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

Abstract

Previous studies of Chinese leadership have identified Daoism as the main philosophical tradition that makes Chinese leadership behaviour different from western leadership behaviour in terms of its modesty, harmony and submissiveness to authority. However, less attention has been paid to Chinese managers’ own perceptions and representations of traditional thinking in Daoist Wu Wei. In this article, we offer a new, more nuanced understanding of Daoist Wu Wei. We critically explored the link between Wu Wei and self-reflexivity. As a result, this study offers a new understanding of the influence of Daoism on leadership by showing that our participants exhibited three different forms of reflexivity in their ways of believing in Wu Wei, namely: flow, self-protection and an excuse for failing.