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Leadership: The Successful Use of Conflicting Principles

Written by: Sam Allman

Article Overview: “The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth.” -Niels Bohr, Nobel-Prize winning scientist

Leadership: The Successful Use of Conflicting Principles

I couldn’t believe the pain I was in. No one told me being a sales manager would be this hard. I figured all I had to do was act like a salesperson - make a connection to my customers, in this case, to my constituents, and influence them into becoming peak performers. All it was is selling.

Had I broken a cardinal rule of leadership: Never become too close to your people? The vice president of sales had told me that my people liked me too much!

There I was, driving to a meeting I dreaded. I was on my way to fire Scott, a guy I had visited in his home. I had stewed over this decision for weeks. It kept me awake at night. But, it was time. Scott was not performing. He knew it and I knew it. He simply had quit taking care of his customers. They were consistently calling me and complaining. Sure, Scott’s performance began to drop, when he discovered his wife was having an affair with a fireman. I certainly understood marital problems; been there, done that.

At first I empathized with Scott, told him to hang in there and do the best he could. I certainly wasn’t going to kick him when he was down. But, six months of poor performance was enough. We had a very serious discussion 30 days earlier. He knew what would happen if he did not improve

The meeting ended worse than I expected. When I told him of my decision, he started to cry. He told me he had already lost his wife, now he would lose his new house. He begged and pleaded for another chance. I had delayed this decision so long that now I had no choice. In order to keep my job, I had to make this decision.

As a leader, I felt that I had failed. As I reviewed the situation in my mind, I wondered, “Did I leave Scott alone too much?” I thought that’s what empowerment was. Should I have micro-managed him more? Should I have neglected my other constituents to save him? Did I just hire the wrong guy? Should I have become a tough, demanding taskmaster, demanding that he respect me, rather than like me?

I was a great salesperson. I think I was an above-average sales manager. If I had understood then what I know now about the paradoxical nature of leadership, I believe I could have been an even better leader for Scott and all my sales staff at the time.


Accept and Finesse the Paradoxical

“There ain’t no answer.
There ain’t going to be any answer.
There never has been an answer.
That’s the answer.”
-Gertrude Stein-

The longer I study leadership, the less certainty I find in it.

One book tells me to be a servant leader. Another says my style should be tough and mean. One leader achieves success by persuading his followers to respect him. By contrast, retired U.S. Army Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf, who led American forces in the 1991 Gulf War, found that success depended on his loving his troops, and their loving him in return.

The struggle I have is that most approaches tend to simplify leadership to five or six easy steps – but being a truly great leader is never that easy.

The weird fact is: all the experts may be right. My research and experience reveal that successful leaders use widely different styles and strategies to produce similar successes. If that be true, how can we leaders know which leadership strategy is the most effective?

First off, consider what Sir Laurence Olivier, one of the 20th Century’s greatest actors, said about acting: "You have to have the humility to prepare, and the self-confidence to carry it off." It’s a crucial life lesson — one that many leaders learn late — it takes a lot of time and thought to know which strategy to use at the right moment.

Opposition and contradiction are a natural part of human experience. We have a word for seemingly contradictory statements that may nonetheless be true. It’s “paradox” - from the Greek word “paradoxon,” meaning “something beyond belief, incredible, or contrary to expectations.”

When we think about it, how can two conflicting statements both be true? It’s incredible.

“All truths are only half truths.”
-Alfred North Whitehead

History offers many examples of two opposite principles being true. Think of the U.S. Constitution with its checks and balances, and even our two-party system, which makes pluralistic democracy possible. Think of art, where Romanticism opposed Classicism, a conflict at the heart of most literary movements. Consider how reason opposes emotion, and law limits freedom.

You may ask, “How does this impact my leading? What does this have to do with being a leader?” The simple answer is: at every turn. Leadership, given the apparently paradoxical nature of the universe itself, cannot ever be a simple, clear set of unequivocal propositions. Paradox is the rule and not the exception.

Your greatest struggles emerge from the conflicts between priorities and principles. Examples include customer satisfaction vs. profitability; thinking long-term (visions and strategies) vs. thinking short-term (“How am I going to pay my employees on Friday?); employee satisfaction vs. employee accountability; and giving time to your business vs. time for family.

