Buổi 127: Reading – Matching headings + sentence completion: lãnh đạo không cần ồn ào

Leading without the spotlight

(Bài đọc tự viết; nhà quản lý, công ty và tình huống là giả định.)

A Ask people to picture a leader, and many will imagine someone confident and outgoing, who speaks easily in front of large audiences and makes decisions quickly. This image is reinforced by films, business magazines and, often, by the people chosen for promotion. Yet experience in many organisations suggests that some of the most effective leaders do not fit this description at all.

B Consider the hypothetical case of Grace Tan, who was promoted to manage a team of twenty engineers. Colleagues described her as quiet, even reserved. She rarely spoke first in meetings and disliked giving presentations. Within two years, however, her team had the lowest staff turnover in the company and consistently met its deadlines. When asked what made the difference, team members mentioned the same things: she listened carefully, asked good questions and gave people genuine responsibility.

C It would be a mistake to conclude from one example that quiet people make better leaders. The real question is which behaviours make leadership effective, and whether these are linked to personality at all. Confidence and the ability to communicate a clear vision are clearly valuable, particularly in a crisis. But so are behaviours that are less visible: consulting team members before decisions, delegating meaningful work, and acknowledging others’ contributions.

D These less visible behaviours may be especially important when teams are made up of skilled professionals. Experienced engineers, doctors or designers often know more about their own work than their manager does. A leader who insists on making every decision may waste that expertise and leave capable people feeling undervalued. A leader who asks, “What do you think we should do?” and then acts on the answer may achieve better results – not because they lack ideas, but because they recognise the value of other people’s.

E This is not to suggest that quiet leaders have no weaknesses. Grace Tan herself admitted that she found it difficult to promote her team’s achievements to senior management, and that for a time her department’s successes went largely unnoticed. Visibility matters in most organisations: a leader who cannot argue for resources or represent their team effectively may leave it at a disadvantage. Quiet leaders may therefore need to develop skills that do not come naturally to them, just as more outgoing leaders may need to learn to speak less and listen more.

F What follows for organisations? Perhaps the most practical lesson concerns selection. If promotion decisions rely heavily on how confidently someone presents themselves in interviews or meetings, organisations may overlook people with valuable but less obvious strengths. Looking instead at evidence of what candidates actually do – how they support colleagues, how they handle disagreements, how their teams perform – may produce a more accurate picture of their potential as leaders.