Why A ‘Silent’ CEO Is Good For Business

When we think of leaders, we tend to think of them as hyper-confident, bold extroverts, as Alpha males who dominate their organizations. We extol the ability of CEOs such as Steve Jobs to drag their organizations toward their vision of the company. The great CEO, we are led to believe, is a benevolent autocrat. A shark swimming in a river filled with little fish. We seldom hear of the merits of a “silent’ approach to leadership. Research shows, however, that the best decision-makers defy the brash image of the CEO. Silent leadership may not provide the same well of anecdotes that its’ bolder counterpart does, but it is by far more effective.

A Good Leader Embraces Their Fallibility

The key quality that defines a leader is that leader’s ability to make good decisions. Good decisions emerge from an ability to analyse a situation and make the right inferences. Philip Tetlock, an organizational behaviour expert who has spent his career studying the ability of individuals to make good decisions and build forecasts, found that pundits, who are typically confident, assertive and outspoken even when they have very limited information, were worse at making predictions than if they had simply made predictions through random chance. When he dug deeper, he found that the worst forecasters were the most confident and most famous experts, the kind of people that we typically associate with being good leaders.

Tetlock’s research found that the people who were most successful at making forecasts were the kind of people who add qualifiers to their analysis, who highlight the uncertainty surrounding their predictions, and who are willing to learn from a wide variety of sources and, when the evidence changes, to change their opinions. These are not the bold and brash individuals we think make good leaders. These are studious people who understand that they can be wrong and welcome discovering error because they understand that it brings them closer toward the truth. These are people who are willing to stop talking and to listen to other voices, because they want to find flaws in their reasoning, because they care more about getting to the right answer than being perceived as right and infallible.

What we are describing is a more “introverted” leadership style. Obviously, not everyone is an introvert, nor should we all be. The world needs all kinds of people. However, the Extrovert Ideal of leadership masks the benefits of an introverted approach, an approach based on ideas, and one where the leader is happier to listen than to speak.

Of course, the success of any leader is contextual. A leadership style that may work in one context, may be a disaster in another. For instance, in Germany, Angela Merkel’s stoic, silent style of leadership has been a massive success. Yet many politicians with a similar style in the United States have been accused of not “opening up” and letting people in. So, you have to consider the culture of your organization as you adapt your leadership style. INSEAD business professor, Erin Meyer has worked extensively on mapping the cultures of organizations and countries. Her work has shown how leadership is filtered through a cultural context. For instance, a very friendly CEO may be viewed positively by an American employer but seen as weak by a Japanese employee. You have to understand the culture map of your organization and adapt to it.

So What is Silent Leadership?

Although there is some overlap between shyness and introversion, introversion alone does not imply that a person is shy. Similarly, an introverted approach to management does not mean that the silent leader is shy or even meek. There is a power to introversion that you can tap into.

The quiet confidence of silent leadership is less likely to degenerate into arrogance because it emphasises the importance of listening and following the flow of ideas rather than the dictates of ego.

Silent leaders love to listen and they often do so with a more compassionate, warm, and collaborative approach than their more bombastic peers. This creates an environment where the people who work for them are more confident in bringing forth their ideas and concerns. In an organization where the personality of the leader exerts such a domineering pull, people tend to follow simply because the leader initiates action, rather than stopping to add their own thoughts and observations. In the U.S. Army, they have a term for this, they call it the “bus to Abilene”. Suppose a family is sitting on a porch and someone says, “I’m bored, why don’t we take a bus to Abilene?” Everyone agrees and they take a bus to Abilene. When they get there, someone admits that they didn’t really want to go to Abilene. Another person adds, “I only came here because I thought you wanted to go”. Eventually, it turns out the only person who wanted to go to Abilene was the person who initiated action and even they didn’t really want to go. The story highlights the fact that people follow initiators of action, often against their own desires and instincts. In order to create an atmosphere where everyone feels that they can speak up, the leader has to step back and listen far more than they speak.

Create a Space to Be Bad, So That Your Organization Can Be Great

Listening is at the heart of silent leadership. To be a truly great listener, you have to be able to listen in a spirit of unconditional positive regard. In other words, you have to create a space where ideas can be shared and where no judgment will be passed on the person, regardless of how bad the leader thinks the idea is. The silent leader must see the employees of the organization as being fundamentally good people doing their best within the organization. By refraining from negative judgments in response to seemingly bad ideas, the space to innovate is enlarged. You see, creativity demands that ideas are not censored. The most creative people produce a lot of bad ideas. You just don’t see them. When a person has to censor what they think and say, they potentially block of seemingly bad ideas that could develop into good ideas, and they chain their creative flow, hampering their ability to solve problems.

As a silent leader, you will love this. The silent leader does not demand the spotlight, they embrace anonymous living.

