Leadership,Daoist Wu Wei and reflexivity: Flow,self-protection and excuse in Chinese bank managers’ leadership practice

Introduction

A considerable body of leadership studies has grown up in the West within the last hundred years, and leadership as practised in other cultures tends to start from this body as the norm. Our study goes beyond the assumptions that are built into such approaches by listening to how Chinese bank managers account for their leadership actions. Rather than take the western tradition as the norm, the benchmark for leadership in China, we wished to explore whether there were factors in Chinese traditions and culture which could help us to make more sense of what managers in Chinese banks told us about their leadership activities.

Research on Chinese managers’ leadership behaviour has argued that some Chinese managers follow Daoist views of flow, and make compromises in the spirit of Wu Wei (Cheung and Chan, 2005; Johnson, 2000; Prince, 2005). Although it has been regarded as an influential principle in Chinese leadership, the explanations of Wu Wei in the academic literature tend to be partial and unhelpful, e.g. describing Wu Wei as ‘non-activity’, or ‘governing by doing nothing’. These do not help us to understand how its introspective aspect can apply to managerial behaviour. In this article, we suggest that the principles of Wu Wei can be secularized by managers through their self-reflexivity. Daoism raises fundamental questions about the introspection and reflexivity that allow people to capture the complex and interactional learning nature of their social experience and leadership, and this article argues that there are fundamental insights that we can gain into the leadership actions of people who have been raised in a culture rooted (despite the best efforts of the Cultural Revolution) in Daoism.

We focus on influences from the Daoist tradition, and we present an unanticipated finding from the research, which was the relationship between Daoist thinking and some propositions that have come recently from the study of reflexivity. In particular, the Daoist tradition functions in quite different ways for different situations through the process of managers’ self-reflexivity. We show this from the way that the managers in the study treat the relationship between the Daoist core concept of Wu Wei and self-reflexivity.

In this article, we shall first discuss Daoism and self-reflexivity, and explain why we describe some of the stories from the bank managers as coming from a Daoist tradition. We focus on the concept of Wu Wei, which turned out to be particularly relevant to understanding our participants. We explore a new way of understanding Wu Wei by making the link with self-reflexivity. We shall then discuss the methodology of the research, and proceed to consider the three different ways of using the traditional thought of Wu Wei through self-reflexivity: Wu Wei as flow, Wu Wei as self-protection and Wu Wei as an excuse for failing. We link these with reflexivity, as we argue that our studies of traditional thinking and the understanding of reflexive managerial thought are mutually illuminating.

Our contribution is in three main areas. First there is an empirical contribution to the understanding of Chinese leadership, which we are able to make from our lengthy discussions with the practitioners in our study. Second, there is a contribution to the discussion of reflexivity in the management literature, particularly because we see it illuminated by the concerns and the ways of thinking of Chinese managers, Third, we believe that an understanding of how Daoism promotes self-reflexivity in Chinese managers could be of interest to western managers and educators who believe that self-reflexivity can be helpful, and may find some aspects of Daoism that can help them to promote it.

Daoism in management research

Recent research on Chinese leadership has discussed the impact of Daoism (Chen, 2002; Cheung and Chan, 2005; Johnson, 2000). It has been suggested that Daoism is the main philosophical tradition that differentiates Chinese managers’ ideas and behaviour from westerners’ (Chen, 2002; Cheung and Chan, 2005; Leung et al., 2002). For example, Cheung and Chan (2005) have discussed Daoism as one of the Chinese philosophical foundations that influences Chinese managers’ forbearance, humility and self-effacement (Cheung and Chan, 2005, 2008; Davis, 2004). Prince (2005) compared western leadership with Daoist leadership, suggesting that western leadership is about actively shaping and controlling, whereas Daoist leadership is about engaging with circumstances and accommodating. They suggested that successful Chinese leaders are spontaneously attuned to the nuances of local circumstances, not burdened by concerns about what is or is not the right rule to apply. However, there is still a lack of empirical research that systematically examines the impact of Daoism on Chinese leadership especially from the perspective of Chinese managers’ self-concept. Our study aims to fill this gap.

We have been struck by the relationship between Daoist thinking and narratives and some of the propositions that have come recently from the study of reflexivity (Antonacopoulou and Bento, 2003; Cunliffe, 2002, 2004, 2009), and this article examines our data from Chinese bank managers to illuminate the contribution to understanding how leadership is learned which can be gained from examining these concepts together.

