Personality and Individual Differences 156 (2020) 109760

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Personality and Individual Differences

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Transformational leadership and gravitas: 2000 years of no development? T

Chris J. Jackson
University of New South Wales, Australia

ARTICLE INFO ABSTRACT

Keywords: Modern leadership theory has focused extensively on individual differences of transformational leadership
Gravitas without considering potential roots in, and convergent validity to, Ancient Rome's concept of gravitas. In the
Personality current study, I conduct an historical analysis of the origins of the gravitas personality trait of leadership and
Transformational leadership how British Imperialism provides a likely conduit of leadership ideas from the ancient world to the modern.
Historical analysis
Next, I regress gravitas and two contemporary leadership measures against the Big Five, and show correlations
between all the leadership measures. Finally, I conduct EFA of the items in the leadership measures. Results
suggest a high level of convergent validity between gravitas and transformational leadership. Although the study
has limitations, I conclude that gravitas is worth measuring in the modern world, that modern leadership re-
search should acknowledge roots from Ancient Rome, and potentially that our knowledge of leadership is not so
very different from how it was 2000 years ago.

1. Introduction determine if modern leadership research has advanced much in the

Leaders who inspire followers to high performance and who readily
encourage change are highly valued by organizations in today's dis-
ruptive business environment. Transformational leadership concerns
how leaders accomplish these feats (Avolio & Gardner, 2005;
Bass, 1985; Bass & Avolio, 1994). It focuses on how a leader's person-
ality characteristics influences followers’ values, needs, morals and as-
pirations such that they put organizational success above self-interest
(Podsakoff, MacKenzie & Bommer, 1996). More than 2000 years ago,
the Romans established Romanitas which comprised a set of aspirant
personality traits for Roman citizens aspiring to leadership. Gravitas has
been regarded as the most significant personality trait of Roman lea-
dership and concerns professional bearing in terms of having weight,
importance and power in comparison to conventional Roman values
(mos maiorum).
Although many roots of Western civilization can be traced to
Ancient Rome, present leadership research generally fails to recognize
the possibility that it might have roots in ancient wisdom and our
thinking might not have changed much in the last 2000 years. The aim
of the current study is to conduct an historical analysis of potential
links between the personality leadership trait of gravitas and trans-
formational leadership and to quantitatively test the convergent va-
lidity between gravitas and transformational leadership. This is im-
portant because it will: (a) inform researchers of a possible large and
previously unrecognized basis to transformational leadership; (b)
suggest gravitas has a role in the modern world; and (c) help
last 2000 years.
1.1. Historical analysis of gravitas
The gravitas personality trait of leadership is one of the four Roman
virtues (Apuzzo & Michael, 2006) and describes the qualities of heroes
(Corkindale, 2007; Morford, 2013). In modern times, it is defined as
weight, seriousness, or importance (Morford, 2013). Gravitas com-
prises, firstly, an overall appraisal of the inner quality of the soul and,
secondly, personal appearance and manners (i.e. being sober, serious,
grave, ennobling and stirring) whilst emphasizing a sense of im-
portance, earnestness, responsibility, self-control, and sternness.
Leadership researchers assume that within person differences in
their constructs are relatively minimal and that there are consistent
between person differences such that they are relatively enduring traits
(Jackson et al., 2019). Interestingly, the literature is relatively silent on
whether leadership traits are personality traits or “akin to personality
traits”. Sometimes they are referred to as consequences of personality.
Evidence certainly points to a reasonable overlap between Big Five
measures and transformational leadership scales (e.g. Deinert, Homan,
Boer, Voelpel & Gutermann, 2015). In this study, I take the position that
gravitas is an interesting and rarely discussed personality trait which
deserves much more attention in the literature.
Roman education and culture emphasized military accomplishment
and expediency over Greek literature and arts, dance and theory.
Gravitas was therefore a desirable Roman trait. In the well-known trial

