The ability to lead effectively in the presence of enduring tensions by holding interdependent opposites over time, rather than attempting to resolve them through either/or choices.
Leaders skilled in polarity leadership recognise that complex adaptive systems are shaped by tensions that cannot be solved or eliminated. These tensions exist because both sides are necessary. Stability and change, centralisation and decentralisation, innovation and risk, margin and mission. The task of leadership is not to choose between them, but to work with both.
Polarity leadership begins with a shift in mindset. Leaders distinguish between problems that can be solved and polarities that must be managed. When a polarity is treated as a problem, leaders are drawn into cycles of reversal and overcorrection. When it is recognised as an enduring tension, leadership shifts from decision-making to sense-making, from control to continuous adjustment.
At its core, polarity leadership is about holding tension without collapsing it. Leaders help the system stay within a healthy range by making ongoing, context-sensitive shifts rather than seeking permanent balance. Balance is not a destination. It is an active, ongoing practice.
“Great truths are truths whose opposites are also great truths.” Niels Bohr
Why polarity leadership matters
Polarity leadership matters because many of the pressures organisations face are not problems that can be solved once and for all. They are enduring tensions that must be managed over time. When leaders treat these tensions as problems to fix, organisations fall into cycles of overcorrection, reversal, and fatigue. Energy is expended, but the underlying issue remains.
In complex adaptive systems, resilience comes from sustaining tension rather than eliminating it. Systems that lean too far towards stability become rigid and slow. Systems that lean too far towards change become chaotic and unreliable. Without polarity leadership, organisations are repeatedly pulled towards extremes that undermine their own performance.
Polarity leadership also matters because much organisational conflict is rooted in unacknowledged interdependence. Different groups defend opposing poles, each protecting something essential. When leadership frames this as a choice between sides, conflict escalates and collaboration breaks down. When the tension is recognised and held, disagreement becomes a source of insight rather than division.
Without polarity leadership, organisations often substitute structural change for real progress. Priorities are reset, structures reorganised, and narratives refreshed, while the same tensions resurface in new forms. Over time, this creates cynicism and disengagement. Polarity leadership interrupts this pattern by shifting attention from choosing the “right” answer to managing the conditions that allow both sides to contribute.
Ultimately, long-term viability depends on holding multiple, competing demands at once. Efficiency and innovation. Purpose and margin. Control and autonomy. Polarity leadership enables organisations to adapt without oscillating between extremes, to change without losing coherence, and to build resilience through balance that is actively maintained rather than finally achieved.
“Life is not either–or, it is both–and.” Parker J. Palmer
What good and bad looks like for polarity leadership
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Weak polarity leadership (Either/Or impact) |
Strong polarity leadership (Both/And impact) |
|---|---|
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False closure: Declares one side “the decision” and expects the tension to disappear. |
Explicit stewardship: Names the tension as ongoing and takes responsibility for managing it over time. |
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Strategic whiplash: Repeatedly resets priorities in response to pressure, creating loss of direction and trust. |
Strategic continuity: Maintains a stable direction while adjusting emphasis as conditions change. |
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Legitimising one pole: Signals that one value, function, or worldview is superior. |
Legitimising interdependence: Publicly reinforces that both poles are necessary for system health. |
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Institutional fatigue: Frequent reversals exhaust attention, commitment, and belief in change efforts. |
Sustainable pace: Allows the system to adapt without burning out people or credibility. |
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Binary framing: Forces choices between two good outcomes, turning trade-offs into battles. |
Tension framing: Holds competing demands as productive constraints rather than choices. |
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Over-standardisation: Imposes uniform solutions to manage complexity and anxiety. |
Contextual differentiation: Allows different parts of the system to lean differently while staying aligned. |
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Delayed damage recognition: Notices problems only after the downside of a pole becomes visible at scale. |
Early warning awareness: Actively watches for signals that one pole is being overemphasised. |
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Factional leadership: Encourages silos to defend opposing priorities. |
Integrated leadership: Aligns leaders around shared responsibility for the whole tension. |
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Short-term optimisation: Maximises one outcome at the expense of long-term viability. |
Long-term viability: Uses tension deliberately to sustain performance over time. |
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Credibility erosion: Leadership messages lose meaning as priorities repeatedly reverse. |
Narrative coherence: Explains shifts as intentional rebalancing, not correction or retreat. |
“Paradox is not a problem to be solved but a tension to be managed.” – Mary Jo Hatch
Barriers to polarity leadership
Binary problem-solving reflex: Leaders are trained to resolve issues decisively. When this reflex is applied to enduring tensions, it creates false closure. The immediate consequence is clarity. The longer-term consequence is repeated reversal as the neglected pole reasserts itself.
