Chapter 7
Tool 5:
Paradox navigation in global leadership
Tool 5
Why: In a busy working life, global leaders are often expected to decide/choose/act/execute quickly, and as a consequence, they often attempt to reduce the leadership paradoxes to dilemmas, in the hope that this will make it easier to manage and control the situation. This tool helps leaders embrace and navigate the paradoxes which inevitably arise when they have to lead and navigate in a global world.
What: This tool outlines an individual personal problem change process in the form of concrete steps that the individual leader can work with (alone or with others) in order to identify, analyse and navigate through paradoxical situations in global leadership.
How and who: The tool can be used by global leaders who want to challenge their gut feeling and put their autopilot on stand-by in order to take a fresh look at ”impossible situations” in their global leadership practice. You can use the tool on your own, but the work requires you to actively seek input from others – both people who are involved in an identified paradox and others who have no part in it and can offer a different view.
This tool takes the global leader on a journey of inspiration towards new views of ”impossible” problems, through the following phases:
Figure 5.1: The paradox process: from ”impossible” situation to viable action
Each of the phases is discussed below, each with questions for reflection related to the user’s own leadership practice. As the tile of the figure suggests, our experience is that the idea of paradox can lead to a robust capacity for action – a situation in which the individual leader can both thrive and perform.
Part of the benefit of talking about paradoxes in global leadership is to distinguish paradoxes from dilemmas. This may seem at first like an academic battle of words; ”dilemma” or ”paradox” – both sound like problems, whatever we call them. However, we have found through workshops at the Academy that the concept of a paradox can be a good opener when it comes to getting a handle on ”impossible situations”, expanding your scope for action and the number/type of possible outcomes from the paradoxical situations which are part of the DNA of global leadership. Especially the worst part of it all: living with the consequences.
In global leadership, many of the issues we have outlined are not a question of ”either/or” but increasingly take the form of paradoxes; instead of an either/or approach, we are faced with a both/and situation. One example might be that, for many companies, it is not a question of choosing between quality and price, but of delivering on quality and price, just as it is often impossible to choose between standardization and differentiation of products and processes in the global organization; rather, it is a matter of standardizing and differentiating at the same time; it is not a case of organic growth or growth through acquisition and alliances, but all of these growth models in (in)glorious combination. It is not a question of evolutionary or revolutionary change, but both together. There is innovation and entrepreneurship (”exploration”) and capitalizing on existing core competences (”exploitation”); no distinction of local vs. global but ”glocal”, and so on. The paradoxes arise at all levels of the organization, in areas such as strategy, structure and the choice of management behaviour, and at the personal level.
While dilemmas imply a need to prioritize (being ”caught between a rock and a hard place”), which is a traditional part of the leadership role, paradoxical thinking is more about companies and managers being able to handle a lack of resolution and final decisions which make tough problems go away. It is about cultivating the ability to have your cake and eat it; to sit between two stools both mentally and in practice – all of which may look like an inability to decide or master chaos, in fact a lack of order; a situation we may not all thrive in.
The idea of paradox implies an alternative (not to say opposite) strategy in terms of ”resilience”, which points to personal and organizational robustness as essential to global performance. Paradoxical thinking does not mean that leaders have to make themselves immune or resistant to ambiguous or mutually exclusive objectives, but they do need to be calm and bold in finding ”the serenity to accept what cannot be changed, the courage to change what can, and the wisdom to know the difference”.
These situations are by no means the monopoly of global leaders, but they typically navigate in more complex and ambiguous conditions which increase the number of paradoxical choices to be made. These situations are often characterized by the fact that the individual leader’s personal values and identity are at stake. One example taken from the individual level is the leader whose company has a code of conduct covering ethically and morally unimpeachable behaviour, which should in theory be observed without compromise in all corners of the organization. But what if following the ethical guidelines is perhaps politically correct but ethically incorrect in parts of the world where social structures and norms are different in a person’s country of origin?
The complexity that surrounds managers in global positions is increasing, and with it the number of paradoxes to be tackled. The world around us is getting more global, running in a higher gear and becoming more exposed to competition. The internal organizational processes are also becoming more complex, which means that the opposing demands are growing more numerous and more persistent. Global leaders often experience these paradoxes as a kind of tension in their day-to-day work, and if they are not handled in an appropriate manner, they can lead to uncertainty, confusion, frustration and, in the worst case, paralysis in both managers and employees.
So paradoxes can be quite hard to handle for head office staff concerned with global ”compliance”, as well as the urge to get things in order and done – managers are used to ”fixing” things, but paradoxes cannot be fixed, so we have to do something different when we are confronted with paradoxes than when we face ”normal” or ”classical” problems. Paradoxes also bring out a great need to bring sense and clarity to the organization/setting and staff to explain why it is quite OK to be in limbo (or purgatory) the whole time. It is not indecision or the fact that things are in a mess that prevents us from drawing a line in the sand; it is simply not the intention for the problem to ”go away” – the whole point is to sit on the seesaw and look for the point of balance as something to be constantly found, lost and rediscovered in a fresh state of temporary equilibrium. It is about being able to handle the complexity and hence also the paradoxes – in ourselves and others. In other words, it is a core competence for the global leader to be able to handle paradoxes effectively. However, paradoxes can easily throw us into a panic, as the complexity in organizational life makes it harder and harder to navigate between opposing demands and expectations.
What particular paradoxes do you encounter in your work as a global leader?
