Paradoxical leadership—enduring, integrating, and addressing tensions: the TENSE leadership model

Abstract This article in “Gruppe. Interaktion. Organisation. (GIO)” introduces the TENSE leadership model. It starts from the premise that managers are increasingly confronted with paradoxical tensions in a dynamic and contradictory world of work. Drawing on a qualitative study with three expert groups, the paper confirms established paradoxical tensions and identifies new ones, including control vs. empowerment, harmony vs. conflict, structure vs. flexibility, and internal vs. external focus. Together with five competence areas for dealing with paradoxes, these tensions form the TENSE leadership model. The model integrates structural and personal requirements and thus provides a practice-oriented framework for leadership development, training, and organizational interventions. It advances paradox research by expanding existing models and simultaneously offers concrete approaches to fostering key competencies such as ambiguity tolerance, reflection, emotion regulation, and situational navigation in leadership practice.