One of the tricking things to address when leading a team is the characteristic of "passivity" with a member of a team.
So what is passivity? According to the online source, Dictionary.com, passivity is, “…the state or condition of being passive.” Behavior whereby a person is, “not participating readily or actively…” We could rephrase this as,
“Passivity is the failure to take action when called upon to do so.”
Passivity, the failure to act, is often masked by an outward appearance and corresponding verbal responses of being agreeable. In other words, the person who is asked to complete a task agrees, nods their head affirmatively, often will smile, and may even say “yes,” …and then does not follow through behaviorally and actually do what is assigned; they fail to take action...
In a structure of a team, where leadership is defined, the passive team member does not functionally honor the Leader or their “authority” as a leader. The core issue in unvarnished language is this: behaviorally, they are rebelling against the authority of the team leader. They simply are doing so in a passive, subtle manner, as contrasted to openly and actively resisting (or rebelling against) the leadership that exists in the structure of the team.
Next week I will look at several action steps that can be useful in addressing this challenging situation in team leadership.