The paradox of public leadership

“It was the best of times, it was the worst of times”

“I must be cruel to be kind”

“The child is the father of the man”

Literature is full of paradoxes – ideas that are both contradictory and true. Whether it's Dickens, Shakespeare, or Wordsworth, paradox provokes questioning. It gives us pause to ask: "what's going on here?"

Greg McKeown, in Essentialism, talks about the "paradox of success." He argues that the more options we have, the more distracted we become from our highest point of contribution.

Similarly, when I work with leaders, I talk about the paradox of leadership. Often, the further we advance in our career, the further away we move from our original source of value (the skills and subject matter expertise for which we were hired), and from the observable impact of our contribution, too.

In a managerial, bureaucratic landscape filled with reports, meetings, and emails, it can be harder to feel satisfied, even if we intellectually understand the value of our role.

“He who confronts the paradoxical exposes himself to reality.” - Friedrich Dürrenmatt 

This paradox is also evident in ambitious, well-meaning public sector organisations. The more we add to our plate, and the further we evolve, transform, and grow... the more we risk drifting away from how we originally - and possibly best - add value.

In a meeting with a client recently, I referred to the frustration of strategic planning (of which I'm generally a fan!) stymying community outcomes.

If the community collectively asks for new pieces of equipment for their public space, the Council are more likely to defer their request to a municipality-wide spatial planning process than to grant their request. 18 months later, if they're lucky, the community may get their equipment - but it took a long time, a lot of people, a lot of meetings, and some expensive reports and plans to get there.

... What if we just believed the community, and provided the equipment? Food for thought.

In examples like these, the paradox is how our good intentions and values-based choices for clear planning, fair prioritisation, and transparent decision-making can lead to unintended consequences that detract from more important objectives: community engagement, collective ownership and care for public spaces, localised solutions, partnership with Council, and so on.

That's not to say anyone is doing the wrong thing - or even that escalating the equipment decision to a broader process was incorrect! But it is a useful reflection on the paradoxes we face as leaders, and how we might use those to ask important questions, uncover hidden assumptions, and improve outcomes.

What would happen if we used the paradox of leadership to take a closer look at the choices we make in our teams and organisations? 

I think it's worth asking tricky questions like…  

• What do we assume about the services we deliver, the areas we are involved in, or how we do things?  
• How have these assumptions shaped our evolution as a team or organisation?  
• Do we understand the core value we deliver?  
• When should we stop specific programmes – or should we do them forever? 
• Is this the best use of our time and energy?  
• Are there others who would do a better job of this? 
• Could there be other options we haven't considered? 

And possibly most importantly:

• Is there a much simpler way of achieving this outcome?