Paradoxical Leadership: Embracing Contradictions

We all know that leaders often face conflicting challenges; the paradoxes in leadership. How do we deal with these contradictions? In this article, I explain what paradoxical leadership entails and mention some examples of important contradictions that leaders have to deal with.

Contradictions in Leadership

When I think of common contradictions, I think of the need to develop new products while also improving the current product portfolio. Or I think of significant reorganizations resulting in job losses, while you also need to continue investing in the (leadership) development of your team members. In this time of increasing complexity and predictability, organizations with leaders at the top who know how to deal with paradoxes will survive. The key is to find a stable solution within the paradoxical challenges.

Leadership is about dealing with contradictions, sometimes referred to as “Both/And leadership.” Leadership and leadership development cannot overlook this important theme: the paradoxes in leadership. It’s not either/or, it’s both/and. Ultimately, it’s about achieving balance.

Nobel Prize winner (physics) Niels Bohr once said: “How wonderful that we have met with a paradox. Now we have some hope of making progress.”

Common Paradoxes of Leaders

Prof. Dr. Jaap J. van Muijen, professor of psychology, mentions several common paradoxes of leaders. These are themes that I currently encounter more often with leaders and their teams:

• Change is necessary but can lead to change for the sake of change, ultimately resulting in no successful implementation of any change. An organization doesn’t give innovation a chance to stick. After a change, a period of rest and reflection is needed to allow employees, suppliers, and customers to adjust to and work in the new situation.
• Attention and investing in employees are crucial for gaining commitment in task execution to achieve goals. Too much emphasis on engagement and connection can result in the organization becoming ineffective and inefficient. A leader is so involved with the well-being of their employees that they are afraid to hold them accountable for poor performance.
• Achieving goals is extremely important. Simply pursuing goals can lead to employees burning out and experiencing a state of exhaustion (or burnout), making it impossible to achieve the goals.

Let’s take a look at some important contradictions that play a significant role in leadership.

Strong on Substance, Soft on Relationships

Leadership is not only about unilateral decision-making and issuing commands but also about getting to know and managing relationships: employees, customers, and suppliers. Investing time and energy in getting to know your team members pays off tremendously and acts as an accelerator to accomplish tasks faster and more effortlessly. Being able to respond to the behavior and motivations of your people ultimately accelerates results. People feel valued and recognized and want to (continue to) work within your organization. The best leaders are able to grow leaders among their team members.

Additionally, it is important to be clear (‘strong’) on substance by providing feedback on behavior and performance.

You Learn Fastest by Doing

We can read endlessly and take courses, but the fastest learning curve is achieved simply by ‘doing’. That’s why I always have insights and learning implemented immediately in practice. Learn and do, learn and do. And even better is that the learning is passed on. My experience is that you learn even more from giving instructions or teaching. You learn what you haven’t mastered completely yet, and the learning is internalized even more.

Successes and Mistakes

A difficult one, especially in our society, where the focus is strongly on success. Failure should be a good teacher, rather than the end. Good leaders know how to deal with failure and how to guide their employees through it. Failure seems to be the opposite of success, but it isn’t. The opposite of success is failing to learn and develop. If failures are shared with each other (and the leader sets the example) and it is shared how and what you have learned from it, it contributes to the development of individuals and the organization. And together, you can discuss how to prevent a mistake next time.

Change and Control

Often, I see that change is the motto. That requires an innovative culture. But if there is insufficient control of the processes, changes lead to chaos. Conversely, excessive regulation (bureaucracy) causes necessary changes to stiffen and come to a standstill. In that case, it is important to examine which rules are truly useful and which rules are redundant.

Develop Your Reputation through Humility

The greatest leaders are humble. They don’t boast or take credit for themselves. They do what they have to do and show appreciation for the strength of others and admit their own shortcomings. Leaders who are humble are also open to learning from their employees and are generally better listeners. They have an attitude that they can always learn something from someone else. Look at Richard Branson. He always carries a notebook because he always assumes he can learn something from a meeting. As a leader becomes more successful, it’s an art to maintain this humility.

To Accelerate Development, Slow Down

Growth of leaders and their team members benefits from time for reflection. And that is a paradox and a challenge in relation to the hustle and bustle in which most of us find ourselves in business. Reflection doesn’t have to take long; often, it helps, for example, to have a cup of coffee or tea in a place other than the office. And, for example, to take notes in a notebook. Keith Cunningham (business coach) calls this time “Thinking