Background: As hybrid work has become an established form of organizing work, leaders are increasingly required to navigate complex and often contradictory demands across physical and digital work environments. Previous research has primarily focused on employee outcomes and leadership competencies in hybrid settings, while less attention has been directed toward how leaders themselves experience, interpret, and respond to the tensions how leadership is exercised under conditions characterized by ambiguity, distributed work, and competing demands.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to explore how leaders make sense of and navigate paradoxical leadership demands in organizations with hybrid work arrangements. The study aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of how leaders interpret and respond to contradictory and interdependent demands in their everyday work practice.

Method: The study adopts a qualitative research design based on semi-structured interviews with leaders working in organizations characterized by hybrid work arrangements. An abductive research approach was applied, combining empirical findings with paradox theory and sensemaking theory to analyse how leaders experience, interpret, and navigate paradoxical tensions in hybrid work contexts.

Conclusion: The findings show that hybrid work creates persistent paradoxical tensions related to autonomy and control, standardization and individualization, as well as physical presence and remote inclusion. Leaders continuously engage in sensemaking processes to interpret these competing demands and adapt their leadership practices accordingly. Rather than resolving tensions permanently, leaders navigate them through ongoing balancing, contextual adaptation, communication, and relational support. The study contributes to existing research by highlighting leadership in hybrid work as an ongoing interpretive process shaped by paradoxical and interdependent organizational demands.