From leadership dualities to polarities

When I was young I was regularly reminded of my shortcomings. I was told that I have to fix them. As I was not good in dealing with numbers I tried to prove myself and studied economics and business and became a controller. In fact, I was a decent controller. I was able to do the job. Yet I was never passionate about my job and the impact I created was minimal. My approach was not effective. I used to spend a lot of time and energy trying to fix,?improve or even erase my weaknesses.?

By focusing mainly on my weaknesses I learned you become at most, if at all, mediocre and leave most of your potential untapped. My team leader in Controlling who became the Head of HR back then helped to me to uncover my talents (my innate gifts), values and drivers and for the very first time I was energized. I decided to change my career and became a HR professional and leader. I quickly learned that amplifying my unique talents and strengths does not only fuel my energy, it also increases my effectiveness and organizational impact. Only if you can leverage your individual strengths, in particular your talent you can perform at your best creating the most value for people around you. I got intrigued with this idea and I became a strengths-based coach and dedicated my life to turn talent and potential into performance and impact.

As humans we tend to choose sides: right or wrong, good or bad, win or lose and strengths or weaknesses. Evolution has wired us to black and white thinking. The seemingly certainty makes us feel safer, in particular in times of uncertainty and rapid change.

Fixing weaknesses has been the predominant people development paradigm for many decades. As human being we are hard-wired to focus on the negative, the gap, the shortcoming. The metaphor behind is that your development is a “construction area”. However, remodeling yourself and dwelling on weaknesses does not make you a better leader. While it is true that we can improve a weakness, the improvement will always be limited compared to when we spend the same amount of time and energy on developing a natural talent which then becomes a strength.

In organizations we started a few decades ago to move past the primary focus on fixing weaknesses. Strengthening strengths became the new paradigm. Over the years we have experienced the incredible transforming?power and enduring impact this approach can have on individuals, teams and organizations. Here the metaphor behind is that your development is much more an “art studio” than a “construction area”, a bit as Michelangelo put it out: “The sculpture is already complete within the marble block, before I start my work. It is already there, I just have to chisel away the superfluous material.” Talent in this regard is the visible manifestations?of how our brains are wired, how we naturally think, feel and act (in particular, in stressful situations when the going gets tough). Yet it requires deep introspection, openness for honest feedback and hard work to identify your natural strengths and align your life to your purpose and nature. The outcome is rewarding for yourself and others. Strengthening strengths (always being a function of talents, skills, competencies, knowledge and experience) and in particular talents give us energy and fuel our intrinsic motivation to push our boundaries and leave a legacy behind.

However, replacing one-sided perspective on weaknesses by focusing on maximizing strengths is not anymore effective. In an increasingly complex, unpredictive and rapidly changing world we tend to create a too narrow, one-dimensional world for ourselves.

Over the years I learned that our weaknesses are often little more than the overuse of our strengths. For example, if you tend to be supportive to the extreme that might get you to be pleasing others by losing yourself and fostering artificial harmony. If on the other hand you tend to be challenging to the extreme that might get you to be hostile. A more healthy and effective approach would be to navigate between the two healthy polarities of being supportive and challenging depending on the situation you are facing.

If you feel caught balancing the tension of “both/and” or taking sides with “either/or” thinking, you are not alone. In today’s complex, dynamic and ever-changing world thinking either/or falls short. Most of the problems we are facing are not anymore clear cause and effect problems (technical challenges) that require linear thinking to solve it. In leadership roles you mainly deal with ambiguity, the unknown, the untested (adaptive challenges). Often times there is no such thing as best practice. While duality (either/or) describes two qualities that are antagonistically opposed and, therefore, mutually exclusive, tensions or polarities (both/and) unites the two qualities in a complementary relationship.

Tensions are two leadership qualities that are both good and vital but can seem like opposites. They pull in different directions. Typical positive tensions for people leaders include

• tasks and people
• leading and following
• hunger and humility
• short-term and long-term
• proximity and distance
• employer representative and employee representative
• effectiveness (doing the right thing) and efficiency (doing things right)
• action and reflection
• taking charge and empowering
• responsibility and freedom
• challenging and supporting
• honesty and compassion
• mental health and emotional health ...

