Systems Thinking Is Dialectical
Understanding the why isn’t a soft skill. It’s the entry point to everything underneath.
Brené Brown and Adam Grant talked recently about the iceberg model in systems theory. Observed behaviors sit above the waterline. Underneath are the protection patterns, learning histories, values, beliefs, and assumptions that generate those behaviors.
Most leadership development targets what's above the waterline.
And most fail to sustain change.
Address behavior without addressing what generates it, and the protection patterns underneath stay intact – producing the next iteration of the same problem.
Getting to what’s underneath starts with understanding.
Genuine understanding changes physiology under threat. Defensiveness decreases. Cognitive flexibility increases. And not just for the other person – for you too.
We don’t update our thinking under threat. We close. Organizations keep advocating for change through pressure and correction – and then seem confused when nothing shifts. I’ve marveled at this pattern for years.
I’ve watched it happen in leadership meetings repeatedly – someone raises a concern, another person immediately corrects the behavior, and the room closes. The position hardens. Nobody becomes more flexible. Everyone becomes more defended.
I’ve done this myself. Trying to correct behavior before understanding what generated it never produces the openness I think it will.
What actually loosens ingrained thinking is feeling seen by someone with a different perspective. It surfaces the fear underneath the position – the fear that’s been running the show. Name it, and the real work starts.
The core issue is binary thinking. Underlying beliefs sort the world into fixed categories – good/bad, right/wrong, safe/dangerous. Present new evidence, and the framework absorbs it into existing groups. The frame doesn’t change – it misreads the data.
The answer isn’t better binaries. As George Kelly says, it’s a whole new pair of goggles.
The beliefs don’t need to be updated. They need to be expanded.
Holding what is known while integrating what is learned – long enough for something new to emerge. Adam Grant calls this the scientist mindset. Marsha Linehan built an entire therapy on it.
Systems thinking is dialectical – the foundation of DBT.
Two opposing things, both true simultaneously. Synthesis – not victory – is the goal.
Contradictions are integrated, not eliminated.
Systems thinking means understanding – and validating – behavior in context. The parts only make sense in relation to the whole.
The prerequisite for rethinking is feeling safe enough to tolerate uncertainty.
Getting there requires patience, curiosity, and willingness to validate what’s true before asking for expansion.
We are both independent and interdependent.
Charles Swenson, a leading expert in DBT, recently connected this systems view to cell biology. A cell functions optimally when it's attuned to surrounding processes – adapting as needed to sustain life.
Humans function similarly.
We are in constant exchange with the world around us. Recognizing that we function in synchrony with others generates empathy – and clarifies what we can do together that we cannot do alone. It reframes identity as relational. External influences are seen as reciprocal.
The task isn't to explain behavior in isolation. It's to search for what individual explanations miss: the current environment, the learning history, and the social, economic, and political context that shapes how someone makes sense of the world.
This is what Regulated Leadership builds on.
The architecture of DBT addresses individuals, groups, and the systems that connect them. Regulated Leadership applies the same lens to organizations – examining how systems produce principle-behavior misalignment and building the conditions for greater alliance.
Understand your why. And help others understand theirs.
That's where the leverage for accessing underlying protection patterns lives.