Engaging Both Religions and Paradoxes in Leadership, Organization, and Society

Abstract

This article engages both religions and paradoxes in leadership, organization, and society by zooming in on three types of paradoxes related to religion: paradoxes due to immanent boundaries, paradoxes due to diverse interpretations, and paradoxes due to emergent relationships. First, religion asserts an additional macro-level: transcendence. This belief, while socially constructed, offers a distinct means to engage paradoxes as it extends the boundaries of the worldly realm. Second, religion may result in contradictory interpretations among organizational members that can lead to new paradoxes amongst diverse understandings – even of the same faith. Third, religions have become global phenomena that are enlivened side by side and in new social terrains. They blend across diverse social systems and form novel emergent relationships. This creates new tensions and paradoxical encounters. The contraction and expansion of worldly, cognitive, and social boundaries then cause ex post and resolve ex ante persistent contradictions of interdependent elements.