Why some leadership problems aren't meant to be solved
We're back, with a new name and a new season! If you found us before as A Curious Space, it's still the two of us, with all the research, ideas and experience you know, but Late Night Leadership is focused on leadership itself: the joys, challenges and tensions that make it so interesting, talked through the way you would late at night with a trusted friend (the thoughtful kind of late night, not the 3am panic).
This launch episode introduces Season 1, The Leader in the Room, which is all about leading yourself. Some leadership problems have a clear answer, so you make the call and move on. Others are polarities, where two things are true at once and pull you in opposite directions, like short-term results and long-term strategy, control and autonomy, or caring for people and driving performance. Treat those as problems to fix and leaders can burn out and teams can stall, and there's some real relief in realising the tension was never meant to resolve.
In this episode
- What a polarity is, and how it differs from a problem you solve once
- What over-indexing looks like, with the classic numbers person and people person example
- Why the discomfort of holding a tension makes us want to jump to a resolution, and why tolerating it for a little longer can lead to a better choice
- Using what's happening in your body as data, and a return to the above and below the line model from Series 1
- Standing your ground without losing yourself, and why "I didn't have a choice" is worth getting curious about
- What's coming this season: confidence vs vulnerability, conviction vs curiosity, standing your ground vs preserving the relationship, a deep dive into embodied leadership, and a few guest conversations along the way
Try this
Before the next episode, pick a challenge you're facing, ideally one that keeps coming back. Can you see it as a polarity? What's the opposite of the choice you keep making, and does looking at it that way give you a different perspective or a different way forward?
Over to you
What's the tension you feel most as a leader? Write and tell us at hello@latenightleadership.com, because we'd love to weave listeners' tensions into episodes as the series goes on..
Over to you
What's the tension you feel most as a leader? Write and tell us at hello@latenightleadership.com, because we'd love to weave listeners' tensions into episodes as the series goes on.
Research and resources
- The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership by Jim Dethmer, Diana Chapman and Kaley Warner Klemp, the source of the above and below the line model: https://conscious.is/15-commitments
- From our back catalogue: Series 1, Episode 2, "How culture is shaped: leaders and founders", where we first talked about the line model: https://latenightleadership.com/episode/2-how-culture-is-shaped-leaders-founders
- Further reading: Polarity Management: Identifying and Managing Unsolvable Problems by Barry Johnson, the book that much of today's thinking about polarities grows from: https://www.polaritypartnerships.com/products
Next episode
Friday 9 October: confidence vs vulnerability, where each helps and where it gets in the way.
Enjoying the show? Follow us on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, and if you enjoyed our earlier seasons, a rating or review makes a real difference to a small podcast like ours. The whole back catalogue is still in this feed and on our new website: https://latenightleadership.com
About your hosts
Kate Nicholroy (Good Ideas Agency, https://www.goodideasagency.com) and Maddie Fox (MadFox Group, https://www.madfoxgroup.com) are coaches who work with senior leaders and their teams, and Late Night Leadership grew out of the conversations we kept having with them.
Produced by Tim Fox. Music by Richard Flindell.
Late Night Leadership was formerly A Curious Space.