E-mail address: c.jackson@unsw.edu.au.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.paid.2019.109760
Received 7 November 2019; Received in revised form 26 November 2019; Accepted 2 December 2019
0191-8869/ © 2019 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
C.J. Jackson
of Verres in 70 BCE, Cicero attacked the character of Verres for lacking
Roman virtues and gravitas (Calaizis, 2011). In another example, Pliny's
letter to Arrius Antoninus emphasizes the latter's gravitas as a key
component of Roman Imperialism. Gravitas was associated with glory,
fame and fortune associated with military and civic deeds
(Apuzzo, 2006). For example, when Roman envoys were mocked for
speaking Greek poorly at Tarentum in 282BC, they felt humiliated be-
cause their gravitas was compromised (Trahman, 1951).
Interestingly, gravitas does not disappear from history after the
decline of the Roman Empire as it was associated with the morality of
the English gentlemen in Victorian and Edwardian times
(Mason, 1982), continues to be prominent in English fee paying schools
(Hingley, 1996), and is similar to the personal quality of “bottom” in
the UK House of Commons (Mitchell & Goulds, 1982). Gravitas was as
essential to British Imperialism as it was to Roman Imperialism because
it ensured leaders were seen as superior (see Churchill, 1899;
Hingley, 1996). As such there is a plausible route of leadership ideas
from gravitas in Roman Imperialism, through British Imperialism, to
the influence of modern leadership literature.
There is much contemporary applied general literature on the im-
portance of gravitas to leadership. Modern gravitas reflects executive
presence and grace under pressure, speaking truth and possessing in-
tegrity, emotional intelligence, reputation and vision. Corkindale (2007)
associates gravitas with authority, personal power, personal presence,
commanding style, attractiveness, tone and volume of voice, good
judgment, speaking the truth, and commanding respect. Goyder (2014)
has written a self-development book on gravitas to help people earn at-
tention and respect.
In the serious academic literature, there is little mention of gravitas.
For example, entering “gravitas” into the search option of Leadership
Quarterly provides just one passing reference to women leaders who
find it important to project gravitas (Eagly, 2005). In other academic
sources, Jelman (2007) associates gravitas and wisdom with best lea-
dership and Haynes (2012) notes that gravitas is concerned with pro-
fessional bearing. Morrow (2014) argues that gravitas differentiates
great leaders and those with competitive advantage from other people.
Bradshaw (2011) refers to people with gravitas and credibility as those
who will be respected, accessible and well connected in an organiza-
tion. McHale (2012) claims that gravitas is associated with great lea-
dership. Small (2012) comments older entrepreneurs have gravitas and
experience. Lewis, Ryan and Gospel (2008) note more generally that
older people have gravitas and Ready (2009) claims gravitas is dis-
played by experienced colleagues. Askehave and Zethsen (2014),
Eagly and Johannsen-Schmidlt (2001) and Morrow (2014) worry that
gravitas is associated with masculinity.
In summary, gravitas is an Ancient Roman personality trait of lea-
dership which reflected desirable qualities of an admirable person to
which others would defer and whose opinions would be respected.
Historical analysis shows a potential conduit through which these lea-
dership ideas could be transmitted from gravitas in Ancient Rome,
through British Imperialism and thus to modern culture. Whilst gravitas
is prevalent in broader contemporary culture, there are few references
to it in the modern academic leadership or personality literatures.
Therefore, it is timely to consider the extent to which the gravitas
personality trait of leadership has convergent validity with modern
leadership constructs.
1.2. Transformational leadership compared to gravitas
Whilst there are few references to gravitas, the modern leadership
literature emphasizes transformational leadership. Generally meta-
analytical empirical research supports transformational leadership
