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Dimensions
We asked these 300 leaders, these 4000 middle-level managers what they were looking for on the gravitas front. And in a way this is the most powerful piece of executive presence. It’s about two-thirds of everything. It is the most important piece. And I think many of us have trouble with the word. I mean, we know it’s important to appear deep, to appear knowledgeable, to appear as though we really know our stuff, but how do we signal that?
Male leaders and female leaders really agreed on this. Competence and grace under fire. Are you the kind of person that keeps your poise, keeps your calm, keeps your wits about you when the going is rough. Ever since 2008 we’ve had all kinds of restructurings, all kinds of new business models. Folks are dealing with a lot of change and you have to do that with this grace under fire.
Number two is decisiveness, toughness, showing teeth. Demonstrating that you can make the difficult decisions and don’t just blow in the wind.
The third thing from the gravitas top picks which I want to underscore is emotional intelligence. These days, we operate in a very diverse world. Many of our customers and clients are very different from us. Many of them are perhaps global. So the idea that you need to display empathy, an ability to sit inside someone else’s shoes, is very valued.
Signaling
There’s some great tactics around gravitas. First off, if you’re super strong, have very clear views, don’t water them down, but surround your statements with warmth, perhaps with humor, it’s easier for them to be heard that way. Secondly, figure out what your non-negotiables are. Many of us, for instance, don’t want to compromise our integrity no matter what the stakes, but we have to know which pieces of our identity and our values we’re not prepared to change. Finally, figure out how to signal your stature, your skills. For instance, a very accomplished young person that I interviewed said that when he was at an important meeting, he always weaved in very simply the fact that he just spent five years at McKinsey. Because that established the fact that he was pretty experienced, that he was a heavyweight. So establishing your reputation, in some referencing of your track record is a fabulous way to build gravitas.