Anyone can authentically have gravitas. You can be “like that” and still be you. Because being authentic isn’t about staying the same, true to “natural,” unintentional habits. It’s about adapting and growing to increasingly act in ways that align clear intention with actual impact. Authenticity requires agility.
Rather than being an invincible superhero, gravitas demands vulnerability, discipline, and humility. It requires vulnerability to get feedback about ways in which your impact may not line up with your intention, discipline to keep trying out and sticking with new behaviors to achieve the impact you’re after, and humility to accept that two or more heads really are better than one. People with authentic gravitas are collaborators, not independent heroes.
The reality is, we all have a gap between our intention, our action, and our actual impact. To have gravitas, be clear about your convictions (what really matters in a given situation), be clear about your intention (how you want to show up and impact that situation and the people in it), be disciplined in checking that your impact is lining up with your intention (through your own observations and seeking feedback), and be committed to continually adapting your style.
We want to add great value, but habits and busyness can get in the way. Did we add the most value today that we could? Perhaps not, but the truth is, a few small changes could lead to a big difference in our impact, and our answer going forward could consistently be “yes.” What separates those who have authentic gravitas from those who don’t are typically just a few small differences found within their thinking and actions over the course of a day . . . every day. To build a life of authentic gravitas we simply need to prioritize it, not over but through the urgencies, the stresses, the disappointments, the highs and lows of day-to-day life. We can all increase the extent to which we make a positive, meaningful impact on others. It starts with being intentional in our mind-set—choosing who we want to be (what kind of leader, colleague, employee, friend, etc.) and how we want to show up. If we choose to increase our skills and commit to doing so, we can all engage in the courageous behaviors of authentic gravitas.
PRACTICES FOR BUILDING THE FOUNDATIONS OF AUTHENTIC GRAVITAS
On the point of authenticity, spend a few minutes to articulate the following: When do I most feel like me? What really matters to me?
On being intentional, ask yourself, What footprint do I want to leave every day? How would I want other people to describe me?
On being courageous, challenge yourself, What upcoming opportunity is going to require me to choose courage?
On gravitas, think about, What would help me start building new patterns of thinking or behavior that will take me on my journey of increasing my authentic gravitas?
TWO
CONNECTION OVER CHARISMA
Where Intention Meets Impact
“I had a conversation with Sal and she said this one line that just changed everything for me.” As I heard Xavier describe what had happened, I wondered how many times I had heard a friend refer to a conversation with Sal in that way. I, too, had experienced a few “one liners” from Sal that had dramatically shifted my thinking and subsequently made a big difference in my career. In the various contexts in which I’ve seen her, across more than a decade, I’ve been witness to the widespread respect and trust she engenders. She consistently adds significant value. How does she do it? I wondered. Where do these “one liners” she’s become known for stem from? “Old soul” and “wise owl” were descriptions that came to mind. But more than that, I knew her ability to connect is rooted in her commitment to making people feel comfortable—comfortable enough that they want to be open and vulnerable. It’s in the way she constructs conversations, what she says and what she doesn’t say. It’s in her humility and curiosity, and in her ability to focus on that one conversation. Even if it’s just a short chat, she seems to learn, reflect, add value, and simultaneously reframe and challenge in the best possible way. (I bet you want to be friends with Sal, too!) Then I realized, there’s one word that sums her up that I can see all these other qualities stemming from: intentional. She’s intentional with how she connects. Sure, Sal absolutely has a gap between her intention and impact at times—that’s true for all of us. But she’s mindful of it, and that just leads her to be more intentional and disciplined about reducing the gap. The challenge is that most of the time we don’t realize when there’s a disconnect between our intent and actual impact. And this gap doesn’t only occur in our speeches and presentations; it’s equally in one-off encounters and in ongoing relationships. It’s (annoyingly) sometimes in our big “wow” moments, and it’s in our everyday life. The key is to be mindful of it.
If we do become conscious of this gap, it tends to be after the fact, when the other person has told us how they felt, or we observe a change in their manner around us, or we are told by a third party. Our first instinct (let’s be honest) can be defensive, assuming that the other person is at fault. It’s their problem, their bad attitude, their insecurity, their inability . . . it’s their lack. We feel that they have “misinterpreted” us. To have authentic gravitas, we must own the misinterpretation and clarify our intention. There is a continual gap between our own intentions and others’ experience of those intentions outworked. The key is to anticipate that it will be there. Being aware of the gap means we pay greater attention to cues that a gap has formed and is leading to unintended outcomes, so we can quickly close it. Better still, being conscious of the potential gap can mean it never actualizes, as we are more intentional with how we communicate and act, and check the interpretation of our messages to ensure what is received is what we intended to send. The simplest, and perhaps most powerful, way to be intentional is to ask yourself one golden question. This can greatly increase your authentic gravitas:
How do I want them (the people I encounter) to think, feel, and act as a result of this encounter with me?
