Equanimity

What Equanimity means in leadership

On the morning of a small event, a colleague tells you that the decorative arch will not fit through the hired van’s door. You feel the disappointment and ask what can be separated and what decision is needed from you. The arch’s splendid curved top waits nearby. It has met a rectangular argument. Your colleague has brought the news, not invented the dimensions.

Steadiness does not mean liking the news or concealing every feeling. You can acknowledge disappointment and still hear the account without turning it into an accusation. Equanimity helps the people working with you distinguish the practical problem from the task of managing your mood.

Equanimity gives…

Information becomes easier to use when the person delivering it can finish. A steadier response can support a clear reassessment, though it does not guarantee that the original plan can be saved.

Finding the balance

Disappointment can remain present while the account is heard and the practical problem receives attention.

In ordinary life

A changed estimate

Hear the reason before deciding whether someone was careless.

Disappointment named

Say that you are disappointed without making the speaker repair the feeling.

Nearby virtues, different work

Self-Command

Self-Command checks an impulse that would harm. Equanimity concerns steadiness across the changing circumstance.

Prudence

Prudence weighs the next course of action; Equanimity helps you remain available to that judgment after an unwelcome change.

Recognizing a counterfeit

Indifference is a counterfeit of Equanimity when appearing unaffected replaces caring about what happens. Steadiness remains responsive to the work and the people affected.

How to cultivate Equanimity

• Separate the unwelcome fact from the person reporting it.
• Let the account finish before assigning blame.
• Name the decision the new information requires.

Try it today

Recall a minor change that disappointed you. Write a response that acknowledges the change and asks one practical question without accusing its messenger. No renewed contact is required.

Questions worth returning to

• What information have I not yet heard?
• Am I expecting this person to settle my feeling before we address the task?

Choose your practice

These pages offer ideas for reflection and character practice, not professional advice. Choose practices suited to your circumstances and abilities. You may adapt, pause, or skip an exercise; putting yourself or someone else at risk is not proof of virtue.

Quotations and further reading

Seven selections to return to through the week. Follow a source link to read the surrounding passage.

1. It is an assured sign of a worthy and generous spirit, whom honor amends; for honor is, or should be, the place of virtue; and as in nature things move violently to their place, and calmly in their place, so virtue in ambition is violent, in authority settled and calm.

   Francis Bacon, Essays
   ESSAYS.; XI.—OF GREAT PLACE.129

   Bacon contrasts the agitation of aspiring to office with steadiness in exercising it. Having the role should help settle attention on its work.

2. As long as they do not allow themselves to be transported to do any thing contrary to justice or humanity, they lose but little reputation, though the serenity of their countenance or the composure of their discourse and behaviour should be somewhat ruffled and disturbed.

   Adam Smith, The Theory of Moral Sentiments
   PART V. Of the Influence of Custom and Fashion upon the sentiments of moral approbation and disapprobation.; CHAP. II. Of the influence of custom and fashion upon moral sentiments.

   Smith discusses differing social expectations of emotional expression. The useful distinction here is between a ruffled manner and harmful conduct; his hierarchy of “civilized” and “savage” societies is not adopted.

3. A man may think himself injured, may wish to avenge his wrongs, and then may be persuaded by some reason or other to give up his intention and calm down: I do not call that anger, it is an emotion of the mind which is under the control of reason.

   Seneca, Minor Dialogues, Together with the Dialogue on Clemency
   THE FOURTH BOOK OF THE DIALOGUES OF L. ANNAEUS SENECA, ADDRESSED TO NOVATUS. OF ANGER. Book II.; section III

   Seneca distinguishes a first movement from the intention that follows. Unwelcome news can stir a feeling without deciding the response.

4. For how can riches, or fame, or power at court help us to ease of mind or a calm life, unless we enjoy them when present, but are not for ever pining after them when absent?

   Plutarch, Morals: Ethical Essays
   ON CONTENTEDNESS OF MIND.711; PLUTARCH SENDS GREETING TO PACCIUS.; section I

   Plutarch questions a peace of mind dependent on rank and possessions. The leader needs a steadiness that can survive a plan’s disappointment.

5. For whereas there are many, as I have said before, who place the achievements of war above those of peace, so one may find many to whom adventurous, hot-headed counsels seem more brilliant and more impressive than calm and well-considered measures.

   Marcus Tullius Cicero, De Officiis
   BOOK I MORAL GOODNESS; section 82

   Cicero compares brilliant-looking ventures with well-considered measures. The less dramatic response may give the changed situation better attention.

6. For nowhere either with more quiet or more freedom from trouble does a man retire than into his own soul, particularly when he has within him such thoughts that by looking into them he is immediately in perfect tranquillity; and I affirm that tranquillity is nothing else than the good ordering of the mind.

   Marcus Aurelius, Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius
   BOOK IV.; section 3

   Marcus describes returning to thoughts that restore order to attention. Reflection gives the leader a way to reconsider the response taking shape.

7. and those who had failed to accompany him, by reason of any urgent circumstances, always found him the same.

   Marcus Aurelius, Thoughts of Marcus Aurelius
   BOOK I.; section 16

   Marcus praises his adoptive father’s unchanged manner when friends could not attend him. Another person’s altered availability need not become an offense against one’s importance.

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