Managerial Dilemmas (ePub)

In the midst of the most severe recession for 80 years there is
little need to argue that organizations are beset by dilemmas and
paradoxes. Confidence in prevailing business models and in the
underlying assumptions underpinning business decisions over many
decades has now been shaken. But it is not enough to rail against
arrogance and greed. Within their own (flawed) assumptions bankers
and corporate leaders were acting rationally. A major reason for
the failure to anticipate and warn is that observers of
organizations usually tend to view organizations in terms similar
to those employed by the people who run them: as rational, sensible
and objective, whereas, in fact, they are usually confused and
confusing, paradoxical and contradictory entities. Paradox is at
the heart of how organizations work (or don't work) yet the
phenomenon has been strangely unstudied.

In an age of crisis and uncertainty, dilemmas and paradoxes are
especially evident and prevalent. The fascination and the promise
of paradox is that there is also a sense that there is a hidden
truth entwined within the opposites. This we contend is a challenge
for leaders. The ultimate responsibility of leadership is to make
sense of these and to handle them in a competent manner.
This demands a new mode of leadership. The management
of dilemma and paradox it is contended, the essence of
leadership today. Paradoxical forces provide a dynamism which,
although often experienced as potentially threatening,
discomforting and negative can also be exciting, promising and
positive.

"The assumption that organizations are rational entities is
challenged every day in the work environment by a rich reality of
asymmetries between conflicting forces, complexity, hidden
intentions and paradoxes. Anyone wanting to understand the real
forces that govern organizations should read this book. A must read
for modern leaders who have the intellectual honesty to lead
organisations with open eyes and not with the over simplifications
and clichés of the past"--Giovanni Ghisetti, Director
Business Transformation, Coca Cola Enterprises Europe

"Storey and Salaman's description of the paradoxes
which characterise leadership today is hauntingly accurate. Their
intelligent optimism that those dilemmas can be met is as
encouraging as it is challenging for those of us who have to do
just that. Having read the insights in this book I now understand
how their business advice was always so pertinent".--Andy
Street, Managing Director of John Lewis