Why is it important to be able to navigate through these paradoxes?
What can you achieve by navigating through the paradoxes, and what do you risk losing by not managing them?
How do you find you can navigate effectively through the paradoxes?
What skills do you need to navigate through a paradox?
The next step in the process is to distinguish between three types of paradox:
The organizational paradoxes typically arise out of the nature of the organization, with competing objectives and processes. These paradoxes may be about centralization versus decentralization, stability versus change, delegation versus control, or people versus results. These challenges are an inevitable part of organizing a business, and they can be particularly visible in connection with organizational change processes and organization across national frontiers.
The role-related paradoxes associated with global leadership have to do with the competing demands that are built into the role. These are the tensions that come from opposing demands on and expectations of the leader, perhaps in the form of expectations that the leader will understand/represent a specific demand/need from the staff which may not match the overall strategy. This form of paradox concerns the type of management behaviour the global leader needs to display in order to appear trustworthy in different contexts, and the flexibility the leader needs to display in order to succeed.
The individual paradoxes arise out of the personal pressure that may be experienced between an individual and a common identity and/or values. The individual paradoxes are often felt as a tension in relation to the possible emotional pressure on the leader’s own identity and values, which may make itself felt at the interface between the individual and the community. For example, when the leader has to strike a balance between delivering as an individual while also being a team player, and when the leader has to be true to the decisions of senior management but feels they conflict with his/her private/personal attitudes and values.
The most important thing is not to identify the types of paradox that face us, but to know that they are there and manifest themselves as opposing tensions. By accepting paradoxes as a normal state of affairs and an integral part of their organizational reality, the leader can make room for the paradoxes to be discussed with other managers and/or employees, possibly with a view to arriving at new and perhaps more creative ways of dealing with the paradoxes. This can potentially open up new and alternative ways of viewing the challenges.
Which of the three forms of paradox (organizational, role-related or individual) do you experience most in your work as a global leader?
Which of the three types do you find most challenging – and in what way?
What effect do they have on your ability to produce the expected results?
What are your best experiences of handling and ”living with” a paradox?
There are a number of critical skills that the global leader can usefully build up and develop in order to navigate the paradoxes more effectively. These are:
Reflection – The ability to see things from many angles and learn from one’s experience.
Courage and resilience – Daring to engage actively with the paradox by using it constructively to develop the organization, and to use the tensions inherent in the paradox to challenge the organization and the underlying assumptions. It takes courage to do things differently than expected (by other people).
Communication – The ability to address many different sides of the paradox and strike a balance in one’s communication without favouring any one perspective over another.
”Negative ability” – To live with not always having an answer, and not acting. Daring to question ”what we always do”, and daring and being able to doubt and not know. Being able to withstand living in the present and being under pressure – and still resist trying to ”fix” the paradox (as, by definition, paradoxes cannot be fixed).
Which of the four critical skills are you strongest in?
Which could you usefully develop more? How?
In practice there are three strategies that can be brought to bear when the global leader has to navigate in and around a paradox.
Acceptance: A fundamental acceptance of complexity and paradoxes as a fact of life for organizations – particularly those undergoing change – is a necessity if the leader is to be able to handle the paradoxes.
Integrated thinking: An attempt to uncover the positive aspects related to the paradox and so create a win-win situation for all parties involved in a both-and situation. A desire for and effort to find a third way, which may mean harmonization or perhaps a mixture of parallel lines of development and objectives.
Positioning: To consciously position yourself for a time at one ”pole” of the paradox and actively distance yourself from the other, based on strategic, human or organizational considerations, in the knowledge that the other pole cannot be neglected or forgotten altogether.
Which of the three strategies described above do you prefer?
What good experiences do you have of applying the strategy?
What negative experiences do you have of applying the strategy?
What would you gain by applying another of the three strategies to one or more of the paradoxes that you need to navigate through?
In this step you should choose an actual paradox from your own experience and work through it from identifying the ”impossible” element in the situation to determining how to handle it in the future:
You now need to decide on your next steps; both about what to do and, perhaps just as important, what not to do:
There are those who believe that westerners are inclined towards ”either/or” thinking while Asian cultures, for example, are much more marked by ”both/and” thinking. Whatever baggage you bring into your work with paradoxes, our experience at the Academy is that paradoxical thinking takes time and training – ideally together with others.
Jules, C. & Lynton, N. (2012). Paradox: Mastering Creative Tensions. Presentation, Global Leadership Academy seminar, Sørup Herregaard, Ringsted-DK, September 26 – 27, 2012.Jules, C. (2012). Paradox: Reflections on Mastering Organizational Tensions. GLA Insights, October 2012.
Handy, C. (1994). The Age of Paradox. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.
Smith, W. K. Binns,, A. & Tushman, M. L. (2010). Complex Business Models: Managing Strategic Paradoxes Simultaneously. Long Range Planning, Vol. 43, No. 2 – 3, pp. 448 – 461.
Smith, W. K. & Lewis, M. W. (2011). Toward a theory of paradox: A dynamic equilibrium model of organizing. Academy of Management Review, Vol. 36, No. 2, pp. 381 – 403.
Flint-Taylor, J. (2014). How to build resilience in your team, GLA Insights/Global Leadership Academy.
Simpson, P. & French, R. (2006). Negative capability and the capacity to think in the present moment: Some implications for leadership practice. Leadership, 2 (2), 245 – 255.