When YOU face such paradoxes, do you punt or cope? Successful leaders live in paradoxes. Consider Abraham Lincoln as described by Donald T. Phillips in his book Lincoln on Leadership:

• Charismatic, yet unassuming. (How could you do, or be both at the same time?)
• Consistent, yet flexible. (How is this possible?)
• The victim of pervasive slander and malice, yet immensely popular with the troops. (Loved and hated at the same time?)
• Innovative and willing to take risks, yet patient and calculating.
• He fired many generals, yet first gave them ample time and support to produce results.
• He claimed not to have controlled events (his policy was “to have no policy”), yet he did control events to a large degree by taking charge, being aggressive and extraordinarily decisive. (Which is true or are they both true?)

Of course, opposition wasn’t any easier for President Lincoln to manage than for us.

Smart leaders recognize the paradoxes. They’ve studied leadership and know the opposing principles. They accept the need to struggle with them. An ancient Jewish prophet remarked, “There must needs be opposition in all things.”


The Power of Paradox Arises from the Power of Conflict

Opposites not only coexist, but can even enhance one another. Take pleasure and pain, for example. Scratching an itch is both. Not pleasure, then pain, or pain then pleasure, but both at once. Just as the day follows night, our capacity for joy is born in sorrow. Of all the polarities, none is more daunting than life and death. The shadow of death gives life its potential for meaning.

The friction between individuals often generates tension and discomfort, disrupts interactions and even destroys relationships. Between couples, it can lead to divorce. Between countries, it can lead to war. Between a corporation’s departments, it can distort communication and degrade cohesiveness.

However, when well managed, such conflict or abrasiveness can generate creative tension and original thinking. Disagreements can magically produce ideas that can lead to better results. It’s the power of conflict and diversity.

In my home, I struggle with the diversity my wife brings to our relationship. With a strong ego, and being male, I hate being told what to do and how to do it. When my wife makes suggestions, if I am open to her feedback and advice, many times we arrive at a better solution than just relying on my input. She makes me better. She brings that creative tension to my paradigm and I bring it to hers. Our diversity brings the creative tension, but the power of synergy springs out of our unity.

Creative tension calls for the development of leadership styles that focus on first identifying, and then incorporating polarized viewpoints and priorities. By doing so, you sharply increase mutual understandings and the probabilities for unexpected juxtapositions – the spark for ingenuity. Effective strategic thinking is seldom born of a quiet birth. The absence of visible tension and dissension in an organization often signals decay. In the best companies, the debate is raucous. Thus, ironically, by means of a process evolving from disagreement, conflict or abrasiveness, you build a corporate culture of heightened sensitivity and harmony.

“It is possible to fashion various mechanisms for coping with conflict.
Better yet would be for the organization to fashion a culture
that appreciates the creative power of conflict and seeks to harness it.”
-Michael Hammer


It helped me to approach this challenge when I compared paradoxes to adjusting the water temperature of my morning shower. In the shower, we adjust the knob until the temperature feels right. We are “finessing” the hot and cold water into the best blend. If, while you shower, someone changes the dynamic by flushing, what must you do? You re-adjust, to accommodate the change. Even so, in leadership: blend and apply, finesse the conflicts until you achieve a better result.

Your challenge is not hopeless. Difficult! But not hopeless. I invite you to view the “Power of Paradox” or the “Magic of Conflict” as an opportunity for synergy, an opportunity to produce ever-greater results. In this chapter, I evaluate four of the most perplexing contraries that add power to your leadership.

Paradox I: Vision (Thinking Long-Term) and
Taking Control of Today (Thinking Short-Term)

“Where there is no vision, the leaders perish.”
-Proverbs, The Leaders Bible

Becoming a Visionary Leader

I believe a lack of clear vision (of the long-term) underlies nearly all business failures.

By contrast, entrepreneurs know exactly what they want today – freedom and independence with a respectable paycheck. They see tomorrow only vaguely.

“Every day at IBM was devoted to business development.
We didn’t do business at IBM, we built one.”
-Thomas Watson Jr.

Leaders without vision live in the moment. As my friend, Dan Newbold says, “What frustrates us most in our life is to give up what we want most for what we want now.” Are you into instant gratification … you want it, and you want it now? Or, are you willing to pay short-term pain for a longer-term gain?

