We each long for certainty – the security of simple answers.What, for example, are the specific qualities that make us morelikely to be successful? Companies spend millions of dollarstrying to define the key competencies for specific jobs. Researchers seek to pinpoint the qualities that distinguish topperformers from everyone else. The more time Ispend working with leaders at other companies, and leading acompany of my own, the more convinced I've become that theparadoxical key to great performance – and leadership – is thecapacity to embrace opposites. Stoic philosophersreferred to this as the mutual entailment of the virtues. Novirtue, they argued, is a virtue by itself. Even the noblestvirtues, standing alone, have their limits. Honesty in the absenceof compassion becomes cruelty. Tenacity unmediated byflexibility congeals into rigidity. Courage without prudenceis recklessness. As Gregory Bateson put it: “There is alwaysan optimal value beyond which anything is toxic, no matter what:oxygen, sleep, psychotherapy, philosophy.” Instead, operatebest when we embrace our opposites in each of the four keydimensions of our lives: Read complete article.