Paradoxical yet Consistent: How Leaders Maintain Behavioral Integrity When Pursuing Paradoxical Obj

Abstract

Leaders are under increasing pressure to recognize, attend to, and ultimately reconcile paradoxes in organizations. This creates the need to balance and simultaneously pursue priorities that reflect different values. While the extant literature suggests that it can be beneficial for leaders to pursue paradoxical objectives, our paper highlights an underappreciated challenge: when leaders are paradoxical, they may send conflicting signals about what they value. When observed by followers, these conflicting signals can lead to the perception that the leader is low in behavioral integrity, causing followers to experience conflict in their own values in the workplace. Furthermore, we propose that these negative implications are mitigated when leaders reduce their own values conflict. Our predictions are supported by two complimentary empirical studies. The first study features a multi-level field study with a sample from executive MBA students, and the second is a survey study featuring multi-wave, multi-level data from a retail company.