Paradoxical Leadership to Enable Strategic Agility

TLDR

Strategic agility involves contradictory demands such as stability versus flexibility, commitment versus change, and established routines versus novel approaches. The study investigates why paradox management is essential for strategic agility and identifies leadership practices that help leaders navigate these tensions. Using data from five firms—Astro Studios, Digital Divide Data, IBM Global Services Canada, Lego, and Unilever—the authors propose specific leadership practices to address these paradoxical challenges.

Abstract

Strategic agility evokes contradictions, such as stability-flexibility, commitment-change, and established routines-novel approaches. These competing demands pose challenges that require paradoxical leadership—practices seeking creative, both/and solutions that can enable fast-paced, adaptable decision making. Why is managing paradox critical to strategic agility? And which practices enable leaders to effectively manage tensions? This article describes the paradoxical nature of strategic agility. Drawing from data from five firms, Astro Studios, Digital Divide Data, IBM Global Services Canada, Lego, and Unilever, it proposes leadership practices to effectively respond to these challenges.