5 Paradoxes of Leadership

Being a leader is a tough job. However glamorous or powerful the position might look, there is much more which goes on in the making of a leader. Anyone who has been (or is) in a leadership position will vouch for it. You are ON STAGE, ALL the time. Your team, clients, and stakeholders are watching you, judging you, emulating you and evaluating you all the time. You are live 24 * 7 for any situation. It’s a skillful balance on a razor sharp edge.

Striking this balance is what makes leadership a paradox of sorts. I have experienced this myself, with the different leadership positions I have held. You need to exhibit values, which may be seemingly opposite to each other in the short run, but complementary to each other in the long run. The real test of a leader is in knowing when to exhibit which value. This is what defines successful leadership.

Here is a list of my top 5 leadership paradoxes. I am still living these almost every day!

1) Leader Yet Team Player:

As a leader you have to lead from the front- Take decisions, give directions. Stand up and take charge. Be available in a crisis and deal with it with authority. Have the attitude that the buck stops at me. Be willing to take risks. Most importantly take responsibility. Yet, in an increasingly flat world, you have to be a team player too. You have to be at a level where your team can relate to you. In today's highly interconnected, interdependent global scenario, knowledge is the biggest capital. Skills and capabilities are more important than position. A key element of leadership success is how well a leader is able to move the levers between retaining responsibility yet respecting the authority of her team. Many of my current responsibilities need me to interact with multi country, multi culture teams. While leading a Board of Directors comprising Diplomats, Members of Parliament & global leaders in my role in the World Forum for Ethics in Business ( www.wfeb.org), I have to be a team player to harness their exceptional expertise. At the same time, when it comes to the brink, be ready to take the final decision.

2) Go-Getter Yet Ability to Let Go

Ability to pursue your goals with a hawk like determination is critical for a leader. She needs to deliver results and contribute to the expectations of all stakeholders. With great resilience and determination. With the passion to overcome every challenge and obstacle. The energy and go getter attitude of the leader cascades to the team and ensure they pursue their goals with the same spirit. At the same time, one needs to be able to let go from time to time to prevent buckling under pressure and breaking down. As Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar (www.srisri.org) says, you need to have both passion and dispassion. There is a lot of research today which reinforces the importance of taking regular breaks from work, stepping back and hitting the pause button. Letting go from time to time will help a leader get a fresh perspective to situations, not to mention saving oneself from a burnout.

3) Dynamic yet Reflective

A dynamic leader is a inspiration to his team. Enthusiasm, energy, commitment, creativity are all vital trademarks of a leader. A leader's dynamism is infectious and influences his team greatly. Yet it’s important to have some quiet reflective time. Taking some time for silence (at least once a year for a few days) is vital. Silence is a storehouse of intuition, innovation and inspiration. The deeper the rest, the more dynamic a leader can be.

In my experience, my own meditation and breathing practices have helped me become sharper and more dynamic in my leadership roles. Thousands of leaders around the world who have undertaken the TLEX (www.tlexinstitute.com) and the various Art of Living corporate workshops ( www.artofliving.org) have also shared how their leadership action has improved after doing Sudarshan Kriya and Meditation. Leadership agility is a key skill leaders need in the VUCA ( volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous) world of today- the ability to step back in order to move forward.

4) Long-Term Vision yet Short-Term Execution

A leader needs to have a long-term vision. A clear strategy, a north star goal. This acts as the long term roadmap for the team. It decides the institutional direction. Yet this is not enough. A leader has to be focussed to deliver short term results. Achieving short term goals, ensures that the team stays on track on a consistent basis. I am dealing with this on a daily basis in Sri Sri University (www.srisriuniversity.edu.in) - We have to keep an eye on where we want to be in 5 years ( reach a goal of 10000 students), at the same time ensure that we achieve excellence in academics, research & student performance on a day to day basis. I have seen many leaders fall into the trap of building huge plans on paper for the future and failing to deliver in the present. You have to succeed on both counts!

5) Proud yet Humble

Pride in the organization, the team and the product is a hallmark of a good leader. A leader who is not proud of what he represents or does is not so inspiring. Who would want to work for a leader who is not proud of what he is doing? Pride brings confidence and conviction. Yet, a leader needs to be humble enough to accept criticism and feedback. He needs to know when to acknowledge failure and correct the situation. No humility, no long term success.

This list can go on. But these are my top 5. Knowing that opposite values are complementary can help one sail through life with calm acceptance. Life itself is a paradox of sorts. Living through it joyfully can make the balance easy. Would love to hear what paradoxes you are living through and how you are dealing with them!