Authentic Gravitas

by Rebecca Newton

  Free and released breathing is a fundamental part of gravitas, according to Charlie Walker-Wise from London’s RADA (Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts) Business. In my interview with Walker-Wise, he highlighted the importance of how you manage your body, your breath, and your voice in relation to the time and space you have to speak. He noted that many people are too quick to speak (or occasionally overcompensate by being too slow), and take up too little space physically, as if they are being apologetic (or occasionally overcompensate by taking up too much space). “When I feel comfortable with myself, I’m relieved of excessive and unhelpful tension, and I’m able to manage my self and my environment well,” he explained. “The fundamental thing is to breathe effectively. To do this, take some time out to leave the stress of the day, from previous encounters, at the door rather than rushing in and bringing the baggage with you. If you need to slow your pace down, try to take a slow walk around the block. Or if your next meeting requires higher energy, go for a brisk walk. Manage yourself proactively to be in the right state to show up with gravitas for your next encounter.” He also noted that deep breaths shouldn’t sit in your chest (like a puffed-up Roman or Greek god), but in your belly (picture Buddha). It’s at this point that Walker-Wise switched to Latin. “Inspirare,” he declared, “of which the modern derivation is inspiration, means ‘to breathe life into’ or ‘breathe upon.’ The connection between a thought or idea and the communication of it is breath. Think of a pub quiz: a question is asked and we respond with, ‘Ah!’ on a big breath in, ‘I’ve got it!’ The physical connection between a thought and how we communicate it is so clearly linked in that moment of inspiration, on a breath.”

  How to Keep Calm and . . .

  As I’m writing this, I look over at my tea and smile—the mug I’ve coincidentally chosen this morning was given to me by a friend and has the phrase Keep Calm and Carry On printed on it (he also gave me a second mug that says, Now Panic and Freak Out!).18 Nowadays it’s rare to find a gift shop in the UK without a “Keep Calm and . . .” message printed on some kind of merchandise. The message resonates with many around the world, but as I’ve come to learn after twenty years living as an Australian in the UK, this is a particularly British sentiment. I laugh again as I pause from writing to put on some hand cream from a little “de-stress kit” gift box that has this message printed on it: Learn to be calm and you will always be happy.19 Okay, okay, I get the message. The question is, how do we choose to be calm? One useful approach is reappraising the situation rather than trying to suppress any anxiety.20

  For those of us who do feel anxiety at times, in some contexts, we might think, I shouldn’t/don’t want to feel like this, and try to squash any feelings of anxiety. But much research suggests that suppressing emotions actually leads—paradoxically—to an increase in the unwanted emotional experience. Researchers at Boston University looked at anxiety levels of students asked to give an impromptu speech, assigned to one of three different conditions: reappraisal (reassess or reframe the situation and realistic likely outcomes), acceptance (embrace your feelings), and suppression (don’t let your feelings get in the way).21 They found that reappraisal was the most effective strategy for reducing the experienced level of anxiety.

  Rather than just trying to “make the feelings go away,” the research suggests reframing how you think about the situation. Yes, it might be a more “important” presentation than usual, there might be a larger or different audience than you’re used to, or it might be an opportunity that rarely comes up to present to your management team, but anticipate the feelings of anxiety (which you might feel even when you’re just thinking about or preparing for the presentation) in advance and decide what you rationally believe to be true about the situation. Are you likely to fall on your face? Probably not. Are you prepared? Be prepared, and then you can say, “Yes!” Rather than ignoring the feelings or mentally highlighting the feelings, try to reappraise. For example, “It’s normal to feel increased emotions—this is important to me. I’ve been asked to do this (or have the opportunity to do this) because I’m the right person for it.” An interesting approach to reappraisal comes from Alison Wood Brooks of Harvard Business School. She suggests reappraising anxiety as excitement, using simple strategies such as self-talk: I am excited or Get excited. In the research, this led participants to improve their performance as a result of feeling more excited and adopting an opportunity mind-set rather than a threat mind-set.22 You’re most likely nervous because this situation matters. And it matters because it’s an opportunity that could lead to positive outcomes. Wanting to show up well and demonstrate authentic gravitas is a good thing, so “get excited.”

  These are all skills that can be learned. You are not born a public speaker or not. You are not born as someone who handles significant encounters well or not. You choose to develop and learn the skills. And even when a lack of confidence screams at you to stay in your comfort zone, forget about desiring confidence and instead choose courage. Continue proactively putting yourself in scenarios where you get exposure to different contexts that might terrify you at first. We should regularly be nervous. People who do not get nervous are not stepping out of their comfort zone, which is required for growth. Gravitas is reserved for those who continue to challenge themselves and increase their skill, regardless of whether it feels good in the process.

