Leaders, are you sitting uncomfortably? You should be

Think about it. In your leadership practice, how often do you have to sit with complex or contradictory input, information, needs, or demands? Think about your interactions and obligations towards your team versus your clients; your shareholders and your board versus community interests or the exigencies of ESG. Think about the tensions between the way you communicate internally, within your direct team or department, say, and how you talk to the press or media. Ask yourself: how do these different, often discordant pressures make you feel, respond, or act? Do you feel tension or comfort? Relaxed or on edge?

I contend that dissonance is a fundamental part of the leadership experience. Or to put that another way: it’s your job to hold dissonance, to be comfortable being uncomfortable, but it’s not easy. Human beings are hard-wired to seek resolution, harmony, and release from tension – it’s not called the comfort zone for nothing. But holding on to dissonance, and holding onto it internally without letting it go or projecting it onto others, is a critical skill that any CEO must develop and nurture.

When Felix Hufeld failed to identify and react to irregularities at Wirecard, it was not because of technical incompetence or ignorance. It’s more likely that he found it easier to simply believe what its charismatic CEO was telling him and remain within the cozy world he knew and understood about the German economy than to parse long, complex, and uncomfortable data. Hufeld was seduced into a comfort zone that made it hard for him to see what was increasingly obvious to others. In that sense, Hufeld is an example of a leader with little to no appetite for dissonance.

Similarly, KPMG’s Bill Michael found it impossible to sit with the conflicting and contradictory pressures and needs of diverse stakeholders at a moment of great dissonance: the pandemic. For Michael, it felt more comfortable to pick a side, to opt for one perspective or position over the others, and to reject dissonance by projecting and even lashing out at his subordinates. And while Danone chief Emmanuel Faber may have been lauded and admired by climate activists, and rightly so, he too is perhaps guilty of focusing on one (comfortable) side or perspective over and above considering and integrating the (dissonant) considerations of other stakeholders.

What Hufeld, Michael, and Faber have in common, I think, is an inability to contain the needs of everyone, and to hold dissonance for the entirety of the organization and its ecosystem. Again, I contend that this is the job of the CEO.

If you want to manage this dance, you must be able to hold all this tension within you, to have a tolerance for dissonance, rowdiness, noise, and discord without cracking or putting it onto others.

A lot has been said about leadership over the years. We talk about authenticity and integrity, about being true to your values, multi-lateral in your communications, and about the need for openness and trust. In a way, our role as scholars and researchers is to demystify the practice of leadership and to shed light on the skills, the mechanisms, and the dynamics that make leaders effective.

I have issues with anything that oversimplifies leadership or suggests it’s enough to simply be authentic as a leader of other people. You also have to be comfortable holding jarring, clashing, and contradictory outlooks, thoughts, ideas, and feelings, even as you guide, empower, and reassure your people, your organization, and your ecosystem. Sure, you can opt to disregard the things that make you uncomfortable – the disharmony in the cues and signals that point to a storm on the horizon – or to let rip at colleagues when they drop the ball or disagree with you. But that’s not your job as a leader, and the chances are you’ll be fired for doing so.

No one ever said it was easy at the top, and it’s never going to be. It’s tough. But it’s meant to be tough. And if you stick with it, if you find a way to be comfortable with dissonance, there will be enormous opportunities for you to learn and grow. We’ll explore this in my next article.