Company owners who have no clear picture of their future can’t today’s actions to promote the company’s future. They don’t know in which direction to bend! How much better to visualize the future and then think and act today in ways that move the company inexorably toward your vision of a great tomorrow!

A landmark study reported by Harvard University determined that the most important quality of successful people was the ability to think “long-term.” Successful people think in long segments of time. Unsuccessful people think in short segments of time.

What is the time perspective of a drunk? His next drink. What’s the time perspective of a homeless person? “When will I eat, and where will I sleep tonight.” What about the average blue-collar worker? His next paycheck, or “Thank goodness, it’s Friday.”

The time perspective of the average American? “I want it, and I want it now.” Maybe that’s why 70% of us spend more than we make.

What is your time perspective?

Social scientists who have studied children find the same principle holds true. According to Benjamin D. Singer in Learning for Tomorrow, nearly all kids who have no vision of their future live at risk. Their short-term perspective makes them feel that fate will direct their future. Feeling powerless, they do little to rise above their state. His research revealed that IQ and socio-economic status do not determine success. Rather, envisioning a hopeful future does.

You may remember the example of Mr. P.S. Lang’s promise to sixth-graders in a Bronx low-income, largely black-students school. He promised to pay for the students’ college education if they’d graduate from high school. Until then, only 25% of the sixth-grade students in that school had been graduating from high school. Almost no one attended college. However, he gave these students a vision of their future and hope. As a result, 92% of the students (48 of 52) graduated from high school. Of those, 40% went to college.

The power of vision helps us to develop discipline… doing what we ought to do, when we ought to do it, whether we feel like it or not.

What is a vision, but the clearest possible picture of a future desired result -- what you want the results of your leadership or life to look like when you’re done.

You have to know where you’re going. You have to be able to state it clearly and concisely. In addition, you have to care about it passionately.
That all adds up to vision:
the concise statement or picture of where the company and its people are heading
and why they should be proud of it.”
-Peters and Austin, A Passion for Excellence

For entrepreneurs, thinking long-term is driven by the question: “How much will my business be worth when I’m ready to retire or sell it?”

Bottom-line, if you spend your days preparing to sell your business, even if that date is years away, you are a visionary.

In my seminars, I ask entrepreneurs, “Do you own a business … or just a job?”

How can you tell? Would someone be willing to pay you its value as a “going concern,” or just pay the liquidation value of the hard assets? If someone would pay its “going-concern” value, you own a business. If not, you own just a job.

“In the coming decade, vision will be the critical executive skill.
It's not mystical. It doesn't take a ‘special person.’
Vision is a statement of what you want your organization to be.
It conveys a picture of where you want to go and how you want to get there.
It is a simple-to-understand, inspirational, focusing statement.
Then, it's lots of actions.
The ‘vision thing’ is much more ‘down-and-dirty doing’ than fancy plans and words.
Then, isn't that what management has always been about?”
-James A. Belasco
Peter Drucker said, “The best way to predict the future is to create it.” So, what’s your vision? Can you articulate it, so every employee can plainly see it? If you can’t, beware. Remember the scriptures say, “Where there is no vision, the leaders perish.”



Living Today as If It Were Your Last

Yes, vision is critical, but doesn’t it make equal sense that you ought to live today as if it were your last? You only go around once in this life, so grab the gusto while you can! We may dream of a great future: “Someday, I’ll be happy … when I get the right employees, double my profits or expand my business.” But those remain dreams unless we act on them TODAY. Today is the only moment of time we have within our control.

“The past is behind – learn from it.
The future is ahead – prepare for it.
The present is now – live in it.”
Thomas S. Monson, Church Leader

Life is about enjoying the moment, learning to live for today, for there will never be another quite like it. Those who live by vision alone would do well to stop spending so much time chasing life’s big pleasures, while neglecting the little ones. We should never put off the things that are important to a later time. Simply put: never put off happiness for the sake of achievement.

In leadership, it’s about taking control of the only moment of time that you currently have. Being a successful leader is not determined by fate nor good fortune, but by a succession of successful days. When you put together a succession of five successful days, you have a successful week. Fifty-plus successful weeks get you a successful year. Without any progress today, a vision remains but an empty dream.

