As an educational leader, it often feels like the job is impossible. Tasked with enacting change and while at the same to instructed to provide stability, each day is filled with competing expectations. Innovate but be sure to preserve tradition. Enact provincial mandates while honoring local values. Bring about immediate results but also build long-term capacity. The role is one of visionary, change agent and a steady calming force while being a decisive leaders and collaborative partner—all within the same school day. Each day begins well before arriving at school and often ends well into the evening only to begin again early in the morning.

This is the leadership paradox: the competing demands placed on educational leaders have become not just challenging, but literally, contradictory. Often stretched out well beyond the confines of a school day, these frequent changes create change fatigue, pressure and stress on both school administrators and teachers. Leaders find themselves blamed for changing too much and not changing enough, for being too rigid and too flexible, for moving too fast and too slow. Parents demand answers, central office requires explanations and action, teachers seek guidance and reassurance all often at the same time.

The Impossible Job Description

Consider the daily reality of Maria, an elementary school principal. This morning, she received an email from the district office announcing a new literacy initiative that must be implemented by October. The message emphasized the importance of “fidelity to the model” and warned against modifications that might compromise effectiveness. Thirty minutes later, she met with her literacy coach, who reported that teachers are struggling with the current reading program and need more flexibility to adapt it to their students’ needs. The coach suggested modifications that directly contradict the district’s fidelity requirements. She noted this would have to be something she brought up with the school superintendent.

After lunch, Maria attended a meeting with her superintendent where community members feedback was examined. The community praised the school’s current approach to education while simultaneously demanding innovative programs that will prepare students for 21st-century jobs. Parents want both rigorous academics and social-emotional learning, both high standards and individualized support, both high school preparation and college and career readiness. The meeting resulted in another planned meeting to evaluate the school’s current programming to determine what might need to change in order to meet community needs.

After school, Maria attended a basketball game at the school where students were playing. Although Maria didn’t coach, it was an expectation for her to be present at all student events at the school. That evening, after supper and spending time with her children, Maria was reviewing data showing that her school’s test scores improved in math but declined in reading. The district will celebrate the math gains while questioning her leadership around literacy. The community will focus on the reading decline while taking the math improvement for granted. Maria examined the data to see where showing resources might be needed. She wrote an email to the school resource teacher and the school literacy coordinator that they needed a meeting to discuss this situation which she would send tomorrow morning before she left for school. After going through other emails, she put her laptop away.

This is not an unusual day for Maria. It’s the new normal for educational leaders caught in the leadership paradox.

The Paradox of Change Leadership

The leadership paradox is particularly acute when it comes to managing change. Leaders are expected to be change agents who transform their organizations while also being stabilizing forces who protect what’s working. They must create urgency around improvement while maintaining morale and avoiding burnout.

This creates what researchers call “paradoxical leadership”—the ability to hold contradictory demands in creative tension rather than resolving them through either-or choices. Traditional leadership training focuses on making decisions and solving problems, but paradoxical leadership requires the ability to manage unsolvable tensions. This type of leadership is able to lead during times of dissonance, when what is currently happening is in a state of flux and change.

The challenge of paradoxical leadership is compounded by the different time horizons that leaders must navigate. There is pressure to have visible results within months in order to demonstrate fidelity to the programs being initiated and implemented. Accountability systems require annual progress. But meaningful educational change takes years to implement and fully mature. It requires time for teachers to collaborate and overcome the implementation dips that occur and to adjust to the ever-changing needs of their students. Educational leaders must show short-term success while building long-term capacity, satisfy immediate stakeholders while investing in future success.

The Communication Paradox

Educational leaders also face a communication paradox. They must be transparent about challenges while maintaining confidence in solutions. They must acknowledge problems while inspiring hope. They must be honest about limitations while mobilizing energy for change. Each of these requires leaders to make decisions about what to tell different people. They are required to keep particular information confidential while also making decisions while providing reasons for why they made such decisions.

This paradox is particularly challenging in an era of social media and instant communication. Leaders’ words are scrutinized by multiple audiences with different interests and perspectives. A message that reassures parents may alarm teachers. A statement that motivates staff may concern community members. A response that satisfies the district office may frustrate building-level stakeholders. In each situation, leaders are required to make real-time decisions that will provide people with reassurance that they are doing their best to provide what is best for students, staff, and stakeholders. Traditionally leaders would be asked to craft careful, neutral messages that try to satisfy everyone—often satisfies no one. Instead, as change has become the norm in schools and education, leaders must learn to communicate paradoxically, acknowledging tensions rather than hiding them, being honest about complexity rather than pretending simplicity. Leaders need to be able to respond to situations that are complex and acknowledge that such situations will take time in order to come to a resolution and may require that there will be more that needs to be done.

The Pressure from All Sides

The leadership paradox is intensified by the multiple stakeholders that educational leaders must serve. Each group has legitimate but often conflicting expectations:

Students need consistent, caring adults who will challenge them appropriately while providing necessary support. They need leaders who will protect their learning time from disruption while ensuring they have access to new opportunities. As society places more demands on schools to teach beyond the traditional curriculum, leaders are required to be more diligent about how time in schools is used.

Teachers need leaders who will shield them from external pressure while holding them accountable for results. They need support for their professional growth while recognition of their current expertise. Leaders are in the position to promote and support teacher growth and development while also ensuring teachers are accessing and using strategies and materials based in sound educational research.

Parents want leaders who will maintain high standards while accommodating their children’s individual needs. They expect both innovation and tradition, both rigor and nurturing. This often puts leaders in a position of navigating between parents, teachers, and central office as they try to find solutions that will meet the demands of each.