theory (Judge & Piccolo, 2004). To inspire and motivate their followers,
transformational leaders are characterized as charismatic, visionary
and persuasive (Avolio & Bass, 1998). They lift followers to become
better people (Burns, 1978). The most widely used framework for
2
Personality and Individual Differences 156 (2020) 109760
understanding transformational and other leadership factors is the
Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ; Bass, 1985). Transforma-
tional leadership comprises five dimensions. Idealized influence (at-
tributed) concerns the socialized charisma of the leader, the perception
that the leader is confident, powerful, and focused on important ideals
and projecting ethics. This is clearly overlapping with gravitas. Idea-
lized influence (behavior) concerns the charismatic actions of the leader
that are centered on beliefs, values, and purpose. Inspiring devotion in a
way which is attributed and behaviorally also corresponds with grav-
itas. Inspirational motivation concerns the way in which leaders moti-
vate followers through positivity, goals and vision and communication.
This may easily overlap with the enabling and stirring component of
gravitas. Intellectual stimulation refers to the way in which leaders
challenge followers to solve problems and rise to challenges, and in-
dividualized consideration concerns a leader's personalized support,
advice and attention to followers. These dimensions appear much less
associated with gravitas than the others, but the aloofness and authority
associated with gravitas may role model an intellectually interesting
person and the good manners and attentiveness associated with gravitas
might overlap with personalized support.
Rafferty and Griffin (2004) also provide a theory-driven and em-
pirically tested transformational leadership model (RTLQ), which
identifies five leader behaviors: vision, inspirational communication,
intellectual stimulation, supportive leadership, and personal recogni-
tion. This model of transformational leadership overcomes some of the
concerns related to Bass’ (1985) model of transformational leadership,
which still dominates the field despite criticisms of its theoretical
structure and measurement (Yukl, 1999). Some researchers have
adopted Rafferty and Griffin's (2004) model and measuring tool when
assessing transformational leadership (e.g. Hirst, Van Dick & Van
Knippenberg, 2009).
Based on the arguments employed for overlap between gravitas and
the MLQ, and the similarity between the MLQ and the RTLQ, it seems
likely that the gravitas personality trait of leadership will also be as-
sociated with both contemporary transformational leadership models.
All this leads to the main hypothesis: Gravitas has high convergent validity
with transformational leadership.
To test the hypothesis, a gravitas questionnaire was designed based
on the broad gravitas literature and compared to two contemporary
transformational leadership questionnaires.
2. Empirical analysis
2.1. Method
Leaders who supervised four or more staff were included in this
study from five separate data collections since 2008. Data were in-
cluded which contained either gravitas and Rafferty and Griffin (2004)
transformational leadership items (n = 617). A subset of these parti-
cipants also completed the MLQ (n = 400). Amongst these studies,
some participants completed the Rafferty and Griffin (2004) transfor-
mational leadership questionnaire twice (n = 154) and some partici-
pants completed the MLQ twice (n = 117). Distance apart from the two
waves of data collection was at least two months. Seniority: Junior
manager = 61.9%; Middle manager = 29.5%; Senior man-
ager = 8.6%. Overall age: M = 36.19, SD = 9.37; Sex: Males = 58.2%,
females 41.8%; Years at work, M = 8.03, SD = 6.67; Residence,
UK = 36.1%, USA = 46.6%, other = 17.3%; Organizational type:
Educational = 12.9% l; Service = 49.3%; Production = 13.7%; Re-
tail = 12.2%, Other = 12%. Participants were paid for completion of
the surveys. Data was collected using the YWeDO online laboratory
(Jackson, 2010).
2.2. Questionnaires
1) Gravitas. Given gravitas has origins in Ancient Rome, I decided
C.J. Jackson Personality and Individual Differences 156 (2020) 109760