“The ability to convert visions to things is the secret of success.”
Henry Ward Beecher

If the No. 1 cause of business failure is lack of vision, then the No. 2 cause is the lack of focus on the right things. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe aptly said, “The things that matter most must never be at the mercy of the things that matter least.”

In my consulting practice, I find many entrepreneurs lose focus on the important things by letting the day-to-day business operations run them. When we lose sight of what's important, our aim is to stay busy, and we accomplish nothing.

How would your spouse and employees answer this question: Do you run your business … or does it run you?

If it runs you, you’re in crisis management, fire-suppression. You can’t progress much.

“One of the measures of a manager is the ability to distinguish the important from the urgent, and then to refuse to be tyrannized by the urgent, to refuse to manage by crises."
-R. Alec McKenzie

How many times have you spent your today in being busy, but at the end, you hadn’t accomplished much that you’d call important? You’d just put in your time.

The good news is that you have as much time as the richest person in the world – 1440 golden minutes a day. You can spin whatever you desire out of TODAY.

“Out of it you have to spin wealth, pleasure, money, content, respect, and the evolution of your immortal soul. Its right use, its most effective use, is a matter of the highest urgency... all depends on that.”
-Arnold Bennett

I’m not suggesting that you work harder, or longer, or simply more efficiently. There is nothing so wasteful as doing with great efficiency that which doesn’t have to be done at all. I am suggesting that you focus on results. That means focusing on doing the right job before focusing on doing the job right. As Stephen R. Covey says, “First things first, second things hardly at all.” The main thing is to keep the “main thing” the main thing.

If you understand the Pareto principle, also called the 80/20 rule, you will find key areas in your business where you need apply only minimal efforts to produce dramatic results.

The Pareto principle asserts that a minority of effort usually leads to a majority of the results. Applied to business, this principle has one theme: to produce the most results with the least expenditure of time, effort and assets.

Rarely does luck produce significant results. Leaders produce results because they plan to do the things that cause results. Luck comes when preparation meets opportunity. Fortune favors facility first.

So what do you do? Ten minutes of planning will save hours in execution. Every evening before retiring or every morning before you begin your day, you remind yourself, “What is my vision? Where do I want to go?” Then, you say to yourself, “What can I do today that will produce the results I want?”

If I were managing a store again, I’d focus on increasing the productivity of my salespeople - their closing rate, average ticket and their credit sales. I’d train them better. I would make them feel cared about, while at the same time I would impose quotas and hold them accountable for results. I would spend more time in business development, working on my systems, eliminating steps and mistakes, so that their execution would run smoother.

I would learn something every week. Johnny Wooden said, “It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.” Fifteen years ago, I went to my first time-management class. It changed my life and it can change yours.

Again, leaders will wander in all their doing – unless they have a clear and vivid vision. A leader without vision, or one who can’t take control of it, will become a crisis manager. His day and his entire life will be controlled by the moment. He will always be in the reactive mode - the mode of 95% of business leaders. The paradox is that vision is not enough.

Of course, your plan should include time to meet emergencies. “Stuff happens” or “Compost occurs.” Great leaders know that occasionally they will have to call an “audible.” They can’t control the wind, but they can adjust the sail.

Still and all, their day is governed by vision. That’s why visionaries, who control their days, change the world.







Paradox II: Finessing Leadership and Management

All leaders must resolve a particularly tough paradox: the conflict between leadership and management. How do you separate the two? Steven R. Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, advises, “You lead people, and manage things.”

John P. Kotter, a retired professor of organizational behavior at Harvard Business School, defines the two a bit differently. He says management is about coping with complexity, while leadership is about coping with change. In his book, What Leaders Really Do, Kotter elaborates:

LEADERS Cope with Change by … MANAGERS Cope with Complexity by …
Setting direction – developing a vision of the future, and strategies aligned with the vision, to produce the change. Planning and budgeting – setting goals, determining detailed steps to achieve the goals, allocating resources to reach them.
Aligning people – communicating the new directions to those who can create coalitions that understand the vision and will commit to achieve it. Organizing and staffing – creating an organization structure and a set of jobs for accomplishing the plan, staffing the jobs with qualified individuals, communicating the plan, delegating responsibility, and devising systems to monitor progress.
Motivating and inspiring – keeping people moving in the right direction despite any obstacles, by appealing to untapped human needs, values, and emotions. Controlling and problem-solving – monitoring results (versus plan) by means of reports and meetings,

Both Covey and Kotter believe that leadership relates more to vision and people, while management relates more to detailed planning and implementing. Even so, both of them require the skills to deal with tasks and people.