When we think of leaders, we tend to think of them as hyper-confident, bold extroverts, as Alpha males who dominate their organizations. We extol the ability of CEOs such as Steve Jobs to drag their organizations toward their vision of the company. The great CEO, we are led to believe, is a benevolent autocrat. A shark swimming in a river filled with little fish. We seldom hear of the merits of a “silent’ approach to leadership. Research shows, however, that the best decision-makers defy the brash image of the CEO. Silent leadership may not provide the same well of anecdotes that its’ bolder counterpart does, but it is by far more effective.

A Good Leader Embraces Their Fallibility

The key quality that defines a leader is that leader’s ability to make good decisions. Good decisions emerge from an ability to analyse a situation and make the right inferences. Philip Tetlock, an organizational behaviour expert who has spent his career studying the ability of individuals to make good decisions and build forecasts, found that pundits, who are typically confident, assertive and outspoken even when they have very limited information, were worse at making predictions than if they had simply made predictions through random chance. When he dug deeper, he found that the worst forecasters were the most confident and most famous experts, the kind of people that we typically associate with being good leaders.

Tetlock’s research found that the people who were most successful at making forecasts were the kind of people who add qualifiers to their analysis, who highlight the uncertainty surrounding their predictions, and who are willing to learn from a wide variety of sources and, when the evidence changes, to change their opinions. These are not the bold and brash individuals we think make good leaders. These are studious people who understand that they can be wrong and welcome discovering error because they understand that it brings them closer toward the truth. These are people who are willing to stop talking and to listen to other voices, because they want to find flaws in their reasoning, because they care more about getting to the right answer than being perceived as right and infallible.

What we are describing is a more “introverted” leadership style. Obviously, not everyone is an introvert, nor should we all be. The world needs all kinds of people. However, the Extrovert Ideal of leadership masks the benefits of an introverted approach, an approach based on ideas, and one where the leader is happier to listen than to speak.

Of course, the success of any leader is contextual. A leadership style that may work in one context, may be a disaster in another. For instance, in Germany, Angela Merkel’s stoic, silent style of leadership has been a massive success. Yet many politicians with a similar style in the United States have been accused of not “opening up” and letting people in. So, you have to consider the culture of your organization as you adapt your leadership style. INSEAD business professor, Erin Meyer has worked extensively on mapping the cultures of organizations and countries. Her work has shown how leadership is filtered through a cultural context. For instance, a very friendly CEO may be viewed positively by an American employer but seen as weak by a Japanese employee. You have to understand the culture map of your organization and adapt to it.

So What is Silent Leadership?

Although there is some overlap between shyness and introversion, introversion alone does not imply that a person is shy. Similarly, an introverted approach to management does not mean that the silent leader is shy or even meek. There is a power to introversion that you can tap into.

The quiet confidence of silent leadership is less likely to degenerate into arrogance because it emphasises the importance of listening and following the flow of ideas rather than the dictates of ego.

Silent leaders love to listen and they often do so with a more compassionate, warm, and collaborative approach than their more bombastic peers. This creates an environment where the people who work for them are more confident in bringing forth their ideas and concerns. In an organization where the personality of the leader exerts such a domineering pull, people tend to follow simply because the leader initiates action, rather than stopping to add their own thoughts and observations. In the U.S. Army, they have a term for this, they call it the “bus to Abilene”. Suppose a family is sitting on a porch and someone says, “I’m bored, why don’t we take a bus to Abilene?” Everyone agrees and they take a bus to Abilene. When they get there, someone admits that they didn’t really want to go to Abilene. Another person adds, “I only came here because I thought you wanted to go”. Eventually, it turns out the only person who wanted to go to Abilene was the person who initiated action and even they didn’t really want to go. The story highlights the fact that people follow initiators of action, often against their own desires and instincts. In order to create an atmosphere where everyone feels that they can speak up, the leader has to step back and listen far more than they speak.

Create a Space to Be Bad, So That Your Organization Can Be Great

Listening is at the heart of silent leadership. To be a truly great listener, you have to be able to listen in a spirit of unconditional positive regard. In other words, you have to create a space where ideas can be shared and where no judgment will be passed on the person, regardless of how bad the leader thinks the idea is. The silent leader must see the employees of the organization as being fundamentally good people doing their best within the organization. By refraining from negative judgments in response to seemingly bad ideas, the space to innovate is enlarged. You see, creativity demands that ideas are not censored. The most creative people produce a lot of bad ideas. You just don’t see them. When a person has to censor what they think and say, they potentially block of seemingly bad ideas that could develop into good ideas, and they chain their creative flow, hampering their ability to solve problems.

As a silent leader, you will love this. The silent leader does not demand the spotlight, they embrace anonymous living.