In today’s complex organizational systems, paradoxes are considered an everyday occurrence. A leader’s cognitive ability holds substantial role in facing paradoxical tensions, as this can influence individual and organizational performance. Though paradox scholars have more often acknowledged that navigating paradoxes influences leader’s cognitive resources, how leader’s cognitive resources are influenced remains unclear. We draw on data from semi-structured interviews from 38 corporate executives (who experience paradoxes of regulation-innovation and) heading product/service departments of large size international telecom firms. Our findings suggest: (a) innovation and regulation as a paradox; (b) paradoxical leader’s cognitive resources reinforced as they perceive tensions as opportunities, while navigating paradox of innovation-regulation (c) once cognitive resource generation reaches its peak, it tends to start depleting; and (c) this process of regulation to depletion is gradual. We present a cognitive resources utilization model. Our findings suggest further theorizing of the cognitive resource theory, as our results show slight deviation from the existing knowledge, which suggests that confronting paradoxes may take a toll at leader’s cognitive resources. Furthermore, while our theoretical model extends long held theoretical assumptions, our study suggests that merely considering paradoxes as mentally taxing is not enough. We indicate new directions for the paradox theory.