Document Type : Original Article
Authors
1
Department of Public Administration, SR.C., Islamic Azad University, Tehran, Iran
2
Department of Public Administration, Allameh Tabataba'i University, Tehran, Iran
3
Department of Behavioral and Laboratory Economics, Allameh Tabataba'i University, Tehran, Iran
Abstract
Paradoxical leadership, as a novel approach in management literature, focuses on leaders’ ability to simultaneously combine and balance contradictory traits and behaviors—such as strictness and flexibility, control and trust, maintaining structure and encouraging innovation. This style of leadership, particularly in public organizations facing institutional complexities, accountability pressures, and the necessity of adapting to change, can provide a foundation for enhancing resilience, organizational learning, and human capital development. Accordingly, the purpose of this article was to design a process model of paradoxical leadership in organizations. This study was qualitative in nature. The statistical sample consisted of 13 human resource managers and organizational behavior specialists, selected through purposive sampling. Initially, a preliminary process model of paradoxical leadership was identified through a review of theoretical literature, and then refined through semi-structured interviews with the sample group using thematic analysis. The findings revealed that the process model of paradoxical leadership includes: Inputs: strategic wisdom, identity balance, regulatory capability, meaning construction, organizational normative architecture, organizational institutional architecture, environmental institutional challenges, team maturity, and collective capacities. Process: recognition of paradoxical tensions, leader’s interpretive insight, leader’s paradox reframing, suspension of judgment, design of simultaneous strategies, dual and balanced behavioral manifestation, leader’s multi-level review, and leader’s paradox internalization. Mediating factors: strategic co-thinking, multi-layer organizational interaction, structural rethinking. Moderating factors: level of environmental ambiguity, intensity of institutional contradictions, organizational cultural maturity. Outcomes: psychological, developmental, performance-related, structural, value-based, and discursive transformations
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