How to Embrace These 4 Leadership Paradoxes

Leadership in the 21st century is marked by unpredictability, instability, and non-linear progress. To be an effective leader, one must contend with paradoxes in leadership, including maintaining control while simultaneously letting go of it, and stressing continuity while pursuing change. Additionally, organizations also face paradoxes in balancing corporate social responsibility for moral and strategic purposes. According to professors David Waldman and David Bowen, being a paradox-savvy leader involves embracing opposites and balancing contradictions. The ability to differentiate various roles in the organization while integrating them into a coherent identity and remaining emotionally even are key traits of effective leaders. To navigate these paradoxes, leaders must avoid fixating on one extreme or being stuck in the middle, and consider optimization and pursuit of both dimensions over time.