Imagine you’re a senior leader in the UK government.
You’re responsible for digital services used by millions—tax filings, passports, benefits, licenses. Your first job: keep everything running. No outages. No scandals. No “oops” moments on the front page of The Guardian.

But there’s mounting, constant pressure to modernize.
Citizens expect sleek, mobile-first services. Agile is the buzzword of the decade. Your private-sector peers are iterating daily while your teams are still faxing forms and scheduling meetings about meetings.

So here’s the challenge: How do you lead when you’re asked to be both safe and bold, stable and experimental, reliable and radically different—all at once?

If you were in that chair, what would you do?

My Personal Connection

I became aware of this particular tension through public libraries in the UK.

At Niche Academy, we worked with libraries to help them highlight their digital resources and surface tutorials right on their websites. Simple, right? Not quite.

Because libraries are publicly funded, their sites operate under local council regulations and national digital standards. Even the smallest design tweak or new widget required navigating a maze of approvals and compliance checks.

I remember realizing: these libraries weren’t resisting innovation—they were constrained by a system built for standardization and accountability. The very structures that ensured fairness and efficiency also made it nearly impossible to experiment.

That was my introduction to this paradox—the tug-of-war between consistency and creativity, between control and curiosity.

The Government Digital Service

The UK’s Government Digital Service (GDS) was created in 2011 to tackle this very dilemma head-on. Their mission: make government services simpler, clearer, and faster for people.

But they faced a dilemma familiar to anyone who’s tried to modernize a legacy institution:
How do you bring agile, user-centered design into a world that measures success in risk avoidance and procedural compliance?

Rather than choosing between stability and innovation, GDS leaders decided to pursue both—deliberately. Interestingly, they followed the same pattern I now teach as part of The Leadership Progress Cycle:

1. Clarify the Goal.
They clarified at the outset that they needed to deliver services that were as reliable as they were radically user-centered.

2. Identify the Crux Barrier.
The real obstacle wasn’t technical—it was cultural. Risk aversion, rigid procurement, and departmental silos made collaboration and experimentation nearly impossible.

3. Experiment (Small, Affordable, Fast).

Rather than overhaul everything at once, GDS embraced an experimental approach that balanced bold ambition with controlled risk. Each initiative began as a limited, learn-as-you-go pilot, built small, tested quickly, and refined before scaling.

• GOV.UK began as a prototype replacing the government’s main Directgov and Business Link sites. The early team focused on one small proof-of-concept: Could they make a single, consistent front door for all government information? They built and tested iteratively—starting with a handful of services, measuring usability and response times—before merging hundreds of departmental sites into one. The first public beta launched in 2012, with progressive consolidation following only after data showed users found it clearer and faster.

• GOV.UK Notify, the government’s messaging platform, started in 2016 with a six-month pilot limited to a few central departments. During this beta phase, teams tested real notifications and refined the API based on live feedback. Only after it proved stable and easy to integrate did GDS open it to all of central government—and later, local councils.

• GOV.UK Pay, the payment platform, followed the same pattern. The GDS team built a small alpha prototype to test design, security, and integration with payment providers. Once early trials succeeded, they moved to beta, accepting a limited number of real transactions to validate the service before broader adoption.

These weren’t “big bang” redesigns—they were a sequence of tightly scoped, reversible experiments designed to generate learning at low cost. Each pilot delivered tangible value while revealing what needed refinement. Over time, the accumulation of these small wins added up to systemic change—proof that progress in complex systems rarely comes from sweeping transformation, but from disciplined iteration.

4. Measure Results.
All along the way, they measured what was working. The numbers created a compelling story.
Millions more digital transactions. Dramatically higher user satisfaction. Cost savings from shared infrastructure. But the quieter win was cultural—civil servants began to see experimentation as a form of stewardship, not recklessness.

Repeat the Cycle by Refining the Goal.
GDS evolved from simply “digitizing services” to reimagining the government itself as a digital platform—a common backbone for innovation across departments.

The Outcome: Innovation Without Instability

The results were striking:

• The UK rose to global prominence in digital government rankings.

• The GOV.UK platform became the single front door for citizens, replacing hundreds of inconsistent departmental sites.

• Platforms like Notify and Pay supported thousands of transactions and were reused across government, multiplying efficiency.

• Perhaps most importantly, agility became embedded in public service culture—proof that innovation and reliability can coexist when leaders intentionally hold both.

For those of us who’ve watched public institutions struggle to modernize, GDS’s story is more than a government case study—it’s a model for how leaders can navigate paradox in any sector.

The Universal Leadership Lesson

Every leader faces paradoxes like these.
Balancing innovation with reliability. Speed with stability. Empowerment with oversight.

The most common pattern is to pick one side. But lasting progress happens when we leverage the tension instead of escaping it. When we realize that every paradox is a productive tension between two necessary things that feel like opposites, but are actually mutually dependent. Innovative and durable solutions are always hiding in the tension between the necessary things.

How well do you leverage paradoxes?

Your own leadership strengths shape how you navigate these tensions—often unconsciously.

Take the Leadership Strengths Self-Assessment to uncover how your current strengths might be helping (or quietly limiting) your ability to harness paradoxes to find your own breakthrough solutions.