When Leadership Means Doing Nothing
When Leadership Means Doing Nothing
May 12, 2009
I recently spoke with the chief executive of a large shipping and logistics company in Bangalore. I assumed he was having a very hard time in the recession, resorting to desperate measures to keep his business afloat.
To my surprise, he told me he’s continuing to do all the things that made him successful in boom times. He’s not giving up any of them, nor is he adding to them.
That is quite different from how many leaders approach troubled times. They feel that doing the same thing, or not doing anything, is close to sacrilege.
They get tempted to do something even if the risks outweigh the possible gains. In fact, even during good times when a new chief executive takes charge, he often overhauls most of his predecessor’s policies, regardless of whether they were right or wrong.
Michael Bar-Eli and Ofer Azar of Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, recently did a study of soccer goalkeepers and penalty kicks. Stopping a penalty kick is considered one of the most difficult challenges in sports.
The researchers computed the probability of stopping different kicks with different actions, such as jumping left or jumping right, to see what maximized the chance of blocking the ball. The results surprised them.
They found that staying put gave a goalkeeper the best shot at halting a penalty kick.
No jumping to the right, no leaping to the left, just stay right where you are and you have the best chance of preventing a goal.
At the same time the researchers also found that goalkeepers almost never do that. They choose to leap almost 95% of the time. [See “What Soccer Tells Us about Making Decisions,” Impact, Fall 2008, Page 11]
Why are goalkeepers and leaders so biased toward taking action, when the best route may often be to take none at all? Consider how people feel after going through a challenging time.
A leader who takes action and fails knows he will likely be seen in a better light by his shareholders than one who does nothing and fails. If things turn bad, the active leader knows he at least tried to do something.
The one who did nothing can offer no defense against criticism.
The outcome may be just the same–or the leader who did nothing may come out ahead, because of money and energy not wasted–but the perceptions won’t be.
And those perceptions can drive action even when inaction might be best.
Leadership takeaway: Seriously consider whether every action you take is fully justified. Avoid what is unnecessary. Never take action just because it will make you look better if you fail.
Sangeeth Varghese is the founder of LeadCap, a leadership organization in India, and is author of Decide to Lead.
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