Table 1
Design of gravitas questionnaire.
Question I am (or Name of person is) Source First factor loading from
PFA

1. … Dignified in conduct of duties (vs Undignified in conduct of duties) Corkindale (2007) .64
2. … Dignified in bearing (vs Undignified in bearing) Corkindale (2007), Norton (2015) .57
3. … Serious in purpose (vs Humourous) Apuzzo (2006); Corkindale (2007); Norton (2015) .45
4. … Reputable (vs Lacking integrity) Hingley (1996). .62
5. … Devoted to duty (vs Unenthusiastic) Apuzzo (2006) .67
6. … Commands respect (vs Has little respect) Corkindale (2007) .71
7. … Has high social status (vs Has low social status) Hingley (1996). .53
8. … Grand in stature (vs Small in stature) Askehave & Zethsen (2104); Corkindale (2017); Haynes (2012); .39
McHale (2012)
9. … Acts with decorum and grace (vs Acts like a clown) Hingley (1996). .64
10. … Confident in social interactions (vs Lacks confidence in social McHale (2012) .37
interactions)
11. … Speaks with authority (vs Speaks without influence) Corkindale (2007) .69
12. … Uses silence well (vs Says too much) Norton (2015) .45
13. … Has strength of character (vs Easily swayed from view) Eagly and Johannesen-Schmidt (2001) .61
14. … Dresses with style (vs Shabby dress style) Corkindale (2015) .47
15. … Is attentive and challenging in communication (vs Unfocussed) Corkindale (2015) .72
16. … Is authentic and genuine (vs Fake) Goyder (2014) .60
17. … Has integrity and truthfulness (vs Does not) Bradshaw (2011); Corkindale (2007) .65
18. … Has a compelling vision to which others listen (vs Does not) Eagly and Johannesen-Schmidt (2001); McHale (2012) .67

