You Cannot Be Serious

Abstract

The two-horse succession race at the Rosen Company was reaching closure. The time had come when the candidates, Derek and John, would find out which of them would succeed the CEO. However, they knew nothing about the goings-on at the most recent board meeting. At one heated moment, during an intense discussion about their candidatures, one of the members of the selection committee had made it clear that she felt Derek was the more qualified of the two. Asked to elaborate, she said she thought John did not have the “gravitas” needed for the job. Given the challenges the company was facing, gravitas was top of her list of “must-have” qualities for the CEO. During a subsequent discussion, most of the other board members agreed, although none of them ever asked for a clarification of what she meant by “gravitas.”