Blending and toggling: Visibility, paradox, and leadership-as-practice in Chinese underground music scenes

While visibility is often valorised in leadership studies, it can become a source of vulnerability in settings characterised by economic, cultural, and regulatory pressures. This paper examines how participants in Chinese underground music scenes navigate a paradox in which the visibility needed for survival can generate new risks that threaten continuity. Drawing on a multi-year ethnography, the findings identify two mechanisms through which participants manage this paradox: blending , the simultaneous synthesis of voice and silence, and toggling , the temporal or spatial separation of voice and silence. The paper contributes to leadership-as-practice theory by moving beyond its traditional emphasis on observable action and reframing silence as a strategic resource that can be mobilised alongside voice through blending and toggling. It also extends paradox theory by focusing on how paradox is navigated through the distributed, situated accomplishment of leadership.