Paradoxes for leaders Interdependent autonomy. As a leader, you are alone in your decisions. The structure of organizations creates loneliness at the top, so autonomy is required. On the other hand, if you fail to recognize that modern organizations are interdependent ones in which symbiotic relations are critical, you're prone to fail. You must mesh your efforts with others.
People look to the leader to provide the answer.
Yet no problem in a school system can be solved by the superintendent absent significant collaboration with staff and often those outside the system. Effective leadership requires a moral center. You must consistently demonstrate a high level of integrity in thought, action, and decision. But if you are inflexible in your values and thoughts so that you cannot fit with the organization, and if you are unwilling to listen and, at times, to compromise, then you are apt to be rendered irrelevant. The stresses of modern management will test your confidence to the breaking point.