Multilevel nested paradoxes: How organizational leaders interpret and manage tensions

Abstract Organizational actors face multiple paradoxical tensions that are not only intertwined with one another but also nested across different levels of the organizational hierarchy. Despite their importance, little is known about how such paradoxical tensions are interpreted and managed by organizational leaders. To explore this phenomenon, we conducted semi-structured interviews and collected multilevel data from 38 respondents, including corporate executives, team leaders, and managers in the Pakistani telecommunications sector. Through an interpretive phenomenological analysis of participants’ lived experiences, we developed a multilevel nested paradox model. This model revealed four paradoxes nested both within and across levels: task efficiency and employee well-being, individual interest versus institutional interest, ethics and profitability, and empowerment and accountability. The tensions arising from customer demands, followers’ expectations, and organizational requirements lie at the intersection of the levels occupied by followers, team leaders, and corporate executives. Our model shows that tensions at one level exacerbate tensions at other levels, and through this transmission process, paradoxes generate a constellation of paradoxes. The study’s model suggests that leaders manage these nested tensions by applying a combination of splitting and integration strategies, dynamically sequencing and distributing responses across levels. This study contributes to the underexplored research on paradox multiplicity and deepens the understanding of paradoxes as a meta-theory. We also highlight several important theoretical and practical implications of this research.