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Navigating Tensions

ARTICLE

Leadership is an art and not a science. There are many artistic forms and expressions that we enjoy, consider, question and experience. Art can be a solo pursuit or a collaborative effort for its creators. It can be a passive experience for its recipients and it can also cause us to rethink assumptions and engage in debate and discourse and even question our own existence. So too is leadership a multitude of moments, decisions, choices, missed steps and interactions that can have both tepid and profound impact, historically perhaps actioned alone but increasingly becoming a collective endeavour.


In this series we will consider the art of leadership and in the process aim to stretch our thinking to the edges of contemporary practice. This article explores the art of navigating tensions as a leadership practice.


A while back we worked with a large and diverse client organisation - you might say it was a portfolio of agencies and divisions. We were invited to help them cultivate the collective leadership abilities of the senior leaders across the portfolio.


We went about interviewing senior leaders and engaging groups of leaders in discussions about their leadership challenges, their day to day focus areas and their thoughts on navigating their “day job” demands and also the work of leading the wider organisation. They were really great discussions in their own right (some said they found them quite therapeutic). What emerged for us was interesting, brought new insight and potential to the challenges and considerations for collective leadership. 


These leaders were and are navigating tensions in their leadership roles. Many were making their own choices in isolation about where to steer their effort. This was, in some instances fine and in others causing real issues. The interesting thing was that these choices were, in the main, unconscious, individually based, not really openly shared and were also becoming sources of conflict and inefficiency between individuals and across groups.


So having surfaced what we observed as a series of tensions we set out to surface and articulate what those tensions were, the choices that were being navigated and craft a way forward for more open discourse around the choices to build greater alignment and collective capacity.


By the way, we see leadership tensions arising often as we work with leaders to consider ways to design and lead their organisation to be fit for the unique and emerging challenges of our times and labelling them seems to help uncover some of the inner experiences of leaders and that seems to be of some relief also.


The value of surfacing and having them articulated is that they can frame and serve to unlock robust discussions that mean leaders better navigate choices and lead together (and apart) with a view to continuously improving collective impact.


We think the idea of a framework of leadeship tensions takes us a step beyond the simplistic leadership frameworks that focus on the capabilities of individual leaders. It helps to foster individal and collective awareness and confidence to deal with the real life choices made every day in pursuit of outcomes.


Hear are examples of leadership tensions we have identified from our work to date with hundreds of executive leaders:


Common leadership tensions.


The tensions leaders navigate are, of course context specific. Different organisations and their leaders are navigating their own versions of these tensions and choices every day. These examples are not at all intended to frame a set of universal tensions (although we continue to explore and be curious about whether there are some core constructs emerging).


Real change is possible when leaders work together to identify, consciously align, prioritise and navigate tensions for their context - this is an art of leadership.


Some questions for leadership discussions and consideration:


  • What are the demands that pull you in different directions in your role every day?

  • What are the “tensions” and choices your various roles call on you to navigate individually and collectively?

  • Are you making the best conscious and collective choices about navigating the tensions on balance?

  • Can you see/feel or sense any consequences or impacts from the choices you are making ? Are they skewing progress toward some goals at the expense of others?

  • Where and when do the robust conversations happen about the inevitable trade-offs being made and the impacts of those?

  • Could these be useful conversations for collections of leaders? Do our leaders find these easy to talk about or do they tend towards going it alone?


Navigating tensions as a leadership practice might be a pathway to making real progress on strategic ambitions, especially in complex organisations where siloes equal accountability and the presence of mechanistic or bureaucratic structures can hamper and stifle collective progress.


Are you and your leaders grappling with strategic tensions, how are those impacting progress on your ambitions and outcomes?

Let's connect

We are based in Sydney and Canberra, but regularly work with leaders and organisations across Australia, and we'd love to work with you!

Feel free to call us or send an email:

PO Box 4117, KINGSTON, ACT 2604

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We acknowledge and pay deep respect to Traditional Custodians of the many lands we work on around Australia, and their Elders past and present. We also recognise the continuation of cultural, spiritual and educational practices of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and the positive impact this has on our nation's culture and identity.

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