Leaders spend lots of time communicating and building relationships with people. It’s evident that people like spending time in the company of others that help them feel good. There’s no better way than smiling. A genuine full-face smile. If you haven’t realized it yet, just turning up the ends of your mouth isn’t really a smile. And other people notice.

It took me a long time before I realized the difference between a forced smile and a real smile. I often am preoccupied with what I’m doing at work. And early in my career you would be hard-pressed to see me smile at work. I was working, and smiles were a distraction. I eventually realized the impression folks had of me and I didn’t like it. I started smiling more. Only over the last ten years have I realized that I was forcing my mouth to smile. The rest of me was still just thinking about the next thing I was going to do. It wasn’t a real, full-face smile.

Consider the last time something made you genuinely happy that you smiled. Maybe your kids, or a joke that struck you funny. Or maybe you found $20 in some old jeans. That smile changed how your entire face looked. Your eyebrows went up. Your eyes looked different. Your ears moved. Your whole face smiled.

Now think about the last time you ran into someone at work, a colleague, and you greeted that person. Maybe you didn’t frown. Hopefully you are at least making eye-contact and saying hello by now. Did your entire face light up and smile? Why not?

It may seem silly to think about practicing the act of smiling. Your job as a leader relies on other more than ever. Consider the story of Steve Jobs practicing his intense stare. He would look in the mirror and practice it. I’m not saying that’s a leadership tactic I endorse. He knew his effective stare would be needed when he was going to invoke the reality distortion field on others. He spent time on it.

I’ve noticed that I can’t rely on my natural expression to convey my actual feelings about someone. My natural facial expression is somewhere between mad and in-pain. My daughter will ask me “why are you making that face?” When I force a smile, my natural tendency is to smile with my mouth. My forehead still says “I’m anxious.” And so I try and be aware when I’m smiling to relax my face, raise my eyebrows. I challenge myself to be genuinely happy in that moment.

I find myself practicing with flight attendants. I fly a few times a month. Flight attendants are people who have to put up with a lot of not-happy people. They are here to help. So I smile at every one of them. As I board, as they walk by, when they offer me a soda. I don’t find an airplane a particularly happy place. It’s a good place to try and channel happy when the nice woman in front of me decides to fully recline her seat into my lap.

Why not look in the mirror and practice your smile? Why not at least pay attention to how your face feels when you’re happy and smiling in a genuine way. What muscles are relaxed? Can you mimic that feeling? Can you do that on command with practice? And if you can, and share that feeling of a “happy, smiling self” to your staff every day. Wow.