Some researchers have suggested that Chinese social characteristics can be viewed as inoffensive and submissive to social orientation and authority (Cheung and Chan, 2005; Fairbank and Reischauer, 1978; Feng, 2000). Many cross-cultural studies, comparing Chinese and American employees, show that Chinese employees tend to be less autonomous, less aggressive, more submissive and subservient to authority, more susceptible to the influence of powerful people and more likely to make compromises (Black and Porter, 1991; Hofstede and Bond, 1984; Ralston et al., 1992). However, these studies do not take account of what lies behind the submissive or soft manner, the reflexive managerial thought and intelligence of Wu Wei.

Wu Wei as a core principle in Daoism

The founder of Daoism, Lao Tzu (600–470 BC) lived in China at a time when the country was besieged by warlords. Although living in a chaotic world, he developed his philosophical idea of personal development by following nature, and recommended its application to politics. He explains his theory of natural thinking in his book Dao Te Ching. According to Lao Tzu, ‘Dao’, is the philosophy or the way, which naturally exists prior to and gives rise to all other things such as the physical universe (Feng, 2000; Oldstone-Moore, 2003;). The ‘Dao’ can be found by experiencing and fulfilling one’s life with a peaceful and natural self and it is used to represent the natural principle that the world changes (Feng, 2000). ‘Te’, by which the way (Dao) is constituted, refers to virtue and a sense of morality (Feng, 1947, 2000; Oldstone-Moore, 2003). ‘Dao Te’ reflects an inner power and personal virtue that is the active manifestation of the natural order (Feng, 1947; Waley, 1968).

Based on the discussion of ‘Dao’ and ‘Te’, Lao Tzu proposes the core principle of Daoism—Wu Wei, which is often translated as ‘governing by doing nothing’. ‘Wu’ indicates nothing. ‘Wei’ indicates action. In Daoism, it refers to the relaxed and serene state of one’s mind or heart when following the flow of nature (Peterson et al., 1994; Yu, 1987). Therefore practically, Wu Wei indicates unimpeded action performed through cultivating and freeing oneself from burdens and stress. Daoism advocates that instead of desperately trying to do things by forcing the situation or acting against the flow of nature in the desire to achieve goals, one adopts Wu Wei and focuses on the cultivation of the natural self and thus gains deeper capacity to obtain success effortlessly (Yu, 1987).

Creel (1970) identified two different approaches to Wu Wei as practised in Daoism—contemplative Wu Wei and purposive Wu Wei. Contemplative Wu Wei indicates a genuine non-action motivated by a lack of desire to participate in the struggle of human affairs. Purposive Wu Wei refers to a technique for a person to gain enhanced control over human affairs. The first is purely passive while the second is a strategy to act in and reform the world (Creel, 1970; Loy, 1985).

Purposive Wu Wei cultivates one’s performance and attitude as a means to power. It advocates expelling one’s desire in order to gain the things that one desires. It is by not venturing to put oneself forward that one is able to achieve first place. To quote Lao Tzu, ‘he who wishes to be above people must behave as though he were below them’. Purposive Wu Wei treats the Dao as a method of acquiring power and enhancing control (Creel, 1970). In Dao Te Ching, Wu Wei is less concerned with the Dao as a genuine non-action but more with the Dao as a technique for getting control. In particular, Lao Tzu gave a great deal of advice to leaders on how to gain and maintain their power.

Daoism suggests that people should follow an in-between road, rather than doing something too good or something too bad. Daoist scholar Chuang Tzu (369–286 BC) argues:

The trees on the mountains are their own enemies, the leaping fire is the cause of its own quenching; cinnamon is edible, therefore its tree is cut down (Chuang Tzu, Ch. 4 ‘Ren Jian Shi’).

For him, harm always comes from great ability or reputation. Therefore a person should neither do too much good, nor strive too hard, but simply live in between.

Daoism argues that harm is something that is inescapable but reversible (Yu, 1987). A great part of Lao Tzu’s (600–470 BC) book Dao Te Ching recommends effective leadership strategies that embody the sense of reversal principle, such as ‘governing by doing nothing’, ‘being soft can conquer the hard’, or ‘resigning before achieving the top of a successful career’. In particular, Lao Tzu highly valued soft and weak approaches and regarded abiding softness as true stoutness. He believed that one can never be conquered if staying in the weak side. In other words one should never over expose one’s capability and advantages but hide them. In doing so, one’s strength can last for ever rather than being attacked or worn down.