© The author. Researchers may use this questionnaire for personal academic research purposes. For all other use, permission of the author must be sought.

that design of the questionnaire using subject matter experts was not
feasible and instead resorted to the literature (following the technique
used by Jackson, 2018). Primary sources for each item are shown in
Table 1. Primary sources include historical analyses (e.g. Apuzzo, 2006;
Hingley, 1996) as well as modern accounts (e.g. Goyder, 2014;
Corkindale, 2007). Each item was designed to provide an anchor at
each end of the rating categories. Items were rated on a five category
scale (5 = strongly agree, 4 = agree, 3 = neither agree nor disagree,
2 = disagree, 1 = strongly agree). A total score was obtained through
summing the items. At no time was the modern literature on leadership
theory used as a source of inspiration for item design.
Principal axis factor (PAF) exploratory factor analysis was used to
check the structure of the scale.1 Using the data collected at T1, the first
factor explained 34.82% of the variance and a scree plot clearly showed
that a one factor solution fitted the data the best. First factor loadings
are shown in Table 1.
The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire-5X (MLQ; Bass &
Avolio, 2000). A forty-five item questionnaire measuring five scales of
leadership. Respondents respond on a 5 items scale ranging from not at
all (1) to frequently if not always (5). The MLQ-5X is widely used
(Antonakis, Avolio & Sivasuvramaniam, 2003). It has good Cronbach's
alpha although scale inter-correlations can be high (Lowe, Kroeck &
Sivasubramaniam, 1996). The total scale is reported in this study.
Transformational leadership questionnaire (RTLQ; Rafferty &
Griffin, 2004) measures five scales of transformational leadership.
Rafferty and Griffin report high Cronbach's alpha for their scales. Each
construct is assessed on a five-point scale where 1 = strongly disagree
and 5 = strongly agree. Only the total scale is reported.
NEO-IPIP (Goldberg, 1999). A fifty item questionnaire which mea-
sures the Big Five personality scales of Openness, Conscientiousness,
Extraversion, Agreeableness and Neuroticism. It is widely used with
consistently good Cronbach's alpha internal reliabilities.
Marker variables. Ear preference was measured with a seven item
scale (Jackson, 2005) using a 5-point Likert scale ranging from 1 (al-
ways left) to 5 (always right). Internet speed was self-report and con-
sisted of the following response categories: Cable or faster, ADSL2,
ADSL, 56KBS, 28.8KBS.
1
Full details available upon request to the author.
2.3. Reducing effects of common method variance
To overcome the problem of common method variance, I used five
techniques recommended in the literature (e.g. Podsakoff, MacKenzie,
Lee & Podsakoff, 2003). First, I designed the gravitas personality scale
of leadership (shown in Table 1) to have a different design to the
contemporary leadership scales: the gravitas scale items have clear
endpoints compared to the other leadership scales. Second, I used data
collected both cross-sectionally and at different time points. Third, I
report scale correlations in which two marker variables are partialled.
The first marker variable is self-reported ear preference and is unlikely
to be associated with leadership; the second is self-reported internet
speed which is unlikely to be associated with leadership and likely to be
associated with socially desirable responding. Fourth, I used an online
and anonymous data collection technique in which people would not be
motivated to rate in a manner likely associated with faking. Fifth, I
checked the data for expected relationships which would likely only be
found if the data did not suffer from common method variance. In this
study, I checked results of EFA for expected item relationships in the
transformational leadership questionnaires used in this study.
2.4. Correcting for reliability using attenuation formula
Attenuation correction (raw correlation divided by the square root
of the product of the test-retest reliabilities) provides a better estimate
of the convergent validity between gravitas and contemporary leader-
ship measures (see Murphy & Davidshofer, 1988). Raw and corrected
correlations are reported.
3. Results
Means, standard deviation and Cronbach's alphas for the leadership
scales are shown in Table 2. Alphas of all scales are more than accep-
table. Also shown are the test-retest reliabilities in which the gravitas
personality trait of leadership shows the best test-retest reliability of all
the leadership scales.
Table 3 shows the correlations between the overall leadership scales
and Big Five personality scales with ear preference and self-reported
internet speed partialled. Across the three leadership scales, there is a
remarkable degree of agreement in their relationship to personality
variables (high openness, high agreeableness, high conscientiousness,
high extraversion and low neuroticism are related to high leadership).