Anxiety-driven decisiveness: Ambiguity increases pressure on leaders to act. Choosing one side reduces anxiety quickly, but at the cost of narrowing the system’s options. Over time, this trains the organisation to value certainty over viability.
Structural polarisation: Organisational structures often align roles, incentives, and identities with opposing poles. When leadership does not explicitly hold the whole tension, these structures turn differences into entrenched positions and make collaboration across the polarity increasingly difficult.
Identity attachment to a single pole: Leaders often build credibility by championing one value, efficiency, growth, innovation, control. When conditions change, letting go of that pole can feel like losing legitimacy. The result is over-commitment to what once worked, even as its downsides grow.
Time pressure favouring resolution over stewardship: Managing a polarity requires ongoing attention. Under pressure, leaders default to one-off decisions that promise closure. The system gains speed but loses coherence, and the same tension resurfaces later with greater force.
Language that forces false choice: Leadership discourse often frames questions as either/or. This shapes how people think and act. Over time, it makes holding tension feel incoherent or weak, and it narrows the organisation’s capacity to respond intelligently to complexity.
Momentum of the dominant pole: When a system is heavily biased towards one pole, growth, cost control, innovation, risk aversion, advocating for the counterbalance feels unsafe. Leaders may stay silent rather than disrupt momentum, allowing imbalance to deepen until correction becomes painful.
Misdiagnosis at scale: Treating a polarity as a solvable problem leads to repeated strategic “fixes”. Each fix temporarily relieves pressure but fails to address the underlying tension. Over time, this produces change fatigue and declining trust in leadership intent.
Lack of shared visibility: Without a clear way to make tensions visible, discussions loop endlessly. People argue positions rather than examine the whole system. Leaders experience debate without progress, and decisions feel political rather than principled.
Fear of appearing inconsistent or hypocritical: Leaders often worry that supporting opposing values will undermine credibility. As a result, they oversimplify messages and suppress nuance. The unintended consequence is confusion when reality inevitably demands a shift in emphasis.
“The biggest trap in strategy is false trade-offs.” – Michael Porter
Enablers of polarity leadership
Explicit ownership of enduring tensions: Leaders publicly acknowledge that certain tensions will not be resolved and make it clear that they are accountable for holding these tensions over time. This legitimises ongoing adjustment and removes pressure for false closure.
Narrative coherence across shifts in emphasis: Leaders explain changes in focus as deliberate rebalancing rather than correction or reversal. This maintains credibility and trust as priorities evolve without undermining confidence in direction.
Strategic time-horizon discipline: Leaders consistently operate across short-, medium-, and long-term horizons, preventing immediate pressures from crowding out longer-term system health. This protects viability when one pole delivers faster or more visible results.
Visible legitimisation of the neglected pole: When one side of a tension dominates, leaders actively elevate the value, logic, and contribution of the other. This keeps essential perspectives in play before imbalance becomes damaging.
Shared accountability for the whole polarity: Leaders design goals, measures, and forums that require joint responsibility for managing the entire tension, rather than allowing different groups to optimise opposing poles in isolation.
Deliberate design for early signals: Leaders shape reporting, dialogue, and escalation pathways so that early indicators of imbalance are visible at their level. Weak signals are surfaced before they harden into system failures.