Lao Tzu commended a natural self which is conscious of good reputation, but still maintains no reputation, which has the ability to be powerful but maintain powerlessness. This is because, according to Lao Tzu’s reversal principle, to maintain no reputation is the means for avoiding disgrace; to maintain powerlessness (governing by doing nothing) is the means for gaining power (Feng, 2000).

To reduce someone’s influence, first expand it; To reduce someone’s force, first increase it; To overthrow someone, first exalt them; To take from someone, first give to them (Lao Tzu, Dao Te Ching, Ch. 36).

People who live according to Daoism never want to reach an extreme because when an extreme is reached a reversal occurs. Therefore people practise Wu Wei to restrict their activities and to stop at the achievement of a certain purpose, without ever over-doing it. Only by knowing when to stop are people free from danger.

Daoism also suggests that leaders should lead with simplicity. By following Wu Wei, Daoism commends governing people with little restriction. Daoism suggests that leaders should not control people with too much law, as it is believed that the more laws there are, the more people find ways to violate those laws. In this context, Wu Wei means eliminating that aspect of the self which is inclined to interfere. Lao Tzu likened the simplified leadership to cooking seafood—if you cook with a strong fire or put in too much sauce, the seafood will be overcooked and lose its original fresh flavour. Similarly, if leaders behave too actively, the organization and staff members will become more rigid:

The more mature and advanced politics is, the more factions divide people; The more laws and taxes there are, the more theft and corruption destroy people (Lao Tzu, Dao Te Ching, Ch. 57).

Although as pragmatic philosophies Confucianism and Daoism both strive to clarify leadership, Confucianism offers a different view of leadership and power from Daoism. Confucians propose a discipline of how a good leader should cultivate his self by following the sage’s moral examples. While Daoists aim to de-emphasize power and to govern by non-action, Confucians value power highly. Confucians strive to accumulate righteousness, to overcome weaknesses, and to exert the virtuous self to obtain power (Fairbank and Reischauer, 1978; Feng, 2000; Yu, 1987).

Understanding reflexivity and the link to Daoism

To engage in Wu Wei, Daoism encourages people to reflect on and understand their inner self. In order to lead to wise introspection, Daoism values self-examination and judgement. Lao Tzu suggests that stillness may help people return from the outside dynamic, chaotic world to their internal static state. By doing so, they can manage affairs wisely without prejudice or bias. Therefore Wu Wei is an effective way of learning and understanding about the world through intuition about specific issues, situations and other people’s feelings. This parallels Cunliffe’s (2002) argument on self-reflexivity which suggests that people explore feelings and emotions from within their experience of learning. Furthermore Wu Wei requires freedom from mental stress, emotional blockages, judgmental attitudes, selfishness, pride and prejudice. In eliminating all these, one’s natural self is set free to trigger fundamental learning (Yu, 1987).

Self-reflexivity is a process of recognition that our beliefs shape and are shaped by our experience (Cunliffe, 2002; Cunliffe and Jun, 2005;). It is created through inner dialogues in which we communicate with our core beliefs, question our understanding of particular events and become aware of how to shape our responses.

In this study we explore how the understanding of Daoism that our interviewees held might assist in promoting self-reflexivity, with the possibility that western managers might usefully learn from this. Self-reflexivity is crucial as leaders need to question and make sense of their own experience (Antonacopoulou and Bento, 2003; Cunliffe, 2009). Some western research has called on a philosophical approach to form the basis for understanding the self-reflexivity of leadership. For instance, Cunliffe’s (2009) study indicates the role of philosophy in facilitating leaders’ self-reflexivity and she proposed the theme of the philosopher leader, which implied that philosophy has the potential to contribute to the study of leaders’ self-reflexivity. She believes that philosophy can enhance organization and management studies of self-reflexivity by providing a framework within which people reflect on and interpret their experiences and judge themselves and their situations (Ashman, 2007; Cunliffe, 2009; Gosling, 1996; Grint, 2007; Rice, 1960). Following her argument, this article makes a contribution to management learning by exploring the link between self-reflexivity and Chinese philosophy.

