Skip to main content

Strategies For Solving Your Toughest Leadership Problems

If you struggle with these paradoxes:

  • How can I express my individuality and be a team player?
  • How do I balance work and life?
  • How can I take care of myself while supporting others?
  • How can I manage the core business while innovating for the future?

then the new book, Both/And Thinking, by authors Wendy Smith and Marianne Lewis, is for you. It will teach you how to navigate these types of paradoxes more effectively.

 

“When making a decision, we often find ourselves stuck between choosing one option over another, creating a vicious cycle that limits our capabilities and creates consistent tension,” explain the authors. “But there is a better way.”

 

As the book explains, that better way is both/and thinking versus traditional either/or thinking. This new way of thinking means that instead of choosing between alternative poles of paradox, you figure out how to engage both poles simultaneously. In other words, how to accommodate competing demands over time for a more sustainable solution.

 

“As we are faced with dilemmas – choices between seemingly opposing alternatives – we feel compelled to make a decision to feel a sense of control and comfort. These choices are filled with paradoxes – interdependent, persistent contradictions that lurk within each dilemma.

 

We must be aware of these everlasting paradoxes if we hope to effectively navigate through our most difficult decisions. While traditional either/or thinking has its benefits, many of the choices we face – the ones causing the most tension – can only truly be overcome using both/and thinking,” say Smith and Lewis.

 

Furthermore, Smith and Lewis teach that in bringing to light the existence of paradox in each dilemma, our minds become open to the possibility for more as we begin to deconstruct the dichotomy between one choice or another and we begin to apply ourselves towards making more creative, flexible, and impactful decisions.

 

 Wendy K. Smith

 

 

Marianne W. Lewis

  

Earlier this year, the authors answered this question for us:

 

QuestionWhat are the couple best next steps for a workplace leader to take after reading your book?

 

Smith and Lewis: We’ve found that effectively engaging both/and thinking involves using four sets of tools. Think ABCD – Assumptions, Boundaries, Comfort and Dynamics. Paul Polman was an early study. As CEO of Unilever, he implemented the Unilever Sustainable Living Plan to achieve a bold social and environmental goal while doubling profits. His work still inspires us and helps bring the Paradox System to life:

 

Assumptions – change the question. Polman didn't ask whether to seek profit or social responsibility. Instead, he sought to double profits while at the same time cutting the firm's environmental impact in half. Changing the question invites us to think more creatively about possible answers.

 

Boundaries - separate and connect. Separating opposing demands ensures that we pay attention to both. Connecting involves finding synergies and integration. Polman had distinct metrics, targets, and roles to separate  financial and social targets and track each. He also connected to a higher vision that integrated both. In an interview with Polman, he told us - don't tell me we can't do both, Unilever serves 2 billion consumers a day, we must find a way to foster sustainable living through business.

 

Comfort - find comfort in the discomfort. Navigating tensions can raise uncertainty and defensiveness. Leaders, have to find ways to honor the discomfort, but not let it stand in the way of finding better outcomes. Polman often surveyed his leaders, asking them to surface and recognize the tensions, rather than avoiding them.

 

Dynamics – stay flexible. Navigating paradoxes involves ongoing change and experimentation. Doing so involves the humility and confidence keeps us pushing for new possibilities. Polman was constantly trying out new approaches with Unilever - entering into bold partnerships with competitors and watchdog organizations, shifting his senior leaders and board members to ensure diversity of thoughts and perspectives, getting rid of quarterly reporting to the analysts to avoid short term decision making. If these initiatives worked, he stuck with them. If not, he moved on and tried something else.

 

One of my favorite sections of the book is the chapter on Organizational Leadership, where the authors recommend leaders:

  • Link organizational tensions to a higher purpose
  • Build guardrails around paradoxical poles
  • Diversity the stakeholders
  • Encourage experimentation
  • Surface the underlying paradoxes
  • Honor the discomfort
  • Build skills for managing conflict
  • Personalize paradoxes for employees 

Lastly, be sure to check out the final part of the book where you can take your personalized Paradox Mindset Inventory to score yourself on how well you engage competing demands – how you experience tensions and the mindset you adopt as you engage these tensions.