Do you want to be both a leader and manager in your company? Would you prefer to be one or the other, and hire someone to take your less favored role?

Many executives are called “sales manager” or “store manager,” but the term “management” has sometimes been denigrated. High-technology conglomerate United Technologies has written: “People don’t want to be managed. They want to be led. Whoever heard of a ‘world manager?’ A ‘World Leader,’ yes. We know of Educational Leaders, Political Leaders, Religious Leaders, Scout Leaders, Community Leaders, Labor Leaders, and Business Leaders. They lead. They don’t manage. The leader’s carrot always wins over the manager’s stick. Just ask your horse. You can lead a horse to water, but you can’t manage him to drink.

“If you want to manage somebody, manage yourself. Do that well and you’ll be ready to stop managing, and start leading.”

The paradox: management is a critical part of leadership. I think management gets a bad rap. After all, without management, leadership lacks structure. Management makes a company efficient and profitable. Managers make quotas, meet deadlines, give and take orders, evaluate others and get the most out of themselves. A manager maintains the stability, control and the status quo.

Leadership is about change and improvement. A leader inspires constituents to dig deep and to give more. Management buys their arms and hands. Leadership captivates the constituents’ heads and hearts. A leader sets standards, exceeds goals, initiates actions, and draws the most out of others.

While the leader empowers, the manager controls. Leadership changes the world, and management maintains it. The fundamental purpose of management is to keep the current system functioning. The fundamental purpose of leadership is to produce useful change — especially non-incremental change. You need both leadership and management.

As John Kotter has observed, it’s possible to have too much or too little of either. If you have neither leadership nor management, you’ll find a rudderless organization, no direction and no expectations. Strong management with no leadership tends to entrench an organization in deadly bureaucracy. Strong leadership with no management risks chaos, and imperiling of the organization.


















Thus, I’m not saying that leadership is good or that management is bad. Rather, they are different because they serve separate purposes.

The best leaders have the ability to finesse the struggle between leadership and management. The friction between the two concepts helps the leader bring about optimal results through synergy.

How should a leader finesse the crucial balance between management and leadership? Each constituent and situation requires its own blend. It’s important to use the kind and degree of management or leadership that the employee, in whatever situation, requires. Management guru Ken Blanchard calls that strategy “situational leadership.”

Suppose you’re a parent with a young child. Is it better to tilt more toward management or toward leadership? Answer: consider what the situation requires. A young child needs to be watched over so that he doesn’t run into the street, wander off or eat something dangerous. A child needs direction with careful tutelage. In many ways, a new employee in an organization needs similar guidance.

Yet how many of our sales managers leave new salespeople to themselves ... with little more guidance than, “If you get confused, just remember the fuzzy side goes up.”(That’s what the owner of a carpet store would say.) Perhaps that’s why “unrealistic expectations” represent the No. 1 cause of employees’ failure in the workplace.

When guiding small children and new employees, begin your training with greater oversight and narrower restrictions. Teach values (corporate or family), culture and establish standards. Yet, closely supervise, to assure understanding of the rules and compliance.

Later, as teenagers become adults and new employees learn the system, they need less direction and supervision. You can shift the dynamic between management and leadership. You can verify their learning and compliance. From the management realm, the only remnants are the controls of the family’s or company’s systems, values, mission and standards of performance.


Paradox III: Accountability and Connection, or Getting Constituents to Like You and Respect You

A leader has been defined as “someone with followers.” Therefore, a “supposed leader” without followers is no leader. In his book, Gung Ho, management guru Ken Blanchard says, “A leader is a person you would follow to a place you would not go by yourself.”

Both definitions imply that the willingness to follow (followership) is a choice. A leader’s power cannot be demanded, it can only be granted. With wages, you can buy an employee’s hand, but you can’t buy his heart. Whether the economy is good or bad, we are dealing with a largely voluntary workforce. Volunteers won’t work for bad bosses or follow bad leaders.