Reflexive action questions the basis of our understanding of particular events, our own practice and our lives. Moreover, it encourages making sense of multiple meanings of our social experience and exploring and recognizing our identities. This idea of self-reflexivity is vividly embodied in Chuang Tzu’s Daoist thought. He described a day when he dreamt he was a butterfly, fluttering carefree in a garden. Suddenly he awoke. He then wondered whether he was a man dreaming he was a butterfly, or whether he was a butterfly dreaming he was a man. This illustrates a Daoist way of exploring our identity in order to make sense of the multiple meanings of our life. Chuang Tzu depicts a new identity of being a butterfly in order to explore a happy, free and unburdened life. In this sense, he is not really questioning whether he is a person or a butterfly, but rising above a mediocre human lifestyle dealing with common trivial things day by day. In this reflexive way he makes sense of his life and desire for change.

Archer (2007) suggests that through self-reflexivity individuals take stock of the situation they confront, as well as their own desires and concerns, before deciding on a course of action. The question that self-reflexivity frequently raises is ‘who are we’? Are we aware of all aspects of our selves when occupied in our social activities? (Antonacopoulou and Bento, 2003; Cunliffe, 2002, 2004). Daoism addresses the importance of self-reflexivity by arguing that in the pursuit of interests, people often forget the potential danger to themselves. Chuang Tzu told a story about a mantis who was concentrating so hard on preying on a cicada that it did not know that a bird was waiting to prey on it. At the same time as the bird forgot itself it was also being targeted by a man who was trying to prey on it. In our daily life we may get confused about our identities and develop a ‘butterfly identity’ when pursuing our dream. We may also put ourselves in danger by focusing on one identity and forgetting others. For this reason self-reflexivity becomes very important.

Self-reflexivity is a process by which people question their own ways of making sense of the world. Self-reflexivity literature suggests that sense making should be experienced as an embodied process in which people explore and articulate feelings and emotions from within their experience (Cunliffe, 2002, 2004). This idea is reminiscent of ‘spirit nursing’ which is a common concept shared by Confucianism and Daoism, which both argue that since people’s ordinary life is futile they should devote themselves to what is everlasting and unchangeable. While Confucians practise inner reflection to cultivate their virtue and to become as perfect as a sage, Daoism advocates practising Wu Wei as a reflexive process to free oneself from the frustration of human affairs or mental stress (Ames, 1981; Feng, 2000; Loy, 1985; Yu, 1987).

Csikszentmihalyi’s (1997) concept of flow similarly describes how some people can free themselves from frustration, moving into a sense of effortless and effective action by means of pursuing emotional attachment. He argues that people cannot do something effectively if it makes them feel materially comfortable but emotionally miserable. Therefore he suggests that flow generally occurs when people are doing their favourite activity. While Csikszentmihalyi believes that people can only enter flow with their attention focused on what they enjoy, Daoism provides a more advanced and spontaneous idea of being in an effective flow, in which people are completely devoted to an activity and nothing else seems to matter. This thought is vividly illustrated in Daoist Chuang Tzu’s famous cook Ding story (Chuang, 369–286 BC).

Cook Ding was a great master of carving an ox. Compared with the harsh way in which other cooks carved up an ox by cutting and chopping the ox’s bones, cook Ding relied on the natural structure of the ox, with the knife flowing through the texture of skin and ‘opening among the bones’. As a result his work was as marvellous as an art work and his knife was used for 19 years without becoming blunt. Cook Ding’s story explains flow clearly; in addition to concentrating on the work, the skill of feeling and making use of opportunity, every ‘opening among the bones’ could be more important than emotional attachment. This could equally be described as reflexive action or as performing Wu Wei. The person is aware of what they are doing and follows the tendency in the situation rather than forcing the situation, because they are in the flow. This Daoist approach can be seen as pursuing flow as a result of self-reflexivity in one’s daily activities.

We might presume that people will pursue constant success with the hope of becoming more and more successful. However, further success might incur envy from outside and conceit from inside, which would lead to failure. Daoism recognizes this paradox and actively explores ways to solve it by exercising Wu Wei. Again this is a self-reflexive process because the person is aware of the dangers of being too successful, and of the wisdom of pretending to be a ‘fool’. Wu Wei also suggests the advantage of camouflage, the strength of weakness and the simplicity of true sophistication. Behind such thinking is the willingness to put up with temporary losses and bide one’s time. With nature operating by the law of action and reaction, nobody has a permanent advantage over others.

