Polarity Management is a powerful technique for your toolkit. It helps us work through our own leadership biases and improve decision-making when both sides can be right. 

Let’s take today’s hot topic of unions—unions striking and unions forming. I’ve been in two unions since I was 25, Actors’ Equity and Screen Actors Guild. I’ve also been with hundreds of leaders who’d prefer unions didn’t exist. 

While only 11% of the US workforce is represented by a union, many increased membership by 10-20% over the last year. Petitions to unionize increased ~30% through the pandemic period. Recall Amazon, Apple, Starbucks, Trader Joe’s, REI, airline pilots, and the current screenwriters strike.

We cannot be relevant as leaders today without developing a morally neutral, both/and understanding of unions. Union/non-union is a polarity, two seemingly conflicting, interdependent opposites that coexist.  We must interrogate the upsides and downsides of each dimension, seeing it fully from its perspective.

Improve your leadership problem-solving and decision-making by thinking through the polarities you face in your work. A coach can help.