Leadership in any organization can often be informal as well as formal, yet for many, there is a clear reluctance to take on such roles regardless of their nature. Research from the University of Michigan explores some of the factors that inhibit people from taking on leadership responsibilities.

The results show that how we’re perceived, or at least how we think we will be perceived, is a fundamental factor in our reluctance to take on leadership roles.

Situational leadership

The research found that people are often acting as leaders in certain circumstances, but not always all of the time. Often, it depends very much on the particular circumstances. This is especially so as teams are often extremely fluid in the modern workplace, so leadership is something that is a contextually dependent identity.

Despite this, just 16% of respondents thought of themselves as leaders, with women much less likely to identify as leaders than men. The researchers identified three forms of reputational fear that hold people back:

• Being seen as bossy and domineering. People tend to associate being a leader with being bossy, pushy and domineering, and that is something that they do not want to come across as.
• Seeming different. We found people don’t really want to signal that now that they’re calling themselves a leader, they are somehow different from everyone else.
• Seeming unqualified. This is extremely common, and it’s something that goes hand-in-hand with the imposter syndrome many of us have: “Maybe I’m not the best person because I don’t know everything, and maybe people won’t take me seriously.” That kind of fear plays a significant role.

All three of these fears were found to make us less likely to perceive ourselves as leaders. Once they kick in, we tend to be less likely to act like a leader and much less likely to be seen as a leader by others. In other words, the fears we have create very real-world consequences for us should we ever need to step into leadership roles.

Sadly, the researchers found that we’re generally reluctant to admit that we have these fears to begin with, preferring instead to make excuses, such as suggesting that they’re simply not the leader type.