Navigating the Paradoxes of Human Centered Leadership
Leading today is full of paradoxes.
As leaders navigate hybrid and remote work, increasing mental health challenges, and economic uncertainty, they’re rethinking how to communicate, collaborate, and grow their businesses. That’s why many are shifting to human centered leadership.
However, this new way of leading can seem contradictory. You’re supposed to inspire confidence AND model vulnerability. Make profits while also prioritizing people’s wellbeing. Act fast AND build for the long term.
Paradoxes are defined as competing tensions, and they are inherently complex. They pervade our lives in and out of work. It takes practice to meet the challenges of human centered leadership - holding two ideas that are seemingly contradictory rather than defaulting to traditional leadership language - choosing between an ‘either/or’ option.
Trying to make sense of the paradox of human centered leadership can leave you feeling frustrated, even stuck. But if you embrace the tension and nuances, you can use it as an advantage.
Use Tension as a Creative Force
When faced with complex situations, you might feel compelled to simplify the problem by forcing either/or choices. It feels safer that way. The problem is this kind of thinking oversimplifies reality. It turns leadership into a binary game and limits creativity.
Take the example of an organization in pursuit of its north star: Creating empowered teams that drive results.
As a leader, you feel like you’re managing team emotions more than driving progress. So, what do you do? By focusing on driving results or managing emotions, you will miss out on nuanced solutions. If you use this tension as a creative force, you can create positive outcomes by addressing both results and emotions at the same time.
By sitting with that tension, how can you show up and model a new way of approaching the challenge? The truth is, both employee well-being and performance are essential, and they’re deeply connected. You can’t nurture one while ignoring the other.
Embracing Paradox to Create Real Solutions Through and/both Leadership
And/both leadership is about accepting that conflicting priorities can coexist. It’s about recognizing that a paradox exists and about thinking deeply, flexibly, and strategically about the best course of action.
HBR outlines several paradoxical characteristics they find important in post-pandemic leaders:
“The digital age calls for hero leaders, people who are willing to make bold decisions… in times of uncertainty.
At the same time leaders need to have the humility to acknowledge what they don’t know and to bring on board people with potentially very different skills, backgrounds, and capabilities.¹ ”
Cultivate Cognitive Flexibility
Cognitive flexibility is about training your mind to accept complexity and uncertainty while resisting the urge to simplify things. It’s tough at first because it feels unnatural. We’re wired to seek clarity, to solve problems quickly and move on. Quick fixes fail to address the deeper, more systemic challenges you and your organizations face.
Yet paradoxes don’t just happen at work. It’s critical to notice them in our everyday life and find opportunities to practice working with them every day, everywhere.
The Paradox is Not the Enemy
What if instead of seeing paradox as a problem, you see it as a source of innovation? That’s the beauty of the paradox: it’s counterintuitive, so the tension between the conflicting priorities will spark creative solutions.
When teams are challenged to reconcile two opposing goals, they’re forced to think outside the box and come up with new ways to achieve both. While the paradox might feel like the enemy, it is a source of possibility. When leaders frame challenges as opportunities to innovate, they create an environment where teams can explore new ways of thinking and working.
The tension between competing priorities becomes a catalyst for breakthroughs, not a roadblock.
Counterarguments to Consider
Let’s be honest. Without careful application, working with paradoxes can sound like a recipe for indecision. And that could lead to delayed decision-making.
Learning a new way to think can cause discomfort. How can you reframe the discomfort? Rather than using it to block new insights, how could it be adapted as a thoughtful approach to making better decisions?
The Power of Leading with Paradox
Leading in today’s world isn’t about having easy answers—it’s about learning to navigate those tough, gray areas.
The very fact that you’re thinking about how to balance conflicting demands shows that you’re already a step ahead of the game. That tension you’re feeling? It’s a sign you’re growing.
And here’s what’s even better: you don’t have to choose between empathy and accountability, or between innovation and stability. You can have both.
That’s the beauty of embracing paradox.
It’s not about making compromises; it’s about finding power in the complexity. It’s about leading with clarity, even when things feel uncertain. It’s about driving results, while staying true to your values.
When you embrace paradox, you unlock creativity and resilience—not just in yourself, but in your entire team. You’re becoming the kind of leader who thrives in uncertainty, who turns tension into opportunity, and who inspires others to do the same.
So, lean into it. Embrace the messiness, the contradictions, the push-and-pull of leadership.
Want to dig deeper into human centered leadership? The inclusive human-centered leader and Leadership Fitness are resources I recommend.
Feel like you need some support and guidance to help you navigate the modern challenges of effective leaders? Collaborate with me for executive coaching and leadership development. I have worked with hundreds of high-level, C-suite executives just like you, and have helped them lead with confidence.
¹ Paul Leinwand, Mahadeva Matt Mani and Blair Sheppard, 6 Leadership Paradoxes for the Post-Pandemic Era https://hbr.org/2021/04/6-leadership-paradoxes-for-the-post-pandemic-era