Central office officials require compliance with policies while expecting creative problem-solving. They want both consistency across schools and adaptation to local contexts. Such demands often have leaders struggling to find solutions that will meet the needs of their students and teachers while also complying with central office requirements.

Each of these stakeholder groups has valid concerns and legitimate authority. The leadership paradox emerges from the impossibility of satisfying all these demands simultaneously.

The Courage to Embrace Paradox

Breaking free from the leadership paradox requires what might seem like a contradiction: the courage to embrace paradox rather than trying to resolve it. This means accepting that some tensions are not problems to be solved but paradoxes to be managed.

Leaders who successfully navigate paradox develop what researchers call “paradoxical thinking“—the ability to accept contradictory ideas simultaneously. They understand that they can be both compassionate and demanding, both supportive and challenging, both visionary and pragmatic. Leaders in today’s schools need to be able to navigate different contradictory ideas at the same time, looking for a solution that isn’t Either/Or.

This requires a fundamental shift in how leaders think about their role. Instead of seeing themselves as problem-solvers who must find the right answer, they must become tension-managers who create space for multiple truths to coexist. Such thinking requires a shift in how they see problems and seek to navigate solutions that aren’t Either/Or but more complex.

The Both/And Approach

Paradoxical leadership requires what researchers call “both/and thinking” rather than “either/or thinking.” Instead of choosing between competing demands, effective leaders find ways to honor both sides of the paradox. For example, instead of choosing between innovation and tradition, a leader might create structures that preserve valuable traditional practices while making space for careful innovation. Instead of choosing between top-down authority and bottom-up empowerment, they might develop systems that provide clear direction while encouraging local adaptation. The Either/Or approach does not allow for the nuances of a world that is sophisticated and complex and leaders need to be able to navigate this new reality.

This approach requires sophisticated thinking and skilled communication. Leaders must help stakeholders understand that complexity is not confusion, that holding multiple perspectives is not indecision, and that managing paradox is not avoiding responsibility. In doing so, leaders help others navigate complex situations in which there are multiple options going forward and finding the best option requires being able to not only try different ideas but also being willing to accept that not all solutions will have a straightforward path to a resolution.

Building Paradoxical Organizations

The ultimate solution to the leadership paradox is not just developing paradoxical leaders but building paradoxical organizations—systems that are designed to manage contradictory demands effectively. These organizations have several key characteristics:

They institutionalize paradox. Instead of depending on individual leaders to manage tensions, they create structures and processes that can handle contradictory demands systematically. These structures allow leaders to be able to make decisions at the local level while remaining in fidelity to the direction of the institution.

They develop organizational ambidexterity. They can simultaneously exploit existing strengths and explore new possibilities, maintain efficiency and encourage innovation, preserve stability and enable change. These organizations actively seek out those within the organization who have particular strengths to offer ideas and provide insight. There is less a focus on the charismatic leader than on the development of a strong organizational culture where new ideas and new people are encouraged to step forward to share their thoughts and ideas.

They create psychological safety. They enable people to be honest about tensions and uncertainties without fear of judgment or punishment. They are very aware of “traditional power structures” within their organization that can marginalize new people and new ideas as being different from “the way we have always done things” or “you don’t understand, you aren’t from here”. They actively seek out people who have different experiences and different backgrounds in order to help grow the organization.

They foster systems thinking. They help people understand how different elements of the organization connect and how changes in one area affect others. Instead of looking at the system as discrete parts to see how solve problems, system thinkings begins with the system and examines how different parts work together and where there might be opportunity for different ways of doing things. It often requires organizational leaders, often in charge of specific parts of the organization, involve others from within the organization in order to develop a greater awareness of how different parts work together and the influence each has on the systems as a whole.

The Wisdom of Paradox

The leadership paradox teaches us that the most sophisticated form of leadership is not the ability to make tough choices but the wisdom to know when not to choose. It’s the recognition that some tensions are not problems to be solved but paradoxes to be embraced. This is very different from most other leadership theories that start with the specific qualities of the leader and how this will influence the decisions they make. This requires that leaders need to have a wide range of experiences in order to develop the wisdom of knowing when to move forward on a specific choice and when not to choose but continue forward with more than just one solution as an option.

This doesn’t mean that leaders should be indecisive or avoid difficult decisions. It means that they should be thoughtful about which tensions can be resolved and which must be managed. It means developing the emotional intelligence to remain calm in the face of contradictory demands and the communication skills to help others understand why simple answers are not always possible. It requires that leaders are able to explain difficult situations in a way that people can understand the need for a variety of options.

The leadership paradox also reminds us that the most effective leaders are not those who have all the answers but those who can help others live productively with important questions. They don’t eliminate uncertainty; they help people navigate it wisely. They accept that not all problems can be solved in the moment but need time and may need to be revisited more than once. They accept that they do not have all the answers but know how to find the people who can help themselves, and others, manage difficult situations.

In our complex, rapidly changing world, this paradoxical leadership may be the most important skill educational leaders can develop. It’s the ability to hold multiple truths simultaneously, to navigate competing demands with grace, and to create organizations that can thrive in the face of permanent contradiction. Leaders in schools face a myriad of issues each day. Like Maria, they are asked to navigate different demands while simultaneously providing direction when direction may not be straightforward.

The quest for more in education must include more sophisticated leadership—leadership that can embrace paradox rather than being paralyzed by it, that can manage complexity rather than pretending it doesn’t exist, and that can create space for multiple truths to coexist productively.