 

Thank you to the book’s publisher for sending me an advance copy of the book.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

How To Master The Cycles Of Leadership: The Four Seasons

Whether you’re an aspiring leader, a newly appointed CEO, or a board member wanting to better steward your company’s performance, A CEO For All Seasons: Mastering The Cycles Of Leadership is the hands-on playbook you need – packed with practical, proven tips to help you navigate the four distinct phases of leadership.  “The journey of a CEO has a beginning, middle, and end, and the challenges leaders face early on are often far different than those midway through and near retirement, explain the authors of the book – Carolyn Dewar , Scott Keller , Vikram Malhotra, and Kurt Strovink .   “For us, the most apt analogy to describe these cycles is the four seasons of the year,” they add.  Spring : Stepping up - Preparing for the role. Summer : Transitioning into the role. Starting strong. Leading with impact. Fall : Navigating the middle years. Staying ahead. Sustaining momentum. Enhancing your learning. Future-proofing the organization. Winter : Transitioning out of the rol...

How To Be An Inspirational Leader

Today, I bring back one of my most-read blog posts from 2017. It read as follows: At the end of each year, I select my choice for the  best new leadership book  for that year and then highlight that book on my blog. Well, we're only five months into 2017 and there is a new leadership book so good that I can't wait until year-end to share it with you. And it's likely to be among the select few options for best new leadership book of 2017. It's called,  The Inspiration Code , by  Kristi Hedges . Perhaps now more than any other time, the need for inspirational leadership is critical in the workplace. Filled with profound insights and compelling data and based on a commissioned survey on who and what inspires people, Hedges uncovers a set of consistent, learnable behaviors that dramatically enhance leadership success. And shows you  how to inspire those you lead. And, how to energize people every day . Kristi Hedges But, first, what exactly is inspiration? Hedges ex...

How To Achieve Transformational Success For Leaders

The book,   Reinventing the Leader ,  is an inspiring account of the magic that can happen when a leader realizes they must undergo their own transformation in order to transform their organization.  This candid and practical book by  Guilherme  ( Gui) Loureiro , Regional CEO overseeing Walmex, Walmart Canada, and Walmart Chile (now Chairman of the Board for Walmex and Regional CEO for Canada, Chile, Central America, and Mexico), and his executive leadership coach  Carlos Marin  shows how even the most successful leaders must be open to personal change in order to transform their company. The book details how the pair pioneered a data-driven, customer-centric business transformation at Walmex—Walmart’s biggest division outside of the United States. “This book is a blueprint for transformational success for leaders in any business who find themselves facing the need to retool their own company’s systems and operations and energize and inspire an entire ...

How To Become A Leader

Here’s another must-read book to add to your list as you transition from manager to leader. It’s  The Leap to Leader , by  Adam Bryant . As the creator of the iconic “Corner Office” column in the  New York Times , Bryant has spoken with more than a thousand leaders over the years about the challenges and nuances of leadership. Many of his discussions are included in his interview series on LinkedIn.  “The goal of this book is to provide an intensely practical guide to making that transition by sharing insights, stories, and approaches from hundreds of leaders to build the skills you will need to make the leap to leader,” explains Bryant.   He adds that the book is useful to everyone who is interested in leadership, regardless of where they are in their career.   The book covers:   The central paradox of leaders: selfless vs. self-centered. How to perfect the do-to-say ratio. Ways to navigate office politics. Tactics to making better decisions. The cruc...

How To Lead Bigger

Anne Chow ’s book,  Lead Bigger , is about “where it all comes together.” By that, she means: Being driven by a compelling purpose and values, which are not platitudes, but rather lived. The goals are better decisions, improved performance, and ultimately a greater impact. Impact means you have the power to make real and enduring change for the better. Widening your perspective to have a greater performance and impact. Advancing work that matters. Developing a vital, innovative workforce that is both trusted and agile. Championing flexibility by embracing trust and empowerment for individuals, teams, and leaders alike.   Drawing from over three decades of experience, former CEO of AT&T Business Chow shares that leading bigger also means:   Embracing the whole of your team beyond the workplace : Seeing the value and potential of each individual—in the context of not only their work, but also their life.   Engaging in self-reflection : Demonstrating self-awareness ...

