Insights with Dzigbordi Kwaku-Dosoo: From positional authority to leadership gravity

Your title may give you power, but your presence gives you influence.

Most leaders understand this instinctively, even if they have never said it aloud. Titles open doors. They grant access, legitimacy, and formal authority. Yet anyone who has spent time inside complex organisations knows that authority alone rarely secures trust, commitment, or sustained performance. People may comply with a title, but they follow presence.

This distinction becomes clearer in moments of pressure. When uncertainty rises, strategies shift, or outcomes are at risk, teams do not look first to the org chart. They look to the leader. Not for instructions alone, but for emotional cues, clarity of direction, and confidence in decision-making. In those moments, leadership is less about position and more about gravity.

Leadership gravity is the quiet pull a leader creates through behaviour, consistency, and credibility. It is not announced. It is felt. And in today’s organisational reality, it matters more than ever.

For decades, leadership power was largely defined by hierarchy. Decisions flowed downward, communication was formal, and compliance was expected. In many African organisations, these structures remain deeply embedded. Respect for seniority, deference to authority, and indirect communication norms continue to shape workplace behaviour.

However, the operating environment has changed. Organisations are more complex, work is faster, and information is no longer held at the top. Employees today are more informed, more mobile, and more discerning about the leaders they choose to trust. Authority may still command obedience, but it no longer guarantees engagement.

Research published in Harvard Business Review consistently shows that leadership credibility is shaped less by authority and more by behavioural consistency, emotional control, and clarity of communication. Employees may comply with formal power, but trust is built through how leaders show up under pressure.

This is reinforced by the Edelman Trust Barometer, which has repeatedly found that employees place greater confidence in leaders who communicate clearly, act predictably, and demonstrate calm conviction during periods of uncertainty.

This is where many leaders begin to feel the gap, because although they hold the role, the mandate, and the expertise, influence becomes harder to sustain over time. Meetings feel heavier, decisions encounter quiet resistance, and energy drains faster than expected, not because capability is lacking, but because presence has weakened.

Leadership gravity is not charisma, nor is it dominance, but rather the steady influence leaders exert through how they show up, particularly when conditions are uncertain or pressures intensify. It is built through emotional regulation, strategic clarity, consistency of presence, and a decisive voice that holds firm without becoming rigid.

In organisations where hierarchy remains strong, leadership gravity becomes even more critical, because when people are culturally conditioned not to challenge authority openly, a leader’s emotional tone carries disproportionate weight.

Silence in the room may signal respect, yet it can just as easily mask confusion, fear, or disengagement, which is why presence often determines whether people merely comply or genuinely commit.

Research on executive presence reinforces this dynamic, with work from the Centre for Creative Leadership showing that leaders are evaluated not only on outcomes, but on how they communicate, respond under pressure, and sustain confidence in others over time, since presence is ultimately judged through consistency rather than display.

This is further supported by neuroscience-informed leadership and organisational behaviour research, including findings frequently cited by McKinsey and MIT Sloan Management Review, which indicate that leaders under stress transmit emotional cues whether they intend to or not, as teams quickly attune to shifts in tone, pace, and decisiveness, and over time these signals shape the emotional climate of the organisation.

From a human-centred leadership lens, presence is a form of Human Currency. It is the value leaders generate through emotional steadiness, relational intelligence, and behavioural consistency. Unlike positional power, this currency appreciates over time, provided it is managed well.

Trust Quotient is built in ordinary moments, not grand gestures. It accumulates when leaders listen without defensiveness, communicate without ambiguity, and respond without volatility. Gallup’s engagement studies consistently show that employees do not expect leaders to have all the answers, but they do expect them to be clear, fair, and emotionally composed.

The emotional climate of any team is a direct reflection of leadership behaviour. When leaders are reactive, inconsistent, or evasive, teams become cautious. When leaders are grounded, clear, and present, teams become confident. Influence and visibility are not driven by how often a leader speaks, but by how deliberately they do so.

Crucially, leadership gravity is not personality-dependent. Introverted leaders can have strong gravity. Extroverted leaders can lack it. Gravity is practised.