  Let’s come back to Jackson, our defeated COO. Once he introduced some practices to manage his anxiety, we looked at his strengths and started to make a plan to proactively drive positive change in his career.

  NATURAL FUEL FOR RESILIENT GRAVITAS: YOUR UNIQUE STRENGTHS

  Chris, my friend and colleague who specializes in leadership and professional development, and I were debriefing at lunch after running a business simulation with some master’s degree students. “Passion,” Chris said emphatically. “People with gravitas are passionate. That looks different for different people, but you can see it. Now, someone might be in a role or environment that is not fulfilling and they’re not excited about it, and you wouldn’t describe them as having gravitas. Then the next week, they might have started a new job and be showing up completely differently, full of passion, and with gravitas.” Gravitas is not something that happens in a vacuum: it is influenced by the situation we’re in and the people around us. And if, as Chris and many other interviewees believe, passion is a requirement of gravitas, we need to be aware of two things: first, what it is we personally really care about (a key to authenticity); and second, which situations bring out our natural energy. Understanding our own unique strengths is a key part of starting this process.

  When we talk about “strengths,” we tend to think about what we’re skilled at. But strengths are different from skills. Strengths, in this context, are what we’re naturally energized by (which we also may be good at or likely to become good at because we enjoy these things and naturally spend time on them). There is power in awareness and commitment to fostering strengths—individually and collectively. Strengths experts Tom Rath and Barry Conchie discuss research findings that show that when leaders adopted a deficit focus (focusing on what people need to do differently or improve) in their approach, only 9 percent of staff were engaged, compared to 73 percent of staff when leaders focused on their strengths.23 Following from Rath and Conchie’s findings, researchers from the University of Houston and the University of Richmond found that employees whose managers supported them in using their strengths at work were more likely to show higher levels of performance as well as “positive organizational behaviors”—collaborating with and supporting colleagues.24

  We have a tendency to see our weaker areas as unique—I’m rubbish at this (personal and specific to me)—but to gloss over our strengths, thinking, Lots of people are good at this (collective and widespread). The reality is, our particular combination of strengths is unique. Mathematically, the Strengthscope® model of twenty-four work-based strengths, which highlights for each indivi
dual their “seven significant strengths,” shows that the likelihood of anyone having the same significant strengths as you is 1 in 346,000!25 It even suggests that if you were to order these by what most resonates with you as your greatest strengths, the likelihood of anyone having the same order as you would be 1 in 1.7 billion! You will never meet anyone with the same exact combination of strengths as you. You are unique. As Paul Brewerton, PhD, managing director of the company that developed the Strengthscope® model, shared with me, “By providing an insight into their strengths, we always encourage leaders to own their uniqueness—their strengths and their vulnerabilities. Wherever you go, whatever challenges you face, you are the one constant. When a leader is clear on the strengths that they can bring to each encounter, each challenge, each conversation, this can help build a far deeper level of confidence and resilience because that leader feels more in control of the situation and better equipped to choose their response to it.”

  For authentic gravitas, we want real, natural passion, not forced, false excitement. When it comes to building natural energy, two things are important. The first is identifying our strengths. Think of a time when you were naturally energized recently. It might have been challenging, but you felt an excited “buzz.” Start to look across your career and life for times when you felt natural passion and identify patterns. Yes, it will be shaped by the macro—whether you care about the overall goals—but the micro behaviors also matter: what specifically were you doing? We all have numerous natural strengths, but you will be able to find some common themes.

  The second is being proactive about building a career in which you have regular opportunities to utilize and grow these strengths. Yes, there are parts of any role that we won’t particularly enjoy, but as Chris noted, context matters. If we’re in a context where we have the chance to draw on our natural strengths, we will bring more genuine passion, and thereby authentic gravitas, to the table. But there isn’t a one-size-fits-all environment for people to flourish. Just as we all have different strengths, the environments that give us natural energy and opportunities to have authentic gravitas are equally diverse. We need to be intentional in seeking out or creating contexts that bring out our natural strengths and, if necessary, have the courage to make a change to our role or environment. There may be significant weaknesses that you know are holding you back from having a positive impact, and certainly it’s important to address these issues. But many of us spend a lot of time and energy working on every little weakness in order to have an incrementally greater impact, when we would have a much more significant impact if we focused on developing our unique strengths.

  The Power of a Reframe

  One of the most powerful things I’ve seen for building, or getting back, natural energy is applying our strengths to reframe a situation—here are two examples.

