Thinking Through and Holding Paradoxes: Cognitive–Emotional Capabilities Associated with Paradoxical Leader Behavior

Organizations increasingly confront persistent tensions that require leaders to address competing demands simultaneously. Prior research has established paradoxical leader behavior (PLB) as an important behavioral response to such tensions, yet less is known about the cognitive–emotional capabilities associated with PLB. Using cross-sectional self-report survey data from 264 employees in supervisory, managerial, and project-leadership roles, this study examines how integrative complexity (IC), cognitive reappraisal (CR), and expressive suppression (ES) are associated with PLB. We combined hierarchical regression, polynomial regression, and response surface analysis to characterize their independent and joint associations. IC and CR were positively associated with PLB in the simultaneous regression model, whereas ES was not. A formal comparison of the regression coefficients further showed that CR was more strongly associated with PLB than ES, supporting Hypothesis 2-2. Higher-order terms did not add significant explanatory power beyond the linear terms. Thus, the highest predicted PLB at high IC and high CR primarily reflected the additive accumulation of their positive associations, not a nonlinear synergistic or congruence effect. Under imbalance, IC-dominant profiles were associated with higher PLB than CR-dominant profiles. These findings indicate an additive but asymmetric capability pattern in which IC appears to be more central and CR provides a complementary emotion-regulation resource. The study shifts attention from isolated individual attributes to the joint pattern of cognitive and emotional capabilities, while interpreting the evidence as cross-sectional associations rather than causal developmental processes.