You don’t have to have the answers now. You just need to be consistently mindful of this question, to metaphorically keep it in your pocket, ready to pull out when the moment arises. Ask yourself this simple question before going into a meeting, whether it’s one-on-one or with a group, face-to-face or virtual. If you’re preparing for a presentation, don’t succumb to the temptation to open your laptop to a new (or, worse still, an old, ready-to-be-revisited) slide deck. Sit down with a blank piece of paper and ask yourself how you want your audience to think, feel, and act as a result of this encounter with you. Your content, structure, and style will flow out of, and be guided by, your answer (more on this in chapters 3 and 4). Equally, though, if you’re having a more informal or spontaneous conversation—for example, if you just got asked to meet someone who has popped into the office, or you’re catching up with a colleague—ask yourself this question in the few minutes (or even seconds) you have beforehand. It will shape the way you engage with them, the questions you open with, and even your body language, particularly your facial expressions. You will be more likely to minimize the intention-impact gap by clarifying your intention through this simple question before the encounter.
GENEROSITY OF SPIRIT
The question is easier to answer in the moment if you’ve already determined your broader goals for how you want to show up. What are your values, convictions, and decisions about the ways in which you want to approach a situation and interact with other people, and what kind of culture or environment do you want to create around you? Once you’ve decided that, it’s easier to act in alignment between this intention and desired impact on a daily basis.
Here’s an example of how that looks in action at work. Gail Kelly, former CEO of the Westpac Group, one of Australia’s biggest banks, spoke openly and honestly about her personal leadership legacy goals when she joined us at the LSE. She described one of these goals as “generosity of spirit.” There are two key elements to generosity of spirit, according to Kelly
. The first is believing in the power of people to make a difference (leadership intent). The second is creating an environment that empowers them to flourish and be the best they can be to make that difference (leadership impact).
Kelly also thinks about leadership tactics, but these act in service to the greater leadership goals she’s defined. She describes leaders who have this generosity of spirit as having humility, listening to others, and demonstrating empathy. These are qualities I experienced firsthand when we had dinner together after her talk. She noted that leaders with generosity of spirit are not selfish, intolerant, judgmental, or quick to shoot the messenger or find scapegoats, and they don’t sit on the fence to see which way something works out before they decide if they’re going to support it. They deliver feedback honestly and in a timely manner, rather than waiting six or twelve months for a performance review. Poor performance is dealt with quickly. And perhaps most important, good managers choose their assumptions. As Kelly puts it, “I choose to assume that you (my colleague) want the best for me personally and for others. I am generous in my assumptions of your underlying motivations and your intent toward me. Hard as it may be at times, I will assume good intent.”
This approach seemed to work for Westpac—at the time, in their internal engagement surveys, 97 percent of Westpac Group employees reported that they could see how their work is linked to the purpose of the company. Kelly herself is recognized as one of the most powerful women in finance, sitting on the Global Board of Advisors to the US Council on Foreign Relations and being the first female member of the Group of 30. In 2010, Forbes named her the eighth most powerful woman in the world, just after Indra Nooyi and Lady Gaga.1 The day after I met her, I mentioned it to a friend from Australia over lunch, who surprised me with his personal experience. “Oh yeah, Gail,” he said casually, as if talking about his next-door neighbor. “She arranged for our charity to be given office space in Westpac’s building—it made a huge difference for us.”
I’m certainly not arguing that generosity of spirit is the one-stop shop for everyone’s leadership and professional success. It works for Gail Kelly because it’s a footprint she has personally chosen and defined. She built it into her leadership team and tied it directly to results she wanted to see in the business.2
If you’re clear on your goal, you’re able to reduce the gap between intention and impact. Sure, you need feedback, courage, and discipline to address the gap, but clarity of purpose is an important first step. Just remember to ask yourself this simple question:
How do I want them (the people I encounter) to think, feel, and act as a result of this encounter with me?
Feelings Influence Decisions
I find that the hardest part of this question is feelings. What we want other people to do—how we want them to act—can be fairly clear. What we want them to think often flows out of this. But how do we want them to feel? This is not as easy to articulate. Yet feelings guide decision-making at work more than we realize. Here’s an example of a client and his journey to take others’ emotions into account when setting goals for his overall impact.
Drew, the managing partner of a firm in London, was excellent on strategy but needed some help with his influencing and leadership skills. When I suggested this question during a coaching session, he looked me in the eye and—laughing but showing embarrassed sincerity—declared, “Rebecca, I’ve never used the word feeling at work before!”
“Drew,” I encouraged him, “it’s time to start.”
