The Art and Folly of Passive Leadership: Lessons from the Passive Voice of Grammar

In Western culture the passive voice is generally looked down upon. This, of course, pertains to the written word. The popular view is that the passive voice communicates a lack of confidence, because it can be perceived as impersonal, indirect, irrelevant, or unclear and ambiguous. 

In contemporary English the passive voice is distinguished from the active and middle voice. The active voice simply refers to the subject acting on the verb. The middle voice occurs when the subject acts on himself or herself. The passive voice showcases the verb acting on the subject; the actual subject is not stated and can only be reasoned by inference if additional information is supplied in the larger context. For a simple comparison, see the following:

• Active Voice: The subject does the action.

  • Example: “She drove to the store.”
  • Explanation: She (the subject) is actively driving (the action).

• Middle Voice: The subject acts on themselves.

  • Example: “She drove herself to the store.”
  • Explanation: She is both the one doing the action and the one affected by it (She [the subject] drove who? She drove herself [the object]).

• Passive Voice: The action happens to the subject, and the “doer” is often unclear.

  • Example: “She was driven to the store.”
  • Explanation: She (the subject) is receiving the action of being driven (the object), but we don’t know who did the driving.

The art of the passive voice makes ambiguity central in order to focus the reader on what the author determines is of paramount importance. In the sentence, “She was driven to the store”, the point is not on who did the driving, but on the fact that “she” made it to the store. This demonstrates the art of the passive voice. It is a literary device that slows down the narrative, filters unwanted distractions, and foregrounds the central thesis in simple terms.

The folly of passive leadership is like the unspecific passive voice in grammar when direct communication is warranted. In such cases the executive avoids asserting direct authority in favor of a passive interaction. For example, the leader may change the authority structure in the organization by passively deferring to one who has no official authority over a given responsibility center. Instead, what the leader should do is receive counsel from the individual that has official authority. This is an example of passive voice in action rather than in writing. Consider the following case: The leader receives input from a manager who holds no authority over a given domain (often under a sense of pressure whether real or perceived), and acts on the information received. However, when the new authority structure is communicated to the manager who possesses rightful authority, the leader may communicate the change in a passive way. 

An example of the folly of passive leadership is as follows. The leader may say, “I was convinced by John that the decision had to be made, and we have accordingly made the required change.” The way this passive sentence reads is that John (a manager) was the one who made the decision even though he did not have the official authority to do so. The clustered and indirect approach of leadership undermines official authority, creates a culture of confusion, and breeds insecurity and instability among all team members. The question the team members now face is: who do they go to, and under what circumstance might that be different? Hierarchical authority has been usurped. Meanwhile, the leader may believe that he or she is insulated from negative repercussions. However, when the organization becomes culturally unstable then the business becomes unstable. The illusion of saving face will eventually be exposed. 

Instead the leader could have said, “John convinced me that the decision had to be made; and based on the merits of his argument—I made the decision.” In this case the leader takes active responsibility for the decision, even though it was largely grounded on the reasons supplied by John. The chain of authority and the culture of engagement is in no way undermined by the leader’s style of communication. 

The art of passive leadership is ideal for helping your team remain focused and for training. In the case of focus, the passive voice helps your team stay attentive to what is of mission critical importance rather than on the litany of possible distractions. An example of this approach is as follows: “The sales are being made.” The sentence does not supply information on how, why, or who. The fact is stated simply so that the team can focus on what is most important, which in this case could be the communication of peace of mind for the team as a whole. For training, the passive voice is helpful for teaching the staff and team to learn the art of coherent thinking. Decision-making requires separating details and informative (and helpful but not necessary) information from go/no go decisions. Communicating and leading with passive voice helps staff learn to think through the variables and fill-in the possible gaps for future problems they may face. 

Unlike the art of passive leadership, the folly of passive leadership should be avoided at all costs. The folly of passive leadership is found in cases where (as the example above demonstrates) the leader avoids assertion in decision-making while at the same time makes a decision, blends or casually deflects responsibility to another that does not have hierarchical authority, or assigns the decision-making responsibility to the team (through the instrumental use of the third-person pronoun “we”) when the leader, not the team, is alone authorized to make the decision. 

Identifying the difference between the art and folly of passive leadership and knowing when to apply the passive voice in leadership is a helpful tool in the executive’s quiver.