Daoism argues that tall trees are the first to be felled. Sweet wells are soonest exhausted. Self-reflexivity in this sense entails suspicion of one’s own advantages and capabilities. Daoism therefore advocates lying low. Confucianism also highly values humility. While Confucianism advocates humility as a virtue for a person to establish a good character, Daoism discusses the value of humility for effective leadership by concealing one’s advantages and superiority. Daoism identifies three most important qualities of effective leadership—mercy, frugality and not to be ahead of others.

From mercy comes courage;

From frugality comes generosity;

From humility comes leadership (Lao Tzu, Dao Te Ching, Ch. 67).

Some may argue that Chinese business leaders now tend to develop a sharper, tougher and more ruthless westernized edge rather than remaining submissive (Willis, 2009), but when they deal with their partners or their superiors they are inclined to be humble (Cheung and Chan, 2005; Tjosvold et al., 2001; Wong et al., 2010). Cheung and Chan (2005) suggest that Daoist doctrine is one of the main philosophical foundations of Chinese leadership. They argue that Chinese leaders who practise Daoist doctrines emphasize humility, forbearance and even self-effacement, especially when they are confronting frustration (Cheung and Chan, 2005, 2008).

A famous Chinese politician Zheng Banqiao (1693–1765) in the 18th century said: ‘it is difficult to be muddle-headed. It is difficult to be clever, but still more difficult to graduate from cleverness to muddle-headedness’. He became suspicious of the advantages of his cleverness which incurred endless jealousy and criticism. He then chose to act according to Wu Wei—transforming to muddle-headedness (i.e. concealing his merits and pretending to be muddle-headed) to secure himself from incurring any more disadvantages. Thus in daily life, Wu Wei can be viewed as a self-protection, never competing to be first in order to protect oneself from being criticized.

Because Wu Wei advocates lying low rather than competing to be first, and not forcing situations, it may also be used as a consolation for people who fail to achieve success. This resembles Creel’s (1970) definition of contemplative Wu Wei, pursuing a genuine non-action refraining from the desire to struggling in human affairs. When people use Wu Wei as an excuse for judging their failure, they attribute their failure to the result of practising Daoist philosophy and so this justification brings comfort to them in their failure. Daoist reflection is here being used to decrease stress levels by offering an excuse for lack of success, producing a comforting scenario from which the person can explore their feelings from within their experience of learning. (Cunliffe, 2002, 2009; Cunliffe and Jun, 2005). This is a reflexive way of explaining to yourself that your failure was not your fault, but is because you are following Wu Wei. In this article we suggest that this is a third aspect of Wu Wei, for managers to protect their view of themselves when their career does not go well.

In this section we have been discussing the links between the ideas of Daoism and reflexivity, and we now offer a study which goes further, looking at how Chinese managers understand their own leadership in practice, how they discuss concepts relating to Daoism and reflexivity in talking about their leadership histories, and what we can deduce from this which might be of value outside a Daoist culture.

Method

In this section we discuss the method of our study. We carried out unstructured biographical narrative interviews (Wengraf, 2001) to elicit managers’ narratives of leadership. We interviewed 20 informants including five top executives such as the president, chairman or CEO from the bank’s head office, and 15 senior managers such as department managers from head office or general managers from branch banks. The banks include: Bank of China, Industrial and Commercial Bank, Agriculture Bank of China, Asset Management Corporation, China CITIC Bank, Hua Xia Bank, China Merchants Bank, China Minsheng Banking Corporation. The interviews were carried out individually and each lasted for two to three hours.

We asked each of the interviewees to describe their experience of leadership from the beginning of their career until the present. Because leaders’ feelings, thoughts, intentions and evaluations are difficult to access directly, this narrative approach enables the expressive abilities of leaders to be used to convey the embedded meaning and thinking behind their actions (Gabriel, 2000; Labov and Waletzky, 1967).

We designed each interview as two sub-sessions. In the first, we asked one initial question to elicit the full narrative of informants’ work experience, such as: ‘Please tell me your working experiences, all the events and experiences which are important for your career up to now’. During this process, we noted important topics that we would like to ask them to clarify afterwards. In the second session we ask probing questions to elicit more narratives about some of the topics that were emerging as important, such as: ‘How do you find Wu Wei useful in your career?’