3
C.J. Jackson Personality and Individual Differences 156 (2020) 109760

Table 2
Means, standard deviation and alphas of the leadership variables study.
T1 T2
Mean SD alpha Mean SD alpha Test-retest

Gravitas 69.52 9.36 .88 73.42 10.67 .94 .75***

RTLQ Overall Transformational Leadership 62.14 7.64 .89 64.51 8.79 .92 .53***
MLQ Overall Transformational Leadership 78.13 13.90 .93 81.13 14.28 .94 .49***

Table 3
Partial correlations between Big Five variables and leadership scales.
Gravitas (T1) RTLQ (T1) MLQ TL (T1)

Openness .48*** (0.48***) .47***(0.48***) .44***(0.45***)

Neuroticism −0.32***(−0.32***) −0.31***(−0.31***) −0.31***(−0.30***)
Agreeableness .39***(0.39***) .47***(0.48***) .43***(0.43***)
Conscientiousness .40***(0.40***) .42***(0.43***) .37***(0.37***)
Extraversion .35***(0.34***) .22***(0.22***) .26***(0.26***)

NB. Correlations in which ear preference and self-reported internet speed are partialled are shown in brackets. Partialling these marker variables has little
effect on the correlation coefficients.
⁎⁎⁎
p < .001.

gravitas items solely comprised the third factor. Generally, therefore,

Table 4 the PAF supported a large overlap between gravitas and RTLQ items.
Regression of personality against leadership variables. Moreover, to check for common method variance, I determined that the
Gravitas (T1) RTLQ (T1) MLQ (T1) PAF of the six factor solution mainly supported the RTLQ as items
generally loaded on appropriate scales.
Ear preference .04 .09 .14* PAF of the gravitas with the MLQ transformational leadership items
Internet speed −0.06 −0.04 .04
using the five factor solution explained 45.49% of the variance in the
Openness .29*** .23*** .24***
Neuroticism −0.03 .00 −0.02 data and sixteen gravitas items solely comprised the first factor.
Agreeableness .07 .23*** .17* Generally, therefore, the PAF supported a large overlap between
Conscientiousness .16* .20** .15* gravitas items and the MLQ transformational leadership items. The PAF
Extraversion .15* .01 .07 provided little support for the transformational leadership item scoring
R2 .30 .32 .27
of the MLQ. This is to be expected as the items of the MLQ are highly
⁎
p < .05. intercorrelated.
⁎⁎
p < .01, p < .001. One-way analyses of variance of T1 and T2 gravitas between males
and females showed no significant sex effect (F(1612) = 0.58, p = .45)
Similar relationships with other variables suggest similarity between and F(1,84) = 0.01, p = .92).
the measures.
Table 4 shows the regression of personality variables against the
leadership scales after partialling the marker variables. Again, there is a 4. Discussion
lot of consistency in the size of the personality regression coefficients
and their association with leadership. The main differences are that Gravitas and transformational leadership show quite close overlap
agreeableness is associated with transformational leadership scales of meanings and descriptive summaries. Historical analysis shows a
whereas extraversion is associated with gravitas. Again, this analysis reasonable path for the transmission of gravitas leadership ideas to
suggests that gravitas has reasonable similarity with contemporary modern culture from Roman Imperialism through British Imperialism.
leadership measures. Empirical results showed credible convergent validity between gravitas
Correlations (raw and corrected for attenuation) between gravitas and transformational leadership. Raw correlations will tend to be un-
and transformational leadership (with ear preference and internet derestimates due to validity being limited by the reliability of the
speed connection partialled) are shown in Table 5. As can be seen, the scales. For this reason, I applied the attenuation method to correct for
raw correlations tend to be reasonably high, and when corrected for reliability of scales. After correction, results were much higher: between
attenuation using the test-rest reliabilities, the general evidence is even 50% and 100% of the variance in total transformational scales is ex-
stronger that gravitas is highly similar to transformational leadership. plainable in terms of gravitas.3 This position is further strengthened by
To further investigate the relationship between gravitas and each of noting, using PAF of the items from gravitas and transformational
the transformational leadership models, I also conducted two ex- leadership, that most gravitas items load best on the first component.
ploratory PAF analyses with varimax rotation of the items in the scales. Moreover, the argument is even more strongly supported by showing
I extracted five and six factor solutions (five for each of the transfor- that each of the transformational leadership models have very similar
mational leadership scales and one for gravitas) but present just key correlational and similar regression relationships with Big Five per-
output of the five factor solutions here.2 Using the items of gravitas and sonality scales. Results converge therefore to suggest strong convergent
RTLQ, I extracted 45.19% of variance in the data, and thirteen of the validity between gravitas and transformational leadership.
gravitas items solely comprised the first factor and the remaining five
3
Whilst correcting for attenuation is important to consider, many criticisms
have been made of the correction formula perhaps especially because corrected
2
Full results are available from the author by request. In this study, just the correlations can exceed unity as reported in the present paper. If corrections
overall overlap between gravitas and the transformational leadership items are had been made using Cronbach's alpha then the reported result would be dif-
presented. ferent. Corrected correlations should be treated with caution.

4
C.J. Jackson
Table 5
Raw and corrected correlations between gravitas and transformational leadership scales.
RTLQ (T1)
Gravitas (T1) – raw .54***(0.58***)
Gravitas (T1) - Corrected for attenuation .86(0.92)
NB. Correlations in which ear preference and self-reported internet speed are partialled are shown in brackets. Partialling these marker variables has little effect on
the correlation coefficients.
⁎⁎⁎
p < .001.
This of course begs the question of what 2000 years of leadership
research has actually achieved? This research provides evidence that
our knowledge of leadership has little changed in overall concept. It is
also tempting to conclude that gravitas is well worth measuring in the
modern world, and that modern leadership research should acknowl-
edge roots from Ancient Rome. On the other hand, the case for con-
vergent validity is weakened by noting that the specific words used in
the transformational leadership literature are different from those used
to describe gravitas and one of the reported correlations between
gravitas and the MLQ is a little lower than the others. Moreover, the
potential for gender inequity in gravitas might cause some to doubt its
useful in the modern age. Yet my results also suggest that there were no
significant sex differences in the gravitas scale used in this study. It may
be that the modern Western view of leadership in “corporate empires”
is still based on imperialist notions more than we are prepared to admit.
Limitations to this study include (a) use of online self-report data (b)
use of a new and untested scale of gravitas and (c) possibility of common
method variance. At the same time, it is also important to note that online
data are similar in quality to other data (Buhrmester, Kwang & Gosling,
2011) and that several steps, including use of dual wave data and par-
tialling of marker variables, were taken to reduce common method var-
iance problems. Being able to retrieve the item structure of the RTLQ in
PAF also suggests that the data were little effected by common method
variance. It is less surprising that the item structure of the MLQ was not
well retrieved since the MLQ scales are known to be highly intercorrelated.
Overall, and despite limitations, this research advocates that there
are many similarities between gravitas and transformational leadership.
At best, it can be argued that the current transformational leadership
research owes a big and generally unrecognized debt of gratitude to our
imperial past; at worst, it could be argued that little has been achieved
over the last 2000 years. The reader should decide. But what is clear is
that further research is needed to validate these results and determine if
gravitas should be resurrected for used in the modern world.
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