How To Find The Job You Love

In 2024, I named Be The Unicorn: Data-driven Habits That Separate The Best Leaders From The Rest , by William Vanderbloemen , as the best new leadership book of that year.   The book is timely, incredibly practical, and immediately usable for any leader wherever they are on their leadership journey.   Through extensive research of more than 30,000 top leaders and proprietary data, Vanderbloemen identified in the book the twelve habits that the best of the best leaders have in common. These superstar leaders are the unicorns – highly desirable but that are difficult to find or obtain.   And now, Vanderbloemen followed up that gem of a book with another terrific book called, Work How You Are Wired: 12 Data-Driven Steps To Finding A Job You Love . It’s a great companion book to Be The Unicorn .   Those 12 steps align with these 12 personality traits/interpersonal habits: Fast Authentic Agile Solver Anticipator Prepared Self-aware Curious Connected Likeable Producti...

10 Quotes From The 5 Levels Of Leadership -- John C. Maxwell

Soon I'll post my full review of John C. Maxwell's latest book, The 5 Levels of Leadership .  In the meantime, here are some of my favorites quotes from the book that I believe should become a must-read book by any workplace/organizational leader: Good leadership isn't about advancing yourself.  It's about advancing your team. Leaders become great, not because of their power, but because of their ability to empower others. Leadership is action, not position. When people feel liked, cared for, included, valued, and trusted, they begin to work together with their leader and each other. If you have integrity with people, you develop trust.  The more trust you develop, the stronger the relationship becomes.  In times of difficulty, relationships are a shelter.  In times of opportunity, they are a launching pad. Good leaders must embrace both care and candor. People buy into the leader, then the vision. Bringing out the best in a person is often a catal...

How To Align Sales And Marketing To Drive Company Success

Nearly 90 percent of startups will fail without ever reaching a point of positive return on investment. Founders and entrepreneurs are facing unprecedented challenges in pursuit of becoming one of the coveted 10 percent.   Who better to turn to for advice than the duo behind the most successful software IPO in history?   That is where Denise Persson and Chris Degnan come in, authors of the new book, Make It Snow .   During the nearly nine years they worked together at Snowflake, they built  one of the longest-running and most effective sales-marketing partnerships from the ground up, unifying  two historically divided groups in corporate America. Together, they took Snowflake from struggling startup to a tech powerhouse on par with Google and Amazon. Over the years, Snowflake surged to more than 9,000 employes and $3 billion in annual sales.   “Sales and marketing are often neglected in startups, with focus squarely placed on the engineerin...

How To See What’s Holding You Back As A Leader

What you don't see about yourself can hold you back as a leader. That's typical for many leaders. What we don't see is what we  can't  see: we have  blindspots . Your blindspots prevent you from achieving your greatest success.  “It turns out that we're often not great judges of ourselves, even when we think we are. Sometimes we're simply unaware of a behavior or trait that's causing problems,” explains Martin Dubin , author of the new book, Blindspotting: How To See What’s Holding You Back As A Leader . “Bottom line: until we uncover these blindspots, we can't move forward. The good news is that you can learn to do your own  blindspotting .”   “Most of us understand the idea of blindspots in a general sense—areas we can’t see, to take the term most literally, or places we have gaps that we may not even realize, to be a little more abstract,” says Dubin.  “But in the context of this book, I’m defining blindspots quite specifically: They are the par...

Effective Listening: Do's And Don'ts

Here are some great tips from Michelle Tillis Lederman's book, The 11 Laws of Likability .  They are all about: what to do and what not to do to be a leader who's an effective listener : Do : Maintain eye contact Limit your talking Focus on the speaker Ask questions Manage your emotions Listen with your eyes and ears Listen for ideas and opportunities Remain open to the conversation Confirm understanding, paraphrase Give nonverbal messages that you are listening (nod, smile) Ignore distractions Don't : Interrupt Show signs of impatience Judge or argue mentally Multitask during a conversation Project your ideas Think about what to say next Have expectations or preconceived ideas Become defensive or assume you are being attacked Use condescending, aggressive, or closed body language Listen with biases or closed to new ideas Jump to conclusions or finish someone's sentences