, what I've developed is a kind of intuition for "seeing through" people at a glance.
It's actually the opposite. When it comes to reading people, intuition is the last thing to rely on. The ability to truly read someone in a short time comes not from talent, but from two very unmysterious things — the preparation before you meet, and watching for the "gaps" when you do.
First, preparation. Many people assume that those who read others well are especially sharp "in the moment." They're not. The decisive point is usually before you've even met.
Before interviewing an important figure, I read everything I can find — what they've said and done in the past, where they've changed their tune, which questions they're especially sensitive about. To what degree? To the point that when I sit down across from them, my understanding of them exceeds what they expect from "someone who's come to interview them." Spending months, or longer, on this kind of homework for a single interview is, for me, routine.
Why does preparation matter so much? Because the essence of reading people isn't "judging a stranger out of thin air" — it's "taking the real person in front of you and checking them against the one you've studied." The more thorough your homework, the more accurate the "measuring stick" in your hand. Someone who's done no homework can only guess wildly from first impressions; someone who's done the homework is verifying.
Which brings me to the second thing, the real key: watching for the "gap."
When you already understand a person thoroughly, what you're observing when you meet isn't "what they said" — it's the gaps between what they said and several other things. What they say, and what they've done in the past — do they match? Their stated position, and their reaction when questioned (a pause, an evasion, a sudden eagerness) — do those line up? The side they want to show you, and the side that slips out unintentionally — are they the same person?
A person's truest self is often not in their prepared answers, but in these gaps. Those who read people well listen not just to the content, but to the seams between content and reaction.
There's another detail many people overlook: the real observation happens "before it formally begins" and "after it ends." When a person has sat down, the spotlight is on, and they know they're being watched, what they show is their "prepared self." But before that — how they walk in, how they interact with the staff beside them, what they do in the waiting gap; and after it ends, the moment they relax — that's their unguarded self. When I read a person, very often it's not the interview segment I'm watching, it's those two segments, before and after.
So, back to that "see through at a glance" myth. The real art of reading people isn't mysterious at all, and it isn't talent. It's doing the homework beforehand so you carry an accurate measuring stick; and then, when you meet, quietly watching for the gaps the person themselves hasn't noticed.
So reading people is never talent — it's homework. How much you prepare before you meet decides how much you can understand after.