Drew is not alone in his skepticism around the role of emotions at work. Jennifer Lerner from the Harvard Kennedy School of Government and her colleagues, in a study covering thirty-five years of research on emotion and decision-making, note that Western thought is largely dominated by a negative view of the role of emotion in reason.3 However, their research reveals how emotions constitute potent, pervasive, and predictable drivers of decision-making. Furthermore, that scientific evidence suggests that integral emotions (i.e., emotions arising from the judgment or choice at hand) can serve as a beneficial guide. Other research suggests that being in tune with feelings is linked with improved performance. In a study of 101 stock traders published in the Academy of Management Journal, the authors made the surprising discovery that higher decision-making performance was achieved by people who experienced more intense feelings. Those who were better able to identify and distinguish among their current feelings achieved higher decision-making performance through their enhanced ability to control the possible biases induced by those feelings.4 Neuroscientists argue that a view of “cold” rational thinking fighting it out against a “hot,” irrational, emotional system is an inadequate conceptualization, noting that studies suggest that the amygdala (most commonly associated with emotion) may also play an important role in complex decision-making.5 Whether we like it or not, our decisions are likely to be influenced by our emotions, so it’s better for us to learn about our emotional responses than to “intellectualize” them away.
Emotions guide the decisions we make and influence the way we behave. The same is true for those around you: emotions play a key role in their decision-making. Rather than negating the role of emotions at work, people with authentic gravitas recognize emotions’ key role in decision-making and performance. They’re not afraid of conversations around how someone really feels. Emotions can shape the way a colleague or client thinks and potentially how they act upon your input. When we set meeting objectives, we typically decide beforehand what we want people to do differently afterward—what we want out of the meeting. We may have considered what we want them to think. But rarely are we mindful of how we want them to feel—about what we’re saying, about the situation, about our relationship. Choose not only what you ideally want people to do, how you’d like to shape their thinking, but also how you want them to feel. Powerful connections form when we value how others feel as a result of an encounter with us.
THE MYTH OF CHARISMA
In the first chapter, we looked at the Myth of the Gravitas Gift (on this page) and the Myth of Confidence (on this page). The third psychological barrier we can face in fostering authentic gravitas is the Myth of Charisma. Charisma can be defined as a compelling attractiveness or charm that can inspire devotion in others; at times described even as a special power that some people have naturally that makes them able to influence other people and attract their attention and admiration.6 The Myth of Charisma is the false notion that people with gravitas are the most charismatic. And with that often comes the self-defeating internal whisper, I’m not charismatic enough. But in my interviews with business leaders, the vast majority did not use the word charisma to describe people with gravitas, other than to negate the myth—highlighting that people with gravitas may or may not be charismatic. Charismatic people can have authentic gravitas, but people with gravitas don’t necessarily have charisma.
While it’s not determined by charisma, people with gravitas are consistently noticed for their ability to connect. This goes beyond having an intention to connect, but also the ability that develops from a commitment to curiosity. I say “commitment” because while many people value curiosity in theory, this doesn’t necessarily translate into their daily practices and behaviors unless they commit to it.
Curiosity Means Embracing the Unknown
In order to have authentic gravitas, we need to acknowledge, own, and act upon the fact that we don’t know everything about the people with whom we interact and their situations. Not that many people would presume to think they know everything, but too often we don’t actively engage with this unknown. We step intentionally and courageously into new and unfamiliar areas in our own lives and careers, but frequently we don’t effectively explore what we don’t know about other people—what’s really happening with their career, project, team, or business, beyond a surface level. But to have a significant, positive impact on others and on a situation, it seems obvious that we will be better
positioned if we have a genuine interest in, and understanding of, those people and what’s happening. So why don’t we proactively seek to understand others as much as we could? Let’s take a look at three things that can hold us back from practical curiosity.
1. “I Knew It!”—Confirmation Bias
Celine had met with Piers on at least eight occasions over the last three years, usually when the various departments of the large cosmetics company they worked for were thrown together on a big campaign. This time, it had been only a little over two months since she had seen him last in France, where she was based. As her train to London pulled out of the station in Paris, Celine flicked through her notes, smiling as she remembered their last encounter and how smoothly it had gone. Piers had appreciated her input. She was hopeful that he would again be impressed with the ideas she and her team had pulled together, this time for a new cosmetics line. She knew his position on the market challenges, having seen some evidence of this in the industry press and their company’s in-house magazine since their last meeting, and had taken this into account when directing her team on the product design.
Once at their company’s London office, Celine made her way to the meeting room that Piers’s assistant had booked for them. He arrived, and after sharing brief pleasantries, she launched into her ideas. A few comments he made along the way reinforced to her that she was on the right track, so she was both surprised and disappointed when she later received an email explaining that he didn’t feel it “clicked” and that her positioning “wasn’t quite right.” Piers wanted her to come up with more options. Worse still, he also suggested getting an external team to look at the brief, “just so we have some options.” Where had she gone wrong?
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