Managers who overvalue honesty as compared to compassion are initially surprised at why their approach of overfocusing on telling others bluntly how it is actually leads to poorer results, just before they realize that employees who are treated more as objects than as people with different feelings, drivers and needs and who do not feel understood and valued do not give discretionary efforts and reduce their commitment.

Managers, in turn, who over-privilege compassion are initially equally surprised at why their approach of overfocusing on how people are feeling and pleasing others leads to artificial harmony, low standards and even low engagement. Eventually they realize that employees want to make a difference by stretching themselves and continuously grow.

Instead versatile leaders are comfortable with shades of gray and seemingly contradictions. They do not only?tolerate?but are attracted to?ambiguity and tensions. In doing so they build a richer, deeper connections and significantly more value for their organization.

The value square model from Friedrich von Thun (Source: Miteinander reden: Fragen und Antworten) is a very powerful model that help us to identify the value of positive polarities (examples in green) as opposed to negative extremes (examples in red).

It enables us to choose the optimal mix between positive tensions (e.g. taking charge and empowering / honesty and compassion) and to distinguish those positive polarities from devaluating exaggerations (micro-management and laissez-faire / cruelty and artificial harmony) that we often times consciously or subconsciously use to over-compensate. If you want to be a versatile, future proof leader, you cannot simply focus on one positive polarity or your strengths such as empowering or showing compassion.

There is a better approach than taking sides on positive tensions (false dichotomy). A better approach recognizes positive tensions "taking charge" and "giving empowerment". Flex your leadership repertoire. The leader who has learned to take a stance, must allow for a certain degree of freedom and autonomy in a frame, if (s)he does not want to end up as a micro-manager.

As such the purpose is not to retreat from the extreme (micro-management) of a strength (taking a stance) to mediocrity, but to complement it (by giving empowerment). The excess of good in a virtue is balanced by more in a polar sister quality (giving empowerment). Versatile leaders need to withstand the tension and develop the agility to draw equally on both positive tensions, to be excellent at both. In other words, they need to be ambidextrous. Yet they should not overuse your strengths as this would results into devaluating exaggeration (micro-managing). The latter would results in a lose-lose-lose situation for you, the other person and the organization.

As a versatile leader for instance you need to ...

• encourage and empower the team to come up with own decisions, yet whenever the team gets stuck or come out after multiple discussions at the lowest common denominator, you need to be willing to show up, speak up and make a decision. ?
• take a stance, yet also show the flexibility to understand the other person and to be influenceable by his or her opinion.
• give honest and candid feedback, yet also to listen to understand the other person and integrate the other perspective into your view.
• show the courage to reframe the perspective of the other person if needed, yet also to show the humility to learn from a new perspective.

Leadership these days is all about awareness and balancing positive tensions. Our increasingly complex and uncertain world?is full of both/and choices. To navigate effectively we need to loosen our attachment to either/or thinking and embrace both/and while avoiding devaluating exaggerations?

If you want to make a quantum leap in your leadership journey you should leverage most of your strengths in connection to the respective positive polarity without overdoing your strength.

Think about the critical-to-success qualities for a future-proof leader in your organization and envirnment (e.g. visionary leader). Then ask yourself ...

• What is good about being a visionary? For instance, thinking big from the future helps you to see possibilities that you do not see when you start from what you have experienced in the past.
• What is the positive tension? Perhaps it is being a realist.?
• What is good about being a realist? Perhaps it is that you see the chances and threats and mitigations measures for the risks.
• What is the devaluating exaggerations for both positive tensions? Perhaps it is “being na?ve optimist” and “being critical observer”
• What is the downside of taking a visionary perspective at the expense of a realist perspective? Perhaps the na?ve optimist sees the glass always almost full and in doing so takes too much risks with activities that promise limited reward.
• What is the downside of taking a realist perspective at the expense of a visionary perspective? Perhaps the critical observer sees the glass always almost empty and tends to play safe doing what the person has always done.

The next time you are facing a challenge or conflict, make a pause and ask yourself:?

Is this a technical challenge (complicated, linear problem to solve) or an adaptive challenge (a complex problem, a polarity to deal with)?”

If it is a polarity challenge, ask yourself “what if we can have both?” and “how?can we have both?” and you will find new options and approaches that allow you to really leap forward.