The Wisdom of Do-Nothing Leaders

Perhaps because he once played point guard for a number of professional basketball teams in Macedonia, Goce Andrevski likes to punctuate his competitive dynamics research with the wisdom of famous basketball coaches. Legendary NBA coach Phil Jackson is a favourite. Jackson was known for making confounding in-game moves that defied conventional thinking. If the opposing team was on a six-to-nil run and his team was staggering, for example, Jackson would force his players to devise a solution on the fly rather than calling a time out and giving direction.   

Andrevski, the Distinguished Research and Teaching Fellow of Strategy at Smith School of Business, used this type of thinking and other insights from basketball coaching as the basis for his groundbreaking work on what he and colleague Danny Miller (HEC Montréal) termed strategic forbearance. They found that some basketball coaches — often the most experienced and successful — occasionally make the conscious decision not to react to a challenge even when they have the opportunity and capability to do so. It’s about staying focused on the long game, which may involve providing players with opportunities to gain experience, develop skills and build confidence. 

Just as on the basketball court, executives in corporate boardrooms must determine how to respond to a market competitor. Though they may be twitching to act, Andrevski found, those practising strategic forbearance keep their powder dry for another day. Perhaps they want to avoid tangling with rivals and their allies or attracting the interest of a regulator, or even concealing strategies that could be used to surprise competitors in the future.  

When is purposeful non-action beneficial? 

When Andrevski discussed strategic forbearance with Smith colleagues and veteran organizational behaviour researchers Julian Barling and Matthias Spitzmuller, it seemed clear that wily basketball coaches like Phil Jackson had something to teach leaders responsible for employee performance in traditional organizations.  

After all, the Western approach to leadership is action-oriented — guiding, motivating and mentoring  — and leaders are judged on the outcomes from those actions. Those who don’t act are often labelled as passive leaders — a polite way to say lazy, indecisive, checked out. Is there something to learn from the Eastern approach, inspired by Taoism, in which “non-action” allows situations to unfold organically and people have the chance to realize their full potential with minimal interference? 

Riffing on what Andrevski learned in competitive dynamics, the researchers, with Smith PhD student Melissa Trivisonno, first brainstormed what “forbearance leadership” would look like. Their formulation: Leaders exhibit forbearance leadership when they are aware of organizational problems and have the capacity and resources to address them, but they intentionally consider the employees’ development needs and refrain from doing so. It could mean not disciplining minor rule violations or reprimanding employees, but also withholding assistance and developmental feedback.    

The leader’s reason for avoiding intervention is the dividing line between forbearance leadership and passive leadership. While passive leaders fail to act due to incompetence and ignorance, forbearance leaders are alert and competent but choose not to intervene in order to compel people to solve problems or learn from experience, or to protect their feelings. 

Forbearance under the microscope 

To test whether their theory held up, the Smith research team conducted four studies based on online surveys — in all, the studies involved 632 followers and 136 leader-follower relationships from various industries. In the first three, they developed a measure of the two dimensions of forbearance leadership (learning and nurturing); in the fourth, they validated their predictive model and examined how this leadership behaviour translated into actual performance. 

The researchers were pleased with the results. They showed that when followers perceive their leaders as intentionally practising forbearance, they learn faster and develop the skills to be more effective. Followers are more dedicated to their work and have greater trust. They have a clearer idea of what’s expected of them and their role at work. 

The key is for the followers to believe that their leaders are making a deliberate choice to be hands-off in the interest of their development and performance, says Andrevski. If they do not interpret their leaders correctly — if the leader means well by forbearing, for example, but the employee doesn’t pick up on that — the employee may interpret the leader’s behaviour as boorish or incompetent. Alternatively, when leaders mindlessly ignore employee needs, but followers see that inactivity as intentional, it could result in unmet expectations that lead to underperformance.   

Make intentions known 

For those leaders who choose to forbear, the message is clear: make sure your employees understand your true intentions. If you exhibit little interest in your employees’ development or comfort level at work, don’t be surprised if your out-of-the-blue forbearance leadership episode backfires. 

For organizational development (OD) practitioners, it may be time to revisit the curriculum of leadership training programs. The researchers say forbearance leadership requires a different set of skills from the active leadership behaviours that are almost the exclusive focus of corporate training. They include being comfortable with silence and inaction, the ability to take a long-term perspective, the openness to reflection and the instinct for compassion. 

OD practitioners may not want to stop there. They may want to revisit their organizations’ performance review and reward systems to determine to what extent they are based on leaders’ observable behaviour versus improvements in their employees’ performance.  

Broader view of leadership 

The researchers are now considering where to take this research further. Since forbearance leadership is a situational behaviour rather than a full-blown style, are there leadership styles (such as servant or transformational leadership) in which it can flourish? Which situations call for forbearance? What are the effects of forbearance leadership over time? Is it equally effective among mature or inexperienced leaders or followers?  

If nothing else, though, the researchers hope their studies highlight the importance of broadening the view of “active” leadership. To think that leaders are only effective when they engage in evident activity is a limiting perspective.  

“Our research marks a radical departure from this long-standing narrative,” says Andrevski. “Ironically, by being seen as doing nothing, forbearance leadership is an active reminder to followers of how much they are trusted and respected, setting the stage for ever-higher levels of motivation and performance.”