We adopted a grounded theory approach to the coding and analysis of qualitative data (Strauss and Corbin, 1990). We began with open coding by highlighting narratives and classified them into categories. The second step was conceptual coding by drawing on common statements (Miles and Huberman, 1994). We engaged in a constant comparative process by travelling back and forth between the data and the emerging theoretical structure (Miles and Huberman, 1994; Strauss and Corbin, 1990). These methods provide the basis for delineating themes and identifying several data fragments that relate to informants’ understanding.

During the process of analysis we realized that Wu Wei was coming through very frequently as an organizing concept for our interviewees, both as an expression of their view or as a means for them to contrast and highlight their views. From that point our analysis for this article focused more on concepts relating to Wu Wei, and we only report here that part of the analysis which fitted naturally within such a framework. In total, 293 stories were obtained through the 20 interviews and 120 stories were to do with Daoist leadership behaviour.

We were unable to do conventional coding checks because only one of the authors spoke Chinese. We resolved this by continuous challenging within the research team of the way that data was being used, where one person would say what had been said in the interview, and the interpretation that they put on it, and the other person would then challenge the interpretation and the meaning that the statement had been given. This was more laborious than having two people code the same transcript independently, but we believe that it gave us an equivalent check on the quality of our coding.

Findings

Ten strategic principles for practising Wu Wei were identified as themes, and these are shown in the outer part of Figure 1. The analysis then moves to examining relationships among these initial categories, assembling them into second-order categories, which are shown in the inner part of Figure 1 (Miles and Huberman, 1994). Table 1 gives examples of the quotations on which the concepts in Figure 1 are based.

To illustrate, from Figure 1, the statements ‘concentrate on the work not the result’, ‘seek for opening to stick in a pin’ (i.e. seek an opening which provides the least effort and most effective result) and ‘follow the flow rather than forcing the situation’ represent managers’ reflexivity on the thinking of Wu Wei as flow. The coding statements of ‘stopping at the right time’, ‘the heavy is the root of the light’, ‘to be the second best’, ‘seeking to take collective responsibility’ and ‘the head is supervised by the bum’ that some managers had discussed in their self-narratives illustrate Wu Wei as a means of self-protection. The statements about ‘psychological consolation and relief from stress’ and ‘abdicate leadership role’ show Wu Wei as a means of justifying the passivity and frustration of a flagging career.

OPEN IN VIEWER

Figure 1.

A mapping of the framework of Chinese managers’ perceptions on the meaning of Wu Wei philosophy and its related strategies for them

OPEN IN VIEWER

Table 1.

Ten strategies of Wu Wei and narrative examples of each theme

Principle of Wu Wei	Strategies for practising each principle of Wu Wei	Exemplary quotation
Wu Wei as flow	Follow the flow rather than forcing the situation	“Instead of forcing her, this requires you to be able to control the trend and find a third way to solve the matter.”
	Concentrate on the work not the result	“I do not worry about the result. I only concentrate on my job. Don’t allow other things to disturb you…”
	Seek for opening to stick in a pin	“…I look for a third person to tenderly deliver my consideration and intention to him. This is like finding an opening to stick a pin in which saves a lot effort…”
Wu Wei as self protection	To be the second best	“ I …only strive for being the second best… because to reach the top is like sitting on top of a wave, where you easily get criticisms and can never stay long….”
	Stopping at the right time	“This is the wisdom of Chinese philosophy, to stop when you achieve some certain success, not to be too greedy. At least you can keep your current achievement otherwise you will fail.”
	The heavy is the root of the light	“I not only focus on the current profit but also think about its future impact on my bank, as Daoism said, ‘the heavy is the root of the light’.”
	The head is supervised by the bum	“…Your action is taken only for protecting your position not for others. Therefore I call it ‘the head is supervised by the bum’…”
	Seeking to take collective responsibility	‘Rather than being an individual hero, we would seek to take collective responsibility because you cannot punish everyone.’
As an excuse for failure	Psychological consolation and relief from stress	“Now I just drift through my life and it is not to give up, because I am acting according to Daoism - Wu Wei to live wisely and to make life easy.”
	Abdicate leadership role	“I don’t think I am a leader because I have no authority in making any big decisions. Therefore I just behave with Wu Wei by not taking too much action to bother my subordinates.”