To move from positional authority to sustained influence, leaders must develop leadership gravity intentionally, because influence does not emerge automatically from role or title alone. The Leadership Gravity Model is a four-part discipline that translates authority into genuine followership through daily behaviour, particularly in moments of pressure when leadership is most visible and most tested.

1. Emotional Regulation

Leaders set the emotional temperature of their teams, not as a metaphor, but as a behavioural reality supported by neuroscience and organisational psychology, which confirm that emotional states are contagious, especially when transmitted by those in positions of authority.

When leaders manage their reactions under pressure, they create an environment where people feel psychologically safe enough to think clearly, speak honestly, and make sound decisions, whereas impulsive reactions, emotional withdrawal, or visible anxiety quickly introduce uncertainty that spreads faster than any formal message. Over time, teams learn to read emotional cues as signals of risk or stability, which directly shapes how confidently they operate.

McKinsey’s organisational health research consistently highlights emotional regulation as a defining capability of effective leadership during transformation, because calm leadership does not remove complexity or challenge, but it prevents anxiety from becoming embedded in the culture. Emotional regulation, therefore, is not about suppression or emotional distance, but about awareness, restraint, and the ability to choose a response that stabilises rather than unsettles the system.

2. Strategic Clarity

Leadership gravity strengthens when people understand what matters now. In uncertain environments, clarity becomes a stabilising force. Strategic clarity is not about overloading teams with information. It is about communicating priorities consistently and explaining the rationale behind decisions. Leaders who change direction without explanation erode confidence, even when the change itself is necessary.

Deloitte’s research on human performance emphasises that clarity reduces cognitive load. When people know where to focus, they perform better. Ambiguity, on the other hand, drains energy and increases anxiety. Gravitational leaders return to the same messages repeatedly, not because people are slow, but because clarity requires reinforcement.

3. Consistent Presence

Influence grows through predictability, as trust strengthens when leaders show up with the same level of intention regardless of audience, mood, or pressure. When behaviour shifts noticeably across contexts, people begin to expend energy interpreting the leader rather than focusing on the work.

Consistent presence rests on the steady expression of values, respect, and attentiveness across situations, so whether in a boardroom, a team meeting, or a difficult one-to-one conversation, people know what to expect and feel anchored by that familiarity.

In many African organisations, where indirect communication is common and hierarchy shapes interaction, inconsistency can be particularly destabilising, because employees often read meaning into tone, timing, and access rather than explicit messages. Leaders who remain visibly present and accessible, while maintaining appropriate boundaries, create a sense of security that formal authority alone rarely sustains.

Over time, this consistency builds credibility, as reliability becomes the quiet foundation on which trust and influence are established.

4. Decisive Voice

Leadership gravity is reinforced through calm conviction, as gravitational leaders communicate decisions clearly and with purpose, without excessive justification or hesitation, even when the decision itself is difficult or unpopular. A decisive voice signals that the leader has done the necessary thinking and is prepared to stand behind the outcome.

This does not imply authoritarianism or inflexibility, because decisive leaders remain open to learning and adjustment, but they do not retreat from responsibility once a choice has been made, recognising that visible uncertainty after the fact quickly undermines confidence.

People lose trust not when leaders change course thoughtfully, but when they appear unsure of their own decisions. Research on executive presence and leadership effectiveness consistently shows that a decisive voice reduces speculation and second-guessing within teams, allowing people to focus on execution rather than interpretation. A decisive voice, therefore, is not loud or forceful, but clear, grounded, and proportionate to the moment.

Leadership today is less about being in charge and more about being credible. Titles may grant authority, but gravity earns followership. If your title were removed tomorrow, what would still make people listen to you?

Executive presence is not accidental. It is practised and trained.

Are you ready for TRANSFORMATION?

Dzigbordi Kwaku-Dosoo is a Ghanaian multi-disciplinary Business Leader, Entrepreneur, Consultant, Certified High-Performance Coach (CHPC) and global Speaker. She is the Founder and CEO of The DCG Consulting Group. She is the trusted coach to top executives, managers, teams, and entrepreneurs helping them reach their highest level of performance through the integration of technical skills with human (soft)skills for personal development and professional growth, a recipe for success she has perfected over the years. Her coaching, seminars and training has helped many organizations and individuals to transform their image and impact, elevate their engagement and establish networks leading to improved and inspired teams, growth and productivity.

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