Balance in leadership is more like adjusting sliders on an audio mixer
“Find balance,” they say. But is leadership really like balancing a scale? What if it’s more like adjusting the sliders on an audio mixer?
Leadership isn’t about perfectly balancing opposites, like a scale. It’s about navigating paradoxes, like adjusting an audio mixer to find the right harmony for each situation. It’s more about optimizing rather than balancing.
Paradoxes are opposing forces that seem contradictory but need to coexist. For example confidence vs. humility or control vs. empowerment. A conscious leader knows when to lean into each side of these paradoxes.
Take calmness, for example. In a crisis, you might dial it up to steady the team. But in moments of urgency, turning it down slightly and dialling up the excitement level might energize action. Or take assertiveness. It’s a great tool to drive decisions, but when overused, it can drown out collaboration.
Every strength has a corresponding weakness. And the ideal “level” of a behaviour isn’t fixed. It depends on the context and the people involved.
The key is to stay adaptable, fine-tuning the sliders between your leadership paradoxes to meet the demands of the moment.
In summmary, leadership isn’t about balance but about mastering the mix. What sliders are you adjusting right now?