In their narratives, our interviewees reported that Daoism strongly influenced their leadership behaviour. Many interviewees referred to the ideas of Daoism when they explained and evaluated their past experiences and their theory of themselves as leaders. Many people valued the principle of Wu Wei, especially when they encountered difficulties, conflicts or dilemmas. Based on their reflexivity about their experience, they saw this principle as an effective way of avoiding conflicts and reducing risks, especially political risks. For example, one manager told a story about how he avoided conflict in negotiation. While telling the story, he mentioned Wu Wei as an effective strategy which helped him solve the problem. In their life stories, many of these managers applied Daoist thinking to some extent.

Table 1 further clarifies each aspect of Wu Wei practice with a brief narrative example of these 10 themes. When talking about how they adapted Wu Wei to guide their leadership, managers were characterized by the three approaches we have been discussing: flow, self-protection and excuse for failing. ‘Flow experience’ refers to focusing attention on the opportunities and results in a perfection of skills; ‘self-protection’ means managers were aware of the risks they could take and decided that those risks were not worthwhile; ‘excuse for failing’ refers to the use of Wu Wei to comfort the less successful, and to say that their failure was not their fault so that they did not feel too bad about it.

Conclusion

Our study is based on senior Chinese bankers. These managers’ values, beliefs and roles will differ from managers in other business areas or other national cultures. Therefore the generalization of the outcomes explored in this research remains to be tested in future research in other areas of management in China. Indeed, as the methodology is qualitative and the data grounded in particular contexts, generalizations should be made with care and in a tentative way. However, we believe that we have made a contribution in three areas.

The first is that we have made an empirical contribution to understanding Chinese leaders through allowing our participants the space to tell us their leadership narratives in their own way and in their own language. The picture that emerges from this is that there is a set of ideas deriving from long-standing traditions of Chinese thought which remain very current for leaders. Not only did we find evidence for the influence of Daoism, but we found three distinct ways in which Daoist beliefs of Wu Wei might be held:

Our second area of contribution is to the discussion of reflexivity in the management literature, by exploring the link between self-reflexivity and Chinese philosophy. In this article we suggest that there is a close link between notions of reflexive inquiry and the application of Wu Wei to managerial thinking. The three ways of believing in Wu Wei above are three different forms of reflexivity.

As a contribution to the literature on Daoism and self-reflexivity, our article has focused attention on the experiences of managers. In coping with Wu Wei practice, they adopted different reflexive ways, which have been described and analysed in the article. Our article offers significant insights into the growing literature on how Wu Wei and self-reflexivity are handled within life stories. We suggest that although Wu Wei has been seen as forbearance, tolerance, compromise and tactical submissiveness in previous research (Cheung and Chan, 2005; Feng, 2000; Johnson, 2000; Yu, 1987), managers who practise Wu Wei may have very different understandings of it. This study offers us a fresh research viewpoint and a new and more nuanced understanding of the influence of Daoism on leadership. This has the implication that the development of inner impulses and introspection (i.e. Wu Wei and reflexivity), combined with opportunity, may enable wise leadership. It also offers us some new insight on the nature of reflexivity, which we think is open to the same range of understandings as Wu Wei.

A reflexive approach can form the basis for understanding Wu Wei and leadership from a different perspective, and therefore it can also form the basis for exploring other Chinese philosophies such as Confucianism and Legalism in leadership. This will be another topic of interest that warrants future research.

The third contribution that we claim is that this work may be enlightening for western managers and educators as they consider leadership. The dominant assumption, although there has also been plenty of critical challenge, has been that the western paradigm for understanding and developing leadership is portable, and that leadership in other cultures should be seen as variants of the western model, with little emphasis on what western practitioners might learn from other cultures. If we accept the importance of reflexivity, it could be that there are many managers in western organizations who could be released and even empowered by knowing of the contribution which Daoism could make to their understanding of leadership. This study brings a different understanding of leadership and reflexivity, which comes from Wu Wei, that could lead managers to work more spontaneously and freely. A manager who has mastered leadership in this way is just like cook Ding; reflexivity, Wu Wei and flow can apply as much to the art of leading as to the art of ox-carving. We have discussed the inner theatre of the manager and illuminated how self-reflexivity drives Daoist leadership behaviour. This can help in the understanding of the implications of Daoist leadership, the implications of reflexivity, and the ways in which Daoism and reflexivity may be able to illuminate and develop interdependently.