I had an "ah-ha" moment reading Barry Johnson state, "95-99% of the problems we are asked to solve in formal education are problems with a single right answer." Our formal education system places an emphasized focus on training us to find a solution to a "problem." Polarity, the concept of multiple correct interdependent solutions, isn't incorporated into many curriculums (especially before post-secondary)—no wonder why we have so much contention within our organizational and personal lives.

The subtle and repetitive encouragement of "either/or" problem solving over our developmental years equipped us to enter the real world seeing only in black and white. We never exercised our "polarity thinking" muscle, causing many of us to see grey as a foreign concept. This declaration from Johnson is powerful and thought-provoking.

Visionary leaders have an array of polarities to "manage." The evident polarity management situation would be the balance of short-term AND long-term strategies. Visionary is synonymous with long-term thinking. However, maintaining certain day-to-day activities to keep operations moving forward and employees, shareholders, and stakeholders satisfied are BOTH essential. A few other polarities come to mind for a visionary leader:

Future-Back Thinking AND Earnings Reports:

Revenue-generating pressures may exist from investors that do not align with your future-backing thinking. Investing heavily into the future may cause strife with those focused on the present quarterly earnings.

Future-Back Thinking AND Status Quo: Assumptions made in the backward induction process may be a point of contention with those aligned with the status quo.

Self AND Others: Hopefully, you've hired a team of employees working in flow with your vision of the future. However, your vision will, in most situations, be polarizing. How will you engage stakeholders who are critics of the work you're putting into the world?

Shareholders AND Stakeholder - The financial interests of the shareholder may differ from the interests of the stakeholder.

Local AND Global - Does your vision impact the global stakeholder differently than the local stakeholder.

Barry Johnson's "Polarity Management: A Summary Introduction" (1998)

Shoshana Boyd Gelfand's TEDx Jerusalem Talk, "The Power of Polarities" (January 2013)

Posted 3/25/2021