“The face is the mirror of the mind, and eyes without speaking confess the secrets of the heart.”  Saint Jerome 373-419AD

To have the greatest impact, leaders of any sort benefit greatly from the ability to rapidly connect with people.  The larger the teams we lead the more important this becomes.  There’s no longer the leeway to take the weeks or months to get to know people ‘properly’ - to establish trusting relationships. 
 
It’s sometimes the little things that make the difference.  During one meeting, a client of mine took his glasses off and looked me straight in the eyes.  The impact he had was at least tenfold the normal - he was really giving me his full attention, he really meant it, he really connected with me.  This was very different from normal, when I felt he wasn’t giving me 100% of his attention - he was busy thinking and problem solving, which in the main he was paid to do.  However, leadership isn’t the same as problem solving.

“What we are aware of we have some measure of control over.  What we are unaware of controls us”  

Neither of us were fully aware of the impact of his eye contact until that time and I now pay very close attention to the eyes of my clients when we meet.  I’m looking for confessions of the heart, confessions they are unaware of transmitting.

My experience is that many of us are completely unaware of what we do with our eyes when we meet people - particularly the first time we meet someone.  The trick is to set ourselves up for success here by being aware not only of how we act but particularly what we do with our eyes.  

Observe people meeting and you will soon notice those that have a direct and open gaze and those that don’t.  It doesn’t take long to notice the differences once you start looking for them. The best thing to do is to make good direct eye contact with an open expression.  This is easily done if we have the conscious intention of connecting with this person - in this way we connect much more quickly and readily, setting ourselves up for success.  

People talk of authentic leadership.  The Webster dictionary definition includes "not false or imitation" and Wikipedia says Authenticity refers to the truthfulness of origins, attributions, commitments, sincerity, devotion, and intention.  If our eyes "without speaking confess the secrets of the heart" then we cannot afford not to stop and pay attention to how we use them.

Follow on:  how we use our eyes is often a tell-tale sign of our needs indicated by the FIRO-B instrument - see more detail here