Contextual differentiation with overall coherence: Leaders allow different parts of the system to lean differently according to context, while maintaining a clear shared direction. This increases adaptability without fragmentation.
Comfort with visible contradiction: Leaders communicate opposing priorities openly and without defensiveness, modelling the capacity to hold paradox rather than oversimplify it. This signals maturity and steadiness under complexity.
Permission to delay closure under pressure: Leaders explicitly create space to resist anxiety-driven decisions. By legitimising pauses for sensemaking, they prevent the system from collapsing into either/or choices when tension rises.
Purpose as an integrating anchor: Leaders consistently connect opposing poles to a shared purpose that depends on both. Purpose provides the stability that allows tension to be sustained without loss of coherence.
“Leaders who cannot tolerate paradox will always oversimplify reality.” – Edgar H. Schein
Self-reflection questions for polarity leadership
Which tensions in your organisation keep resurfacing despite repeated decisions or restructures, and how are you currently holding them?
When pressure increases, how do your leadership patterns tend to simplify complexity, and what gets lost when that happens?
Where have you signalled, intentionally or not, that one side of a tension is more legitimate or valued than the other?
How do you explain shifts in emphasis over time, as corrections, or as deliberate rebalancing, and what story does that create for others?
What early signals of imbalance are most likely to be filtered out before they reach you, and how have you shaped the system to surface them?
In which areas do different parts of the organisation need to lean differently, and where might you be enforcing unnecessary uniformity?
How comfortable are you being seen to hold contradictory priorities at the same time, and what do you do when others push you to choose?
When tensions become politically charged, how do you typically respond, by taking a side, staying neutral, or reframing the tension itself?
Where might a stronger connection to shared purpose help integrate opposing demands that currently feel irreconcilable?
If someone observed your leadership over time, would they say you are resolving tensions, or stewarding them?
“Paradoxical tensions are inherent in organizing and cannot be resolved permanently.” – Wendy K. Smith and Marianne W. Lewis
Micro-practices for polarity leadership
1. Institutionalise one polarity at the strategy level
Select one enduring tension central to your strategy (for example, global consistency vs local responsiveness). Make it explicit in strategy documents, reviews, and leadership language that this is a polarity to be managed, not a decision to be finalised.
The depth comes from permanence. When the polarity is named at the strategic level, future leaders inherit stewardship rather than reopening the same false choice.
2. Design polarity-aware success measures
For one major priority, introduce measures that reflect both poles. Ensure that progress on one side is never evaluated without visibility of its impact on the other.
This shifts polarity leadership from personal judgement to system feedback, reducing the likelihood that one pole dominates simply because it is easier to measure.
3. Create shared ownership that crosses the polarity
Deliberately place responsibility for a key polarity with leaders who would normally defend opposite poles. Make them jointly accountable for outcomes across the whole tension.
This practice reshapes power dynamics. It converts rivalry into interdependence and prevents polarity battles from becoming structural wars.
4. Use contextual boundaries instead of blanket rules
Replace organisation-wide rules with explicit contextual boundaries. State clearly where one pole must dominate and where flexibility is required.
This gives the system clarity without uniformity and allows different parts of the organisation to remain healthy under different conditions.
5. Review major decisions for polarity drift
At regular intervals, review a small number of high-impact decisions and ask:
- Which pole did this decision strengthen?
- What downside risk is now increasing?
- What counterbalancing move may be required?
This reframes review as stewardship, not second-guessing, and normalises rebalancing before damage accumulates.
6. Anchor polarity shifts in purpose, not correction
When adjusting emphasis, explicitly connect the shift back to the organisation’s purpose and long-term viability. Frame rebalancing as necessary maintenance of the whole system, not a change of belief or direction.
This preserves coherence across time, reduces cynicism, and protects leadership credibility through inevitable oscillations.
I have written about polarity mapping in my blog previously. Consider reading that for deeper insights.