Paradoxical Leadership

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Our jobs as leaders are becoming more complex and that requires a mindset shift when it comes to leadership. Leaders are constantly having to juggle competing priorities:

·        Short term vs. long term initiatives

·        Holding team accountable while being supportive

·        Develop your people and accomplish organizational goals.

We need to build up paradoxical leadership skills. What is paradoxical leadership? Paradoxical leadership is a leader’s ability to adopt an AND mindset instead of an EITHER/OR mindset and flex their behavior based on the situation at hand.

Does the latter part sound a little familiar? That is because situational leadership is a type of Paradoxical Leadership.

Situational Leadership – An Example of Paradoxical Leadership

What exactly is situational leadership? It is used more generally to refer to the ability of a leader to adjust their behavior based on the situation. However, Situational Leadership has a more specific definition. The 1969 book Management of Organizational Behavior by Paul Hensley and Ken Blanchard introduced the Situational Leadership® model. It is based on two axis – directive behavior and support behavior. Their argument was that a leader needed to adjust their level of directive and supportive behavior based on the individual employee’s situation.

Situational leadership is an example of a paradoxical leadership skill. An effective manager needs to be able to both support and direct their employees. A common issue is when managers expect to be able to go directly from directing (S1) to delegating (S4) and focus mostly on the directing axis. Let’s say Anna recently hired Bob. The first time she asks Bob to do a task, she explains it step-by-step to him (directing). The second time she asks him to do that task, she might expect him to be able to do it on his own (delegating) because she already showed him how to do it. This may not be a realistic expectation, especially if Bob does not have much prior experience or is new to the organization. Anna may need to coach Bob (S2) after showing him before he can do it independently on his own.  

More and more organizations are recognizing this gap and teaching their managers coaching skills.  This builds up the supportive axis, the paradoxical trait that is required for situational leadership.

Paradoxical leadership extends beyond situational leadership. Let’s explore that further.

Respectful Candor – The Communication Paradox

Here is an example of another paradoxical leadership skill around communication – the ability to be both frank and diplomatic, or respectful candor as Harrison Assessments calls it. For more on respectful candor, check out this earlier blog I’ve written.

You may have heard of the book “Radical Candor”, by Kim Scott who used to be an executive at Google. This book was released in 2017. In 2024, she released another book titled “Radical Respect.” The second book is necessary because candor, when it is not tempered with respect, can be destructive. Bullying is an example of this. It becomes a strength overused.

Respectful candor is a paradoxical leadership skill. Here is an example of the paradox report for an individual, let’s call him Andrew. Harrison Assessment measures behavior and work preferences. Behavior can be changed over time whereas personality tends to be fixed. The red dot is the intersection of Andrew’s diplomatic and frank scores. His typical range of behavior is represented by the blue circle around the red dot. Andrew is able to be both direct and diplomatic, which makes his communication more effective. When someone is strong in both paradoxical pairs, it is easier for them to flex towards one or the other and adjust their communication style as needed depending on who they are talking to. This is not the case if only one communication style were dominant.

There are several other pairs of paradoxical traits that are important to leadership. Let’s explore those next.

Harrison Assessment’s Paradox Theory

My introduction to paradox theory was through Dr. Dan Harrison, founder of Harrison Assessments. It is similar in principle to the East Asian concept of yin and yang. As a Harrison Assessment solutions provider, the Paradox report is one of the core reports I leverage to coach my clients and the one they often find the most insightful. Harrison Assessments is used by companies like McKinsey, Chick-fil-A, and Jacobs Engineering but is scalable for smaller organizations as well. This concept of paradoxical leadership is something that I have grown to appreciate the more I understand Dr. Dan Harrison’s Paradox Theory.

A paradox is two ideas that may appear contradictory but are in fact both true. Dr. Harrison has found twelve pairs of paradoxical traits which at first may appear to be contradictory but are in fact complementary and synergistic. When both traits in a paradoxical pair are present, a strength overused does not become a weakness but becomes a genuine strength.

Four of these twelve paradoxical pairs are particularly important for leadership:

·        Opportunity Management = Risking + Analyzes Pitfalls

·        Coaching Mindset = Warmth/empathy + Enforcing

·        Collaborative Accountability = Authoritative + Collaborative

·        Realistic Optimism = Optimistic + Analyzes Pitfalls

Authoritative in a collaborative accountability context means the willingness to make decisions. When it is paired with a collaborative mindset, the leader will not become authoritarian.

Paradoxical leadership skills will become increasingly important. We live in a culture in the United States that has become more polarized and breeds either/or thinking. But as leaders, the situations we face are often complex and when we adopt an OR mindset, we end up with suboptimal results, e.g., short-term delivery/performance gains over longer term costly turnover issues.

Contact Claritas Consulting & Coaching to discuss your leadership development needs or follow us on LinkedIn for more useful leadership resources and frameworks, including the Progressive Emotional Intelligence model. If you found this useful, please share this article with others.