As a leader, you are responsible for the productivity of your team. Fact: Employee satisfaction causes productivity and customer satisfaction...and customer satisfaction causes profit growth. In the 1990’s, Sears analyzed complex math-data to determine if, and how, employee loyalty pushed the bottom line - up or down. Its conclusion: “For every 5% increase in employee satisfaction, there is a resultant 2% increase in customer satisfaction, returning up to 1.8% in net profit.” (Harvard Business Review)

What lies at the heart of employee satisfaction? According to the Gallup Organization, employees follow leaders they like and to whom they feel connected. It comes down to how they are treated and whether they feel connected to the leader.

Related to these findings, nearly all peak performers had a best friend at work. Consequently, effective managers seek ways to become trustworthy friends with their employees. Not necessarily a social relationship, though it could be, but at least an open, trusting relationship where bad news can be shared as safely as good news.

“There are two classes of [leaders] – [leaders] by education and practice, these we respect;
and [leaders] by nature, these we love.”
-Ralph Waldo Emerson

You will gain your followers’ loyalty only if they both like you and respect you. Remember, loyalty cannot be demanded, only granted.

Naturally, if a leader comes too close to his constituents, he will find it difficult to hold his constituents accountable for results. He may retreat from good business decisions that would hurt people’s lives. When such leaders fail to demand accountability, their constituents lose respect for them. Unfortunately, some managers leap to the other end of the spectrum: they choose to keep a distance from their constituents. They seek respect at the expense of being liked.

However you balance the two, remember that lack of accountability invites mediocrity and complacency. If employees are not held accountable for their performance, they may lose respect for the boss. In my seminars, we learn that many leaders fail because they don’t:

• Hold constituents accountable for results.
• Fire unproductive employees.
• Demand that their constituents take their vision seriously.
• Correct unacceptable behavior.

CAUTION: Do not confuse respect with fear. Don’t try to push employees past respect for you and into the realm of fear of you. W. Edwards Deming has shown that fear actually sabotages peak performance and productivity.

What are the consequences of not being both liked and respected?

If followers don’t like you and don’t respect you, they will be openly critical and will seek to sabotage you.

If they like you, but don’t respect you, they will follow you for a while, but only at a distance. Why at a distance? Would you follow an incompetent leader into battle? Maybe, but you wouldn’t follow too closely.

If they respect you, but don’t like you, they will undermine your projects and even your career.

Why didn’t Saddam Hussein lead his troops? Would you lead troops, if you knew that the soldiers you were leading had guns and didn’t like you?

However, if they both like and respect you, they will serve you as loyal employees. They will feel your concern for their welfare and your confidence in their ability to produce great results. Your support will empower them to reach new heights.












Finessing these two contraries – being liked and being respected -- is one of the most difficult paradoxes to manage in leadership. Niccolo Machiavelli said it well in the 15th Century: “There is no other way of guarding oneself against flattery than by letting men understand that they will not offend you by speaking the truth; but when everyone can tell you the truth, you lose their respect.”

Paradox IV: Prepare Carefully, Then Finesse at the End

You read, you think. You plan and envision. Then you act in a single moment with decisiveness. Though it’s always too tough to finesse paradoxes effectively, we know it can be done.

Accept, don’t fight, the existence of contradictory principles, strategies and priorities. F. Scott Fitzgerald said, “The sign of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposing views in the mind at the same time and still have the ability to function.” Use your intelligence to address both views. When you do, it’s beautiful — the friction or conflict between the opposing principles usually enhances leadership and performance. Paradoxes and polarities are not enemies, but rather beneficial forces. Paradoxes invite us to find better solutions. The better approach is to accept paradox, try to understand it and make it part of our reasoning.

“Every coin, I now realize, has at least two sides,
but there are pathways through the paradoxes if we can understand
what is happening and are prepared to act differently.
-Charles Handy, The Age of Paradox

In the past, high tolerance for uncertainty was found only in geniuses like Leonardo da Vinci. Now, as change accelerates, all leaders need the ability to thrive in ambiguity. Poise in the face of paradox is key not only to effectiveness, but also to sanity in a rapidly changing world.

Welcome the conflict or friction between ideas as a source of better ideas. Let the friction between opposites enlighten your group to produce better decisions, styles and strategies. Be willing to study polarized viewpoints and priorities. By doing so, you’ll sharply increase the probability that you’ll generate unexpected synergy. That’s the power of diversity.

