As a coach, I help my clients identify, explore and maximise their personal strengths and core values. I encourage them to keep them front and centre to their decision-making and relationships – AND also to discover and embrace the natural opposite of each strength and value. This is the essence of polarity thinking.
Polarity thinking is underpinned by the understanding that we live and work in dynamic energy systems. The energy – or tension – I am talking about lives between the poles of an interdependent pair of values or strengths.
Examples for these pairs of opposite poles include:
Activity and rest
Logic and emotion
Short-term and long-term thinking
Focus on tasks and relationships
Top down and bottom up
Self-discipline and self-care
Stability and change
Cost and quality
Notice how we usually tend to frame these pairs as typical “either/or” scenarios:
People are asked to think of themselves and others as either task-focussed or relationship-focussed (a popular dichotomy used in many workplace personality assessments).
Managers are described as either directive or participative in their leadership style.
Teams support collaboration or individual achievement.
Organisations prioritise autonomous decision-making or centralisation.
But none of the above approaches will work if their natural opposing value or strength is neglected. When this happens, problems will eventually arise and we experience reactiveness, feelings of “stuckness”, over-corrections, conflict and fear.
Polarity thinking is built on the notion that values and strengths always come in pairs of opposites. Neither of the poles is better or “more right” than the other. And this is the key difference between problems and polarities:
PROBLEMS can be solved – they have one solution, e.g. the right answer to a puzzle, the best bundle to choose from a mix of options, the quickest way to get from A to B. Problems can be addressed with Either/Or thinking.
A POLARITY, on the other hand, can be described as a dilemma or paradox without a clear-cut single solution. It is a tension, an energy system, that must be managed and which can be leveraged to create new opportunities and innovation. It can never be solved or have or end-point – it exists in perpetuity and requires Both/And thinking. Let’s get back to personal values and leadership qualities. I recently coached the ambitious and successful marketing manager of a small architectural firm. Let’s call her Cathy.
Cathy was in her late 30s, had two small children, and used to love her career. Her colleagues and team valued her strong work ethic, her keen eye for detail, and the skilful approach she brought to every task. When she told me about recent 360° feedback results, Cathy was proud to be described as someone others could rely on for quality work, personal support and an always friendly manner.
In the past couple of years, exhaustion and early states of burnout had become a dominant experience for Cathy. She felt that she was constantly putting out fires at work and at home and struggled to pay attention to the current moment as her mind was always racing ahead to the next item on the to-do list. To make matters worse, she had developed chronic pain issues in her lower back. She came to me with the same question that I have heard in many variations from other clients: “Why does this all feel so hard, even though there is nothing objectively wrong with my life? Why don’t I feel happier?”
I started with a values exercise with Cathy to help her uncover which qualities mattered most to her in life. Her core values included Dependability and Service, as well as Challenge and Contribution. We discussed these values, what they looked like in action, and how they had shaped Cathy’s life so far. Naturally, there had been a lot of beautiful gains and benefits for her, e.g. an exciting career and rewarding family life, being a trusted friend and colleague, and a reputation as a “high-performer” which had opened many doors for her.
But the cracks had been showing for a while. Cathy was constantly tired, empty, and felt the expectations of others like a weight around her ankles. She compared the experience to “slowly drowning in quicksand, pulled down by the weight”.
At this point, I introduced her to polarity thinking. I asked her if she thought that her values were balanced, and she could identify their natural counterparts. To expand her thinking, I invited her to look at each of her values as one end of a continuum, and asked what she thought the opposite pole may look like. We started with Dependability which ranked very highly on her personal values list.
After exploring what Dependability meant for Cathy, and how she expressed this value in her life, we decided that “Self-care” was its opposite. I asked Cathy about her thoughts about the potential benefits of self-caring, self-loving behaviours. To stay with her weight metaphor, what would help her feel lighter?
Cathy realised that in order to meet other people’s expectations and keep them happy, she had neglected many of her own emotional, mental, physical and social needs. She was struggling with personal boundaries because they had not previously featured in her value system. She had almost perfected the ability to push down uncomfortable feelings like anger, frustration and disappointment – but these emotions had accumulated to a big heavy ball inside her that started to take up too much space.
We discussed essential self-care strategies and practices that Cathy could implement in her life, the importance of saying No and how to deal with the potential reactions that this may elicit in others, and how to weave more self-compassion into her thinking and the way she treated herself.
At first, Cathy was energised and inspired, she bubbled up with ideas and started to experiment with different behaviours and techniques. But at some point, a few meetings later, she seemed to develop doubts and started to backtrack. “I’m not sure I want to let go of the old Cathy. I don’t want to go down the path of self-indulgence, or lose my drive at work.” In other words, fear set in. Fear of losing everything she had valued about being a dependable, committed colleague. Cathy saw herself confronted with a clash of values, and her impulse was to run back to her start position. At least that felt safe.
I reminded her that polarity thinking is not about having to vote for one pole over the other – it invites and empowers us to leverage BOTH poles in a sustainable, personally meaningful and dynamic way. Like a dance. Like inhale and exhale.
The idea is to choose useful actions and develop effective habits to maximise the gains and benefits of both poles, while remaining attuned to the early warning signs of both downsides, so that these can be addressed and minimised. For Cathy, this meant that she had to learn to listen to, respect and communicate her own needs and boundaries, becoming more intentional with her time and energy, and let other know early what she could and couldn’t commit to.
A helpful way to think about this is to draw the four quadrants that emerge when we look at the two poles and their benefits and challenges. The below visualisation shows Cathy’s poles of Dependability and Self-Care and the benefits (positives) and risks (negatives) she identified for each of them. This principle can be used for any individual, team-based or organisational dilemma or conflict by identifying the underlying poles of a value or strength:
The infinity loop in the centre of the visualisation highlights the ongoing, never-ending dynamic – the continuous flow of energy – that is key to understanding the polarity. It can then be intentionally managed and leveraged, so that more and more time and effort is spent in the upper quadrants.
The label on top (in this case, “Effective (self-)leadership)” is the overarching goal of the polarity, and the label at the bottom (here: “Ineffective (self-)leadership”) represents the negative outcome if the polarity is not understood and managed well.
The numbers show the typical flow of attention and follow Cathy’s experience in the example above:
This is the “start position” for the individual, team or organisation – an important value, strength or preferred mode of operating. Initially, it leads to great results. The better it works, the more it is used – until the limits of effectiveness are reached.
The downside of the important value, strength or preferred mode of operating is becoming visible as problematic consequences arise.
The solution is seen in the opposite pole which is now leaned on heavily, while the original value is ignored.
Negative consequences of the new approach emerge. This can include discomfort and fear stemming from an internal values clash, leading to resistance and doubt about this new direction. Eventually, the pendulum swings back to its original position (1st quadrant).
If the person or system going through these stages does not understand that they are dealing with a polarity, they are likely to feel pushed and pulled into different directions, stuck and confused, and continue to cycle through the quadrants.
Once you are aware of the nature of the polarities in your life, you can start to intentionally and purposefully manage them. The goal is to fully leverage the benefits of both poles while mitigating and reducing their downsides and risks.
Further reading
Johnson, Barry (1996). Polarity Management: Identifying and Managing Unsolvable Problems. HRD Press.
Johnson, Barry (2020). And: Making a Difference by Leveraging Polarity, Paradox or Dilemma, Volume One: Foundations (Polarity Partnerships). HRD Press.
Johnson, Barry (2021). And: Making a Difference by Leveraging Polarity, Paradox or Dilemma, Volume Two: Applications (Polarity Partnerships). HRD Press.