  Carlette is a deputy director in business development for a consulting firm. When we met, she described how she was shooting herself in the foot. Generating new ideas, collaborating with others, and driving change were all things that came naturally to her. As such, she felt well-suited to her role. But she quietly disclosed, “I’m overwhelmed. I constantly start all these new projects and ventures. But look at my desk—I feel like I’m drowning with all the endeavors I’m meant to be moving forward, all of which I’ve created for myself.” When looking at her Strengthscope® profile, I could certainly see how this resulted from her combined strengths going “into overdrive”—natural energizers overplayed, too much of a good thing, so to speak. I see strengths applied in overdrive as potentially more dangerous than nonstrengths or weaknesses. We tend to be aware of the latter but rarely give consideration to how our strengths (or the way we’re overworking them) may be doing us a disservice. When Carlette and I looked at her profile, another strength stood out to me: critical thinking. I suggested that if I’d brought Carlette to my desk and shared with her the same challenge, she would have been able to systematically guide me through the mountain of work in front of me to evaluate each project in order of priority, and help me make some tough decisions about how to move forward. “Yes,” she said, and smiled in agreement, knowing where this was headed. Carlette decided to apply one of her other strengths to tackle the challenge she was facing. It enabled her to reframe the idea that she had created a monster that was out of control, to the realization that she naturally had within her exactly what she needed to make the monster work for her.

  A mentor whom I truly value shared with me that he is not at all energized by efficiency. I was shocked, because in the many years I’ve known and worked with him, I’d never experienced a lack of efficiency. In fact, I found it hard to imagine that any of the friends and colleagues we had in common would experience him as inefficient. And he wasn’t. But rather than focusing on the need to be efficient to get through his endless emails and administrative work associated with managing dozens of employees and responding to his global clients’ continual demands, he reframed these tasks. Given that his natural strengths lie in relationship building and having compassion for others, he explained, “I choose to see these tasks as being about the people on the other side of them, not just as something I have to get done. When I focus on the people I empower by doing these tasks, I’m energized and passionate about them.” How we see the things on our to-do list for the day shapes how we show up that day. A reframe can help bring authentic passion and be a natural fuel for gravitas.

  Drawing Others Toward You

  “People are drawn toward them.” Leaders and professionals describing others with gravitas repeated this phrase over and over again in our research. We are drawn toward people who bring out the best in us. Understanding strengths enables us to not only bring our own natural energy, but equips us with the skills to help others bring theirs. People are attracted to others who can see and appreciate their unique strengths—not as baseless cases of flattery, but grounded in observation, experience, reflection, and exploration. Sometimes we assume that people are energized by the same things we are, but as we see from the research, everyone is different. If we take an interest in identifying the situations and opportunities that naturally energize others, we learn to value their strengths and adapt our ways of working with them to activate their strengths.

  For Jackson, our COO with the slumping shoulders, these practices helped him, in his words, “regain his swagger.” Feeling that it was time to move on, he took on an exciting role in a new firm and was pleased when he had the opportunity to build coaching others into his role. This would fuel his ability to sustain his authentic gravitas.

  MITIGATING POWER STRESS TO SUSTAIN AUTHENTIC GRAVITAS

  This shift to focusing on others and their strengths can have a powerful, positive impact not only on the people around us, but also on ourselves. We need this mentality not only to build but also to sustain authentic gravitas because one of the things that may happen as we increase authentic gravitas is that we may take on greater responsibilities and subsequently experience more “power stress.” Eminent professor Richard Boyatzis and his colleagues from Case Western Reserve University argued that leaders experience psychological and physiological effects from chronic power stress that adversely affect their sustainability as leaders.26 The researchers didn’t restrict “leadership” to positions of power (i.e., the boss), but included other forms, like thought leadership in introducing innovation. What matters is that the person is influencing others. Power stress comes with the demands of increased responsibility over others. It can involve working on things that are personally important and therefore risky, often while others are watching or critiquing. These conditions can cause stress. Chronic power stress can mean that a person loses some ability to adapt, learn, and stay healthy, meaning they have “difficulty sustaining the mental, emotional, perceptual, and behavioral processes that enabled him or her to be effective.”27

  People with authentic gravitas take responsibility for ensuring they add positive, signif
icant value, often amid uncertainty. The value they add is substantive, and with that comes power stress. The irony is that while we work through dark or difficult moments to build authentic gravitas, authentic gravitas can also be responsible for some of those dark moments because of the self-determined pressure to positively influence others. This, in turn, can reduce one’s ability to continue adding substantive value. How can we manage stress to ensure we not only build authentic gravitas but also sustain it?

  Boyatzis and his colleagues offer a valuable approach to ameliorate power stress in the workplace. Taking into consideration the many psychological and physiological responses to stress, they highlight the power of what they call coaching with compassion: “helping others in their intentional change process (i.e., achieving their dreams or aspirations or changing the way they think, feel, and act).”28 Sound familiar? In chapters 2 and 3, we looked at the golden gravitas question: How do I want them to think, feel, and act as a result of this encounter with me? Coaching with compassion aligns with the principles of authentic gravitas.