Do opposites really attract? That witticism is often uttered to explain away how two very different people can get along very well, implying that the very attribute one person exhibits strongly can be the basis of acceptance for someone who exhibits an opposing trait. People who are a lightning rods may be attracted to those who are more grounded.

A deeper question is whether one person can possess mutually exclusive perspectives about things that shape his or her way of life and still be able to function normally. I am talking about a contradiction in your own mind, or inner conflict. Many people have the capacity to possess thoughts that are in direct opposition to one another, as in a love-hate relationship. These situations often result in some very bizarre behavior from otherwise normally functioning human beings.

My thoughts on that behavior came into focus recently when I was discussing a person's feelings about whether to accept a promotional opportunity. He was conflicted: He felt he could truly make a difference in the organization but feared that the promotion would make a difference in him, too.

On the one hand, this could easily be blamed on the old left brain — right brain, yin-and-yang explanation that everything comes from a hidden portion of our consciousness that compares and contrasts options before deciding on the right course of action. As I'm not particularly into psychology, I won't go any further down the analytical path.

I was interested in my friend's internal dilemma, however, so I revisited my “bulletin board files.” For years I have been saving lists, commentaries and other pearls of wisdom from fire stations around the world. I have collected hundreds of examples of homespun philosophy, but the one that struck me for this situation was “Paradoxes of Leadership.” Unfortunately, I acquired the document as a photocopy of a photocopy and have no idea who the original author was. Maybe it was written by many individuals and typed up by some editor or instructor. Whatever its origin, it speaks volumes about the need to sometimes possess two different perspectives when acting in a leadership role.

While I won't repeat the entire list of leadership paradoxes, I would like to reference some of them as examples of how contradictions between perspectives often can give a more enlightened person the power to overcome the negative aspects of the opposing viewpoints. For example, the article notes that sometimes when you do good for people they will reward you with rejection and punish you with outright hostility, but a leader must continue to do good anyway. My bulletin-board philosopher enumerated about a dozen such contradictions.

Not everything I add to my vocabulary comes from bulletin boards. Recently, I was given a copy of The Leader of the Future, a 1996 anthology published by the Peter J. Drucker Foundation. The book's contributors wrote on an overall theme of looking beyond the horizon of contemporary thoughts about leadership. I was somewhat surprised to find one article that not only recognized the phenomenon of paradox, but suggested it as an absolute necessity for leaders of the future to deal with.

That article, “The New Language of Organizing and Its Implications for Leaders,” was written by Charles Handy. It's unlikely that Handy has been inside of many firehouses. He was a professor at the London Business School and has written several books, including The Age of Paradox, which was named by both Fortune and BusinessWeek as one of the 10 best business books of 1994.

Now it is a long-distance leap from a firehouse bulletin board to a book review in Fortune. Nonetheless, a nexus appears when you read the single-page document and Handy's anthology article. They both say to look at both sides of the issue before leaping to conclusion.

In his article, Handy writes what is perhaps the best description I have seen as to why things have changed over the last few decades in leading organizations and why the newly emerging vocabulary of the leader contains examples of almost-mandated paradox. He provides insight into three very specific reasons why leaders of the future must be aware of the need to provide involvement in an organization: subsidiarity, earned authority and virtuality. Handy describes these three components as being the catalyst for change.

Subsidiarity is the principle that a higher-order body should not assume the responsibility that could or should be performed by a lower-order body. Handy says that leaders should be ensuring that subordinates are competent to exercise the responsibility given to them; leaders should be focused on the potential of an organization rather than pursuit of perfection. Subsidiarity then is a principle where power is granted over a group by the group selecting the person who exercises the power.

Earned authority, Handy notes, is power assumed from position. Leaders grow; they are not made overnight.

Virtuality is the recognition that the parts of an organization aren't always doing the same thing at the same time and place. These decentralized organizations are similar to fire departments, which operate in cell-like units yet are expected to behave as one organization.

Handy suggests that these new concepts are leading to a set of circumstances where “distributed leadership” occurs. That, in and of itself, is a real challenge to traditionally organized units like fire departments. His contention is that what holds an organization together today is not a chain of command, but rather a sense of common identity, a set of common purposes, and a sense of urgency and energy.

Boy, if that doesn't sound like some fire departments I know today, then I don't know what would. But it also doesn't sound like others. I won't name examples of either, but I bet that you can come up with a few departments which seem to have captured the essence of subsidiarity, earned authority and virtual organizations better than others. Moreover, I'll guess that you can find examples where there are efforts being exerted to stamp out these concepts and maintain a traditional solution to the way the departments function.

Which brings us back to the concept of paradox. Handy admits that it's a tough to run an organization in that environment. He readily admits that few do so successfully because in order to deal with this concept, leaders have to deal with mutually exclusive attributes, or paradoxes. He believes that people who are leading in this environment must:

• Have a strong belief in themselves yet have the ability to possess doubt.
• Have a passion for the job but be able to respect and learn from other worlds.
• Have a love of people yet be very capable of being alone.

The simplicity of these three paradoxes enriches their significance to a very high degree. Put yourself to the test: The highest score you can get is three; the lowest is zero. What sort of score would you give yourself? What about others you know? What about those who are coming up behind you in the department's succession?

While there's no doubt that it's a lot of work to try to reconcile contrasting thoughts in your mind, the ability to do so seems to be one of the attributes that make great leaders out of those who merely aspire greatness. I suppose some people can do this subconsciously, but those who are very good at dealing with paradoxes more likely work very hard at keeping this type of thought process in the conscious mind. In other words, they not only know about paradoxes, but they deliberately choose to use that knowledge in situational scenarios.

In my years of observing different leaders in the fire service and in government in general, I have witnessed the occurrence of paradox more than you might think. Too much focus on one or the other side of the paradox has also occurred.

As if you're reading a menu, take all of your choices out of the first side of the paradoxes: belief in oneself, passion for the job and a compulsive desire to be liked by people. That, in and of itself, is a formula for a workaholic who could be destroyed easily by excessive workload and unhappy constituents. On the other hand, a person who is plagued by doubt, waits for the opinions of advisers, and feels totally isolated when making tough decisions is an indecisive person driven by analysis-paralysis. Such people may not feel they can share either reward or recognition with the very people who make them successful.

If you take only one side of the three paradoxes as guidelines for behavior, it's easy to see one word we often relate to positions of authority: ego. Ego as it is otherwise characterized in organizations is based on a leader acting above all of those in the organization. This me-first mentality can often succeed in specific, highly structured scenarios.

A proper sense of ego also can be associated with strength, the ability of a person to distinguish between individual wishes and desires and the needs of the organization. People with ego strength operate from a position of confidence, not arrogance. Ego strength allows a person to feel good about him- or herself while respecting, even admiring, qualities in others that allow the group to succeed.

Leaders not only understand that there are paradoxes in the exercise of leadership, they accept them as part of the chemistry of leading other human beings in a worthwhile effort to make a difference.

Although I haven't repeated that bulletin-board paradox list, I can't help but close with one of its items: “People who try to do great things in life will continuously be attacked by those who would prefer to be petty. Do great things anyway!”

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With more than 40 years in the fire service, Ronny J. Coleman has served as fire chief in Fullerton and San Clemente, Calif., and was the fire marshal of the State of California from 1992 to 1999. He is a certified fire chief and a master instructor in the California Fire Service Training and Education System. A Fellow of the Institution of Fire Engineers, he has an associate's degree in fire science, a bachelor's degree in political science and a master's degree in vocational education.