Leading Through Tensions: How, Why and When a Paradox Approach Can Help Create a Better World

In this symposium, we will focus on how leaders cope with the competing tensions ubiquitous in organizational life and how paradoxical leadership improves their followers’ willingness and ability to navigate tensions and competing demands. As much as ever, two years into the COVID-19 global pandemic, tensions from contradictory elements are highly salient, posing significant challenges to organizations and their leaders. To cope with increasing uncertainty and change, leaders must inspire optimism while remaining realistic, cultivate psychological closeness despite employees working remotely and balance health and economy related needs. Moreover, leaders influence the way their followers make sense of tensions and manage competing demands. Their navigation and articulation of paradoxes are therefore closely tied to virtuous dynamics. This symposium will present a theoretical paper and four empirical works, all exploring how, why and when a paradox approach is conducive for leaders in volatile times. Adopting a multi-method, multi-level approach, it investigates how leaders experience and communicate paradoxes, as well as develop paradoxical leadership mindsets and abilities. We address the following questions: 1) How do paradoxical leaders influence their followers identity and creativity? 2) How does a paradoxical approach influence leaders’ position in the social network? 3) How should leaders articulate paradoxical messages? and 4) How can leaders cultivate a paradox mindset? Our discussant, Marianne Lewis, will tie together the research and contribute her unique perspective on the implications for paradox theory and leadership, as well as offer future directions for research. Leadership with Agency and Communion: Implications for Shared Leadership Identity Construction Presenter: Jennifer Linda Sparr; U. of Zurich Presenter: Andreas Wihler; U. of Exeter Business School Communicating from a Distance: Construal Level and Leader’s Communication of Paradoxical Tensions Presenter: Matthew Rubin; INSEAD Presenter: Ella Miron-Spektor; INSEAD Presenter: Yair Berson; McMaster U. How Does Paradoxical Leadership Influence Employee Creativity? Control, Uncertainty, and Culture Presenter: Yan Zhang; Peking U. Presenter: Ying Zhang; Peking U. How a Paradox Mindset Influences Leaders’ Role in a Social Network Presenter: Orit Zommer-Balicer; U. of Haifa Presenter: Dana Rachel Vashdi; U. of Haifa The Role of Intercultural Interactions in Stimulating Paradox Mindset Presenter: Rany Salvoldi; Ben Gurion U. Presenter: Dorit Efrat-Treister; Ben Gurion U. of the Negev Presenter: David M. Brock; Ben-Gurion U.