ABSTRACT

In this chapter, the authors shows the essence of the leader's task being to find the best possible position within each tension, as best he can, given the constraints and the opportunities of the moment. In order to describe the day-to-day reality which leaders experience and need to deal with during the phase of transition, the authors have come to the view that the reality is best represented as the balancing of a number of critical and unavoidable "tensions". The tensions are critical because they seem to go to the heart of each leader's approach to the multiple dilemmas and choices which confront him or her during this stressful phase. The tensions are particularly "live" during the transitional phase and live on throughout the leader's tenure. The tensions are unavoidable in the sense that the way each leader balanced the tensions, however consciously, would largely determine the outcome of the transition.