German Chancellor Angela Merkel has appeared relaxed during her first days in office but she is beginning the hard task of selling her programme of tax hikes and belt-tightening.
Her cool, businesslike manner has been a hallmark of her rapid rise to Germany's highest office but she has long been criticised for lacking the ability to connect with a wider public as her media-friendly predecessor Gerhard Schroeder did.
German media variously attribute her style to her upbringing in the former communist East Germany or her background as a physicist, a training that has supposedly left her with a love of detail and a methodical approach to problem solving.
She has, however, visibly enjoyed her first public appearances in office, smiling broadly and enlivening news conferences with a dry sense of humour.
Trips to Paris, Brussels and London last week gave the German press its first opportunity to see her at work on a world stage and its verdict on her performance was largely positive.
"Assured and self confident", the conservative Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung said after her joint news conference with French President Jacques Chirac, a close Schroeder ally.
She has said that a government seeking to persuade voters of the need for reforms to Germany's treasured but ailing social welfare system must improve its communication and noted that politicians of all parties had enjoyed only limited success.
With Germany facing years of austerity as Ms Merkel's coalition government of conservatives and Social Democrats grapples with massive unemployment and disorderly public finances, her ability to sell painful reforms is seen as key to prospects of success.
The voters who punished Mr Schroeder's reform efforts have already made clear how reluctant they are to embrace radical change and the daily Bild said the job was "about as pleasant as driving full speed up the wrong side of the autobahn".
In an interview with the newspaper, Ms Merkel said the next four years would be difficult ones with no room for tax cuts, pensioners likely to face declining real incomes and Christmas bonuses for civil servants scrapped.
"We're asking a lot of people, pensioners as well, I'm not beating about the bush there," she said.
But despite Bild's efforts, she declined to lighten the message with any personal insights into life with her media-shy husband and when asked about her mood, remarked simply:
"I said on the day I was appointed that I was happy and that hasn't clouded over yet."
She will face much more difficult weeks ahead with potential conflicts looming over health reform and
Germany's swollen budget deficit. Winning over public opinion will be vital.
"If good policies aren't marketed well, they don't reach anyone," she said in Berlin.