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Why reluctantly
The phenomenon of reluctant leaders has been on the radar of scholars for many years. Research over the past 20 years has shown that there are three main causes of a candidate's resistance to leadership: lack of confidence, lack of cost-effectiveness, and failure to meet personal goals.
Let's start with no faith. Group members have expectations for the role of leader, hoping that the leader can lead the team, win battles, and improve the happiness of members. A responsible candidate needs to weigh whether he or she has the leadership skills to take on such a heavy responsibility.
Leading a team requires convincing and encouraging subordinates, dealing with all kinds of complex interpersonal relationships, and convincing everyone; winning battles requires a good business level and strategic vision, and being able to deal with a variety of external groups, such as investors, customers, distributors, and governments; improving the happiness of members requires understanding and meeting the unique needs of each member, and also requires a comprehensive balance.
Of course, leadership skills can be cultivated, and even learned by doing, but people's talent and character determine the degree of difficulty of nurture. Presentations, for example, require a candidate's talent. King George VI of England was born with a stutter, which was gradually overcome after years of professional training, and the hardships and pains were enough to make a movie called "The King's Speech".
If a person judges that they are incapable, do not have enough resources, and are not confident in the results of their learning, they will refuse to take on a leadership position.
Uneconomical means that the cost and risk of being a leader is too great. While there are some reputational, psychological, and material benefits to leadership, it also comes with risks and costs. The higher the position, the greater the responsibility, and the leader is often accountable to the team as a whole, and when the team fails or makes mistakes, the leader takes on a considerable amount of responsibility. Being a leader inevitably involves making a series of dilemma decisions, getting tangled and self-blamed.
In The Fifth Discipline, Peter Shengji points out the dilemma of a leader: a leader who is despised by his subordinates is a bad leader, a leader who is praised by his subordinates is a good leader, and the interests of his subordinates are prone to conflict with the interests of other stakeholders in the organization.
Leaders are in the "cold" zone and often feel lonely. When a person is promoted, old colleagues will quickly assign this person to the authority because of the difference in status, exclude the original friendship circle, and the original emotional and information channels will be broken. Although he can get more information in his new leadership position, his responsibilities require him to keep his mouth shut, so it is not easy to find good friends with whom he can confide and complain about his boss. So, the loss of relationships is also a cost. Emperor Yongzheng of the Qing Dynasty made seals and plaques that were "difficult for the king", which was both emotional and self-encouragement.
After careful calculation, if the candidate judges that the cost of being a leader is too great, and the profit and loss are offset by a net loss, then not being a leader has become an easy option to save effort and worry.
The above is still based on the assumption that the candidate has some interest in being a leader, so he will measure his ability and profit and loss. For some people, becoming a leader is not part of their life goals at all. Human needs are complex, according to Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory, leadership is the second highest level of self-worth, and many people do not have this level of needs when faced with decision-making.
Some have experienced a sense of self-worth and are only willing to enjoy the idyllic life, some just want to be technical experts and do not want to gain the respect of others through higher administrative titles, and still others because they have other hobbies such as art or sports.
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Can reluctant leaders produce results?
When it comes to reluctant leaders, a common concern is: Will reluctant leaders be perfunctory in their tenure?
There is a concept in leadership called laissez-faire leadership, which refers to a relaxed and open management style. Some people translate it as "laissez-faire leadership", which is not very accurate, because "laissez-faire" is a pejorative term that can be translated as "inaction leadership", which means to rule without doing.
There is no absolute right or wrong for inactive leaders, and they don't really do nothing, they empower and develop their subordinates, make retirement plans, and train successors. These fresh styles can have a unique impact on an organization.
The existing research results do not have a clear conclusion on the performance of non-active leaders. Some studies believe that inactive leadership limits leadership effectiveness, while others believe that it does not. Reluctant leaders are naturally less likely to exhibit strong control or highly centralized behavior patterns, and tend to empower their subordinates and give them more autonomy. There are two reasons for this:
One is that the leader is not interested in being a leader, so he does not want to show authority, but is more willing to give his subordinates room to develop and play.
On the other hand, they are unable to take on all leadership responsibilities due to personality or skill constraints, so they have to decentralize their authority to their subordinates.
This means more opportunities for subordinates to exercise and grow. Subordinates are likely to appreciate and appreciate the leader, leading to greater loyalty and engagement and driving work goals to completion.
An important measure of leadership is the ability to lead a team to a complete task. A high-performing and self-motivated team can help the organization achieve performance and ensure that the organization's leaders themselves are within a reasonable level of performance. In this sense, reluctant leaders can also achieve success.
Another benefit of training subordinates is to pick potential successors and unload their own burdens. Reluctant leaders often feel like they're only in the position for the time being and don't enjoy the process of being a leader at all. Although no one is urging them to step down, they are more proactive than other types of leaders in making plans for their retirement or retirement.
Responsible leaders begin to groom their successors early. When developing a successor, they often take into account their own experience of involuntarily taking up the position, so they choose a safer way, such as training multiple potential candidates at the same time, and finally selecting one as a successor according to their wishes and abilities, and preparing backup talents in case of unexpected situations.
Objectively speaking, reluctant leaders also face many challenges, such as difficulty in formulating long-term strategic planning, lack of strong coordination skills at the organizational level, and easy to experience negative emotional distress and health problems caused by mental stress. It can be seen that the assistance of the organization is crucial.
In addition to providing a variety of leadership skills training and talent infusion support, organizations should also focus on the mental health of these leaders, reduce their stress, and encourage them to develop self-motivation and regain motivation to work. In this way, their reluctance can be fundamentally overcome and the work can be carried out smoothly. Those who are really unwilling to continue to hold leadership positions should also be respected, and arrangements should be made for replacement candidates and handover procedures as soon as possible.
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Be wary of feigned reluctance
One thing that needs to be emphasized is that reluctance can also be fake. Confucian culture emphasizes order, emphasizes interpersonal harmony, and encourages modesty and low profile. If someone shows ambition, it is easy to be criticized by public opinion, and passively obeying the organizational arrangement is a more acceptable way to take office. This culture tends to give rise to pretense of reluctance. Cao Pi, the king of Wei who held real power in the later period of the Three Kingdoms, refused Emperor Xian's invitation to concede three times, and only succeeded to the throne under the "persecution" and "threat" of Emperor Xian of Han and his ministers on the fourth time.
To this day, there are cases of feigned reluctance in our workplaces. Even if some candidates aspire to leadership positions and even want to win, even if they try to fight for them in private, they will pretend that they are not interested or unwilling in public to maintain their low-key and humble appearance. If asked, at most will be persuaded from the organizational arrangement.
There is another advantage to some people's early reluctance, which is that even if the competition fails, it will not be too face-saving. Others feign reluctance knowing they have the advantage of being the only candidate, a retreating negotiating tactic that expects better treatment from the organization.
Organizations can also continue to examine and strengthen their ability to discern. While leaders who pretend to be reluctant will try to be as sincere as a truly reluctant leader, one difference is that while refusing, leaders who pretend to be reluctant will indirectly send a signal through others that they want to stay in the finals and be selected, while leaders who are truly reluctant will send a signal of "I'm not qualified" and want to get out of the scoring.
There will also be significant differences between the two in terms of subsequent behavior. People who pretend don't have to continue to pretend after getting a leadership position, they will put down their masks and show their true colors. The hesitation, stress, anxiety, and guilt that truly reluctant leaders experience at work don't show up in them.