Paradox and Tightrope Leadership

What It’s About: I learned a lot working for Dave Mowat, the retired CEO of ATB. Perhaps the most valuable lesson was his ability to lead with conviction and strength, while recognizing paradoxes and walking a tightrope. To make the point, he had a saying that to be an effective leader in Alberta, Canada (a vast rural area with two dominant cities), you had to be comfortable in western boots and Jimmy Choo’s. As I reflect on the current desperate need for courageous leadership in both the public and private sectors, paradox balancing must lead the way.

So What?: Let me give you crunchy examples. These are begging for balanced paradox leadership.

How does one create a place of belonging in an organization, and yet embrace the reality of constantly shuffling employees to meet massive disruption?

How do you give employees more flexibility to work from anywhere and still create places for connection?

How do you create psychologically safe workplaces and expect the productivity bar to be continuously raised?

Can you be both people first and customer obsessed?

How do you celebrate people joining and leaving an institution, while improving culture?

Can you both learn and fail fast, yet be prudent investing resources?

How do you speak and stand up as an ally, and yet not take up space where disadvantaged communities need to have their voices heard?

Now What?: Paradox management is demanding a different form of leadership, where acute listening, collaboration and compassion must be the way for resource allocation and decision making. In the spirit of the paradox, this requires both confidence and humility. The ability to stand up fiercely, humbly take a knee, and when to choose one or the other… Well, those choices will define us. To help guide the way, clarity of purpose and intentional values can no longer be considered mushy luxuries (if they ever were). They are necessary guides so we might walk the leadership tightrope with greater wisdom and humanness. It’s a practice.

Think Big, Start Small, Act Now,

- Lorne

One Millennial View: I’d like to add that I believe successful leadership through paradox requires patience. Perhaps way more patience than most of us are used to giving or receiving. Most things happen almost instantaneously these days, but it would be great to have the grace and humility to compartmentalize this differently into a process and practice that will understandably take some trial, error and time.

- Garrett

Edited and published by Garrett Rubis.

Paradox and Tightrope Leadership

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