The wonderful irony is that out of any process keyed on welcoming disagreement, conflict, and differing viewpoints, you develop a corporate culture of heightened sensitivity, harmony and synergy. I know that friction between individuals and groups can cause discomfort. However, creative collaboration between people sponsoring different ideas can produce better ones. Instead of seeing it as conflict, see it as a means to creativity and improved results. Applying both of the opposing strategies can lead to better results.

You don’t want abrasion when you run your car’s engine or try to move a group of people forward, but you do want it when designing a car and searching for better ideas before the group moves forward. “In great teams, conflict becomes productive,” writes Peter Senge, author of The Fifth Discipline. “The free flow of conflicting ideas and feelings is critical for creative thinking, and for discovering new solutions that no one individual would have come to on his own.” Truth may be found in the tension between the polarities.

Don’t accept experts’ simple formulas without considering the potential contradiction. In business literature, we find many successful management formulas. For every formula, however, there’s an opposite and equally successful formula. Don’t accept any expert’s formula until you study and understand it. Consider using or finessing both contraries at the same time.

“To remain whole, be twisted.
To become straight, let yourself be bent.
To become full, be hollow.”
-Tao Te Ching

Accept the fact that no one style, strategy or answer works in every situation. The message of polarities is that there’s no single, always-right action. What worked last time may not work this time. You may have been caught in the common trap of the tyranny of the OR. Avoid the logic that tells you to do either A or B. Instead, embrace the genius of the AND — the paradoxical view that allows you to pursue both A and B at the same time. As a parent, I learned along time ago that what works with one child may not work with another. Even though each child was raised in the same home, each responds to different strategies and tactics. As children are different, so are constituents.

Look for value within each of the opposites. Instead of fighting and trying to destroy paradox, we should celebrate it. When confronted by a problem, leaders would be wise to carefully consider all sides of the issues involved, no matter how paradoxical or absurd. Look for the value inside each.

Finesse them together, and adjust as needed. Remember you always have at least two choices: do this or do that. Cope … and endure the confusion. Be poised. We rarely succeed by mixing equal amounts of each principle. Remember the shower? We have to continually adjust, based on how hot the “hot” is, how cold the “cold” is, and if anyone has flushed. Be ready to call an “audible” and finesse the shower knob.

“The way of paradoxes is the way of truth.”
-Oscar Wilde
Playwright, toast of London, convict

Leading is difficult.

“Life always gets harder toward the summit – the cold increases, responsibility increases.”
-Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

Extracting maximum power out of two opposites is the challenge of leadership, mastered by few. By sharpening your recognition, finessing and struggling with paradox, you will enhance your leadership and enjoy showing others how to succeed.

Related Articles
  Clarifying Our Core Values
  “Essential Habits and Principles for Great Leadership”
  Looking Back to Look Ahead
  Eliminate Conflicting Intentions
  More Change Demands More Leadership

