The Path to Gravitas
“Simplicity exists on the far side of complexity.
You can’t go around it, you have to go through!”
— Anon
grav·i·tas (noun)
Dignity, seriousness, presence, bearing, weight or solemnity
of manner. “A post for which he has the expertise and the gravitas.”
The ability to confront disagreements, challenges and upsets,
or counter-intention with a stable, steady gaze. The ability and
willingness to handle whatever appears.
Young One: “What do I need to be a leader?”
Old One: “Well, Gravitas. Experience, Simplicity, Focus, a Piercing Gaze (which shifts between the immediate and the distant) and the Ability to Keep Your Wits About You!”
Young One: “Right! So how do I acquire those right away?”
The sad reality about Management Development and the Executive Perspective: though some of it can be taught, some of it can be modeled, some of it can be told or written about — reading it is not owning it. You have to go through the soul wrenching experience first-hand in order to not just hear the lesson, but to experience it from the core out through the skin, brain, mind, heart and soul.
You may be smart. But you’re not experienced. You haven’t seen it. You haven’t died with those people you had to fire. You haven’t mourned with the families of the people who died working for your company. You haven’t worked the equation to keep people on, while you calculated how much you still had to net in order to keep the doors open. You’ve read about it, yes. You’ve studied. You have not yet suffered. The only way to earn this stripe?… Direct experience!
You may have seen that elder Executive: cool, simple, restrained, pared back. No checked luggage, no pocket square, a seasoned, well-traveled bag, that beat-up Burberry coat, the basic Rolex, the long gaze, no upsets in the airport, no histrionics at the hotel desk, arriving early, staying late, heading for a light dinner and getting back on the flight home. A few million miles. Polite. Restrained. Under-stated. Sense of Humor. An unruffled sense of calm. That’s it. But each of those features is studied and acquired from experience.
And, does it occur to you that much of what you see has been arrived at by subtraction? Yes, by removing things: like ego, presumption, self-promotion, demands for status or recognition.
There. That’s Gravitas.
Applications
1. For You
Get yourself a great Counselor. Study everything, start asking those questions, then put yourself out there (in harm’s way) where you can feel the wind, the emotions, the challenges, the victories and the defeats that will hammer out that long gaze and the patience to know when the time is right.
2. For the Family
Share this truth as you raise your family: nobody starts out as a star! Beginnings are humble, slow, low, and time consuming because — practice. You can’t go around this learning. You have to persist through the entire process!
3. For the Workplace
Acquiring Gravitas may be what the workplace is really about, (after you take out earning the daily bread). What makes a life worthwhile? That we earned enough to pay the bills? Or that we became, gradually, the kind of people who know and understand how life, business and relationships actually work — and we’re still around and teaching.
Gravitas: There’s no app for that. Instead, it is acquired, learned and evolved by going through.
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