How to Navigate the Tensions of Leadership

Sometimes, I feel like being a leader feels like I’m stretching an elastic band in multiple directions at once. You know - the constant pull between competing priorities.

I’m coming to realise that the pull isn’t a problem to solve. It's the territory itself.

These tensions are everywhere. In a recent coaching conversation, a client and I uncovered a bunch of tensions at play:

Security vs. Growth: The tension between staying secure in her current role versus taking a risk on something new that might be more fulfilling but less secure.

Me vs. We. The polarity between focusing solely on her team’s results and maintaining a broader collaborative approach across the organisation.

People vs. Task. The tension between putting her energy into developing relationships and driving results.

Technical Expertise vs. Leadership Overview: Balancing when to dive into technical problems herself versus empowering her team to solve them.

Personal Fulfillment vs. Organisational Needs: The tension between pursuing work she finds engaging versus focusing on what the organisation values most now.

Intuition vs. External Validation: The polarity between trusting her instincts versus seeking external input from other sources to validate her thinking.

That’s a lot of tension!

Here’s the challenge: we love to find a simple answer. Yet, the world isn’t simple. 

Witness the debate around working from home. Some politicians and organisational leaders might try to say that working from home = ‘bad’ and being in the office = ‘good’. Yet hybrid working’s effectiveness lies in maturely balancing organisational, team and individual needs.

It’s all about the ‘and’.

The trick with all of tensions like these is to:

1. Not to try to make them go away or solve them

2. Reframe them as ‘and’s.’ For example, how could you tap into both Intuition AND external validation?

3. Develop strategies to know when to move towards one end of a tension or the other.

How to Navigate Tensions

Here are some practical strategies to effectively navigate the tensions like this that you face:

1. Map Your Current Position: For each tension, assess where you currently operate. Are you heavily favoring one end? Use a simple 1-10 scale to gain clarity on your default approach.

2. Create Decision Criteria: Develop specific questions to determine which pole needs emphasis in a given situation. For "People vs. Task," ask: "What does the team need most right now—connection or direction?"

3. Practice the Pause: Before making decisions, pause and consider: "What would it look like to honor both ends of this tension simultaneously?"

4. Seek Feedback on Balance: Ask trusted colleagues to flag when they observe you overemphasising one pole at the expense of the other

5. Intentionally Practice the Opposite: Choose one tension where you have a strong preference. For a week, deliberately operate from the opposite pole. If you're naturally task-focused, spend a week prioritising relationships above outcomes. Write down what you learn, what feels uncomfortable, and what benefits emerge.

Which tension(s) might you be struggling with at the moment?

What from this list of ideas could you try?

This article was originally published in my email newsletter a few weeks ago. If you’d like receive my thinking and offers earlier, subscribe here: digbyscott.com/subscribe