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Re: Business Women Peer Mentoring Spotlight - Hi Everyone, Gosh, I REALLY appreciate your concrete feedback. This was far more than I expected and I'm glad you said what you thought straight out. Each of you have shared something of value and I want to take some more time to think and really go over what each of you have said. However, I can see there are some things I need to change right away. What an interesting point about a NEW program perhaps making people think they are guinea pigs! This is NOT what I want to convey! It's funny how we can see some things so clearly in others while not always seeing it for ourselves! I must admit there are a few things I've been meaning to change (like my bio which is very outdated). Obviously, these things need to be higher on my priority list. You caught me like the plumber who puts his clients first and doesn't get around to fixing his own tap! As far as my target market, I do feel quite strongly about working with Women Leaders and doing Leadership Coaching with them. It's non-negotiable in my books. In my Executive Coaching training, the terms "Leaders" and "Executives" are interchangable. To me, an Executive is a Leader and so is the Business Woman or Entrepreneur who is CEO of her own business. I love working with decision makers! What I did learn is that I need to avoid opening up the Leadership term beyond what I described above. I'm also wondering if there is a misunderstanding with the general public as to what Leadership Coaching really is. Leadership Coaching is all about developing your leadership skills, both as a people manager and in more effectively running and growing the business. There is ALWAYS room for growth in some way. As well, sometimes, we just need a sounding board to clarify what our next BEST step is. In fact, if a woman thinks she has nothing to work on, then we aren't a good Client/Coach fit anyway. How can she grow if she doesn't see the value of expressing ALL of the great ability within her? How can her company grow if she doesn't see the value of strategic planning for the next best level? Thanks again to you all! I will go back to my website and really question whether I am conveying the right message. I got more than I bargained for in this Spotlight... you generously offered way more than I was asking. I think we could be on to something great for the Forum. Now it's time to let someone else have the spotlight. It would be great if everyone took a turn! In gratitude, Tami
Re: What's 1 word to describe what your business will be in 2012 - Successful.
The 7 Greatest Truths about Successful Women - Picked up a few books on my weekly trip to the library, thought I'd share their tables of contents. The 7 Greatest Truths about Successful Women: How You Can Achieve Financial Independence, Professional Freedom, and Personal Joy, by Marion Luna Brem. From the inside cover: In 1984, battling both cervical and breast cancer, and facing $500,000 in medical bills and a disintegrating marriage, Marion Luna Brem was desperate to find a way to support herself and her two young sons. With more than a few strikes against her, she started knocking on doors, looking for a job. Seventeen doors later, the blunt speaking manager of a car dealership in central TExas declared, "I've been thinking of hiring a broad." And with that invitation, Marion took her own first step on the road to financial independence, yada yada yada Today, this "broad" owns two automobile dealerships, an advertising agency, and a stake in a local bank. She sits on the boards of several businesses, etc. etc. 1. Who Wants to be her own boss? 2. Ladies, Start your engines 3. Resiliency 4. Nurturing 5. Intuition 6. Creativity 7. Passion 8. Self-Value 9. Sensitivity 10. Leadership 11. Balance
Re: 3 Ways I Used Twitter To Grow My Business This Week - Hi Olivia, It seems you are working in the area of leadership area. Is Leadership = Learning? I am looking for some good books on strategy? Which one do you recommend? Thanks, Robert
Books for Women Entrepreneurs - There's a thread for good books in the Resources folder, but it doesn't target books for businesswomen particularly, so I figured I'd start such a thread here. It doesn't matter how successful you are in your business - it's always possible to learn something new. In subsequent posts I give Table of Contents and brief descriptions for various titles - most of them devoted to the businesswoman - and sometimes a review. If anyone else has read a review, or has read the book and found it useful, please comment! 1. The Old Girl's Network 2. Mother's Work 3. The 7 Greatest Truths About Successful Women 4. Pitch Like A Girl 5. Workplace Warrior 6. Treasure Hunt: Inside the Mind of the Modern Consumer 7. Contingency Planning & Disaster Recovery 8. She Wins, You Win 9. Napoleon On Project Management 10. Why Good Girls Dont' Get Ahead, But Gutsy Girls Do 11. Comeback Moms: How to Leave Work, Raise Children, and Restart your Career even If you Haven't Had a Job in Years 12. The One Minute Millionaire 13. Talking From 9 to 5 14. Soloing: Realizing Your Life's Ambitions 15. 101 Best Home Based Businesses for Women: Everything You Need to Know About Getting Started on the Road To Success 16. Work With Passion: How to Do What You Love for a Living. Revised and Expanded 17. Fail-Proof Your Business: Beat the Odds and be Successful 18. Confidence: How Winning Streaks and Losing Streaks Begin and End 19. Women Don't Ask: Negotiation and the Gender Divide 20. Millionaire Women Next Door: The Many Journeys of Successful American Businesswomen 21. Start Small, Finish Big: Fifteen Key Lessons to Start - and Run - Your Own Successful Business 22. Rewired, Rehired or Retired: A Global Guide for the Experienced Worker 23. The Martha Rules: 10 essentials for achieving success as you start, build or manage a business 24. The Essentials of Entrepreneurship: What it takes to create Successful Enterprises 25. Net Ready: Strategies for Success in the E-conomy 26. The Promotable Woman 27. Leave The Office Earlier: The Productivity Pro shows you how to do more in less time and feel great about it 28. The Work At Home Balancing Act: The professional resource guide for managing yourself, your work, and your family at home 29. Secrets of Six-Figure Women


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