DIALECTICAL LEADERSHIP: NEW LEADERSHIP CALLING IN AN ERA OF POLYCRISES

Abstract

The author is an executive leader, consultant, and educator in Leadership and Organization Development (OD), and founder of SLD Consulting, writes about of “polycrises, a time when multiple, compounded and complex crises are happening simultaneously.” She notes that the concept of “polycrisis” was identified by historian Adam Tooze. And she contends that even with our severe challenges and disruptions of today, she is “convinced that this is a time for new forms of leadership to support systems everywhere to make the transition to a new world that is beckoning—a more just, equitable and sustainable world, where we address the economic, social and planetary issues of these times.” Her thinking, “based on a couple of theoretical perspectives and leadership experiences in the midst of this complexity has led me to what I call dialectical leadership.” She defines this as a “process through which leaders model practices that inspire positive transformative actions and outcomes, in a context of multiple, conflicting and compounded forces.” She proposes six shifts in ways of thinking; involving, in her words: engaging dialectical thinking, going a step further than polarity management; a change in the leader’s role; cognitive and emotional space for forward movement; engage the logic of attraction as opposed to the logic of replacement; storytelling and galvanizing action.