Date of Award

2026

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Business Administration (DBA)

Department

General Business

First Advisor

Ying Chen

Abstract

Leaders often face tough choices: supporting employees versus hitting organizational targets.  But what if it’s not an “either/or”?  This study investigates how organizational leaders navigate the persistent tension between employee well-being and organizational performance in ever-changing work environments.  Oftentimes, these priorities are viewed as competing.  This study, however, explores how leaders manage them as interdependent, leveraging paradoxical thinking and paradoxical leadership practices.  While the body of research in this area is growing, it remains limited in its understanding of how these dynamics are actually enacted in practice.  An exploratory qualitative interview design was employed using semi-structured interviews with 30 senior organizational leaders across a range of industries and organization types.

The findings identify five themes that describe how leaders effectively manage these competing demands: reframing well-being and performance as interdependent, making competing demands visible through transparent communication, balancing psychological safety and accountability, clarifying priorities while protecting capacity, and continuously recalibrating leadership in response to shifting conditions.  These themes inform a conceptual model that is comprised of four domains -- cognitive integration, relational alignment, behavioral execution, and boundary management, which are all supported by the process of dynamic recalibration.  The findings offer actionable insights for organizations and leaders to develop leadership approaches that sustain performance while supporting employee well-being over the long term, particularly in complex organizational environments.

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Available for download on Monday, August 28, 2028

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