Trump loves his new desk in the Oval Office. But it also has its downsides

In an interview with CBS's John Dickerson to mark his first 100 days, President Donald Trump proudly showed off the changes he'd made to his new digs. Chatting inside the Oval Office, Trump told Dickerson about how he decided to keep several "beautiful" armed forces flags in the room. He put up a portrait of Andrew Jackson "because they said his campaign and my campaign tended to mirror each other."

And he said he added some new furniture: Chairs across from the Resolute desk — the seat of power for presidents including John F. Kennedy and Ronald Reagan — where he asks his visitors to sit. "I changed the — the way it works," Trump said, motioning toward chairs right in front of the famous desk. "I'll have people sitting here. Used to be they never had chairs that anybody can remember in front of the desk. But I've always done it this way where I'm at the desk and I have people here."

President Donald Trump has intimated that he may have been taping conversations in the Oval Office since he became president on January 20. Credit: Andrew Harrer

Trump goes on to say "usually they would sit on the sofas. But this is the Resolute desk. This is a great desk with a phenomenal history. Many great presidents were behind this desk".

The remarks reinforce Trump's fascination with the power his new office exudes — he is often seated at the desk in photo opps with visitors — and his belief that it's a great negotiating lever.

Donald Trump at his dek in the Oval Office.Credit: AP

"I feel very warm toward the Oval Office. It's a great symbol," he told Dickerson earlier in the interview, noting that he does much of his work there. When he's negotiating, such as on a fighter jet contract, Trump said, "calling from here and meeting here and having meetings on that contract, I think gives you great additional power, if you want to know the truth."

But Trump seems less focused on the potential downsides that the aura and symbolism a powerful office and a big desk can have, and its potential to make his staffers less willing to speak up, feel less relaxed in conversations and even have an effect on his own behaviour, too.

Meanwhile, negotiation experts suggest sitting across a desk or table from others conveys an oppositional approach — beneficial in certain negotiations designed to show who's boss, but less so when trying to compromise or work with people to come up with solutions to complex problems.

Writing in the Harvard Business Review, Ethan Burris (University of Texas, Austin) and James Detert (University of Virginia) argued last year that leaders often display subtle cues in their office — what social psychologist Richard Hackman called "ambient stimuli" — that "can cause employees to clam up", they wrote. When leaders are sitting behind a big oak desk, while an employee sits in a smaller chair, they wrote, "you're inadvertently telling him to watch his step around you". Sitting together on a sofa together, meanwhile, puts both people on a more level playing field.

Such non-verbal power cues, the two wrote in another HBR article, are a "looming presence" that are at odds with the hope of getting honest, unfiltered feedback. "After about 15 years of studying why people do or don't speak up to those in charge, we've seen, in case after case, that leaders send 'I'm the boss' signals without realising it — and those signals prevent others from coming to them with new ideas," they argued.

Other studies suggest other downsides to having interactions at a big desk. Research on medical doctors has shown that the presence of a desk between them and their patients when delivering news makes the patient feel less relaxed. According to one academic textbook on negotiation strategies, "it often creates increased levels of tension in negotiations that could be detrimental in cases where an integrative climate is important to the parties".

For a president who still seems in awe of where he's ended up — "I'm president! Hey, I'm president! Can you believe it, right?" he said in the Rose Garden on Thursday — a fascination with the most powerful office space on earth isn't surprising.

But while that may help when facing off with a foreign power, it can hurt when it comes to working with his own team or finding room for compromise from Congress. Says Burris: "By sitting behind a big desk, it creates a psychological distance that can create a more difficult environment to speak truth to power."

The Washington Post