Hello from Hamburg,
Jobs are being lost across the industry, entire markets are collapsing, and artificial intelligence is turning business models upside down and transforming workflows. Many companies are currently undergoing major restructuring with an uncertain outcome. Every day, executives find themselves caught between business demands, unsettled employees, and their own search for direction. “I don’t know which way to turn.” “Everyone is overwhelmed.” “How am I supposed to explain this to my people?” “How do I get employees to understand that things can’t go on like this?” These are not easy times for leadership.
So far, so challenging. But how do leaders learn to master their major challenges? Seminars provide essential tools for day-to-day leadership: “How do I resolve conflicts?” “How do I conduct performance or termination meetings?” “How do I give effective feedback?” “What are the elements of successful communication?” I’ve noticed that there’s more at stake now:
- Encouraging myself and others to speak more plainly. Becoming a leader is, more than ever, an imposition: I impose my leadership on myself and others. If this is to succeed, I must come to terms with certain truths: I must address the needs of employees while also setting boundaries so as not to become a “ruin of human adaptability,” as Reinhard Sprenger once put it. When I solve problems, I infringe on interests. When I try to serve interests in the best possible way, I end up making compromises. Compromises are rarely effective in a business context: “Because we don’t want to lose Thomas due to his expertise—and despite his stubbornness—we’re restructuring the organization around him.” Because I can’t guarantee employees job security, I inevitably disappoint them. With every decision, I restrict freedoms that I cannot transform into a sense of well-being, even through persuasion. As a leader, I constantly create new conflicts. This is as inevitable for the greater good as it is right to tell a team member: “If you can’t let go of your traditional way of thinking, we’re no longer a good fit for you.”
- To create space, despite all temptations to take hasty action. Former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt once told me that, during his time in office, he would meet with writers once a year for a day to discuss matters with them. As luck would have it, in 1977 this day coincided with the hijacking of the commercial airliner Landshut by Palestinian terrorists, who were attempting to extort the release of imprisoned members of the German terrorist organization Red Army Faction (RAF). Despite the critical situation he found himself in, and against the advice of his staff, Schmidt did not cancel the discussion with Heinrich Böll, Siegfried Lenz, Max Frisch, and others. He asked to be disturbed only in the most extreme of emergencies so that he could discuss matters with those who held different views in peace. I think we can learn from this: The best support we can give leaders right now is to provide them with space to reflect—both on their own and with others—on questions such as: What do I observe in my team? What do they need more or less from me? How do I stay optimistic? Or, more fundamentally: If we were starting from scratch, how would we set ourselves up today? To this end, a retail company has provided its leaders with confidential spaces in small groups of eight leaders each from different areas of the company—so-called leadership forums. These meet every other Wednesday afternoon for three hours, remotely if necessary, with moderation rotating among the participants and occasionally enriched by relevant external input.
- Building resilience. Numerous studies show that one-off leadership seminars isolated from day-to-day business operations remain ineffective. Leaders are continuously strengthened when they can deepen the skills they’ve learned through ongoing coaching and mentoring in their daily work. A biotech company has followed Helmut Schmidt’s example and holds leadership forums with sociologists and psychologists to provide a social and psychological context during times of upheaval: “I feel better because I can better understand what we’re all about,” commented one participant.
Leaders need to adopt a positive attitude toward uncertainty: “Now it’s up to me. Now I can make a difference.” This attitude is supported by the fact that employees are less afraid of change and more frustrated by a lack of clarity—even when they are confronted with uncomfortable truths.
