Hello from Hamburg,
Jobs are being lost across the industry, entire sales markets are collapsing, artificial intelligence is turning business models upside down and changing work processes. Many companies are currently undergoing major restructuring with an open outcome. Every day, managers find themselves squeezed between business requirements, unsettled employees and their own search for direction. "I don't know where my head is anymore." "Everyone is overloaded." "How am I supposed to explain this to my people?" "How can I get employees to understand that things can't go on like this?" Not a fair-weather time for leadership.
So far, so challenging. But how do managers learn to master their major tasks? Seminars provide essential tools for everyday leadership: "How do I resolve conflicts?" "How do I conduct employee appraisals or appraisal interviews?" "How do I give good feedback?" "What are the elements of successful communication?" I have noticed that more is important now:
- Encouraging myself and others to speak more clearly. Becoming a leader is more of an imposition than ever: I expect myself and others to lead me. If this is to succeed, I have to make peace with some truths: I have to respond to the needs of employees and, on the other hand, show boundaries so as not to become a ruin of human conformity, as Reinhard Sprenger once called it. When I solve problems, I violate interests. When I try to serve interests optimally, I achieve compromises. Compromises are rarely effective in an entrepreneurial context: "Because we don't want to lose Thomas because of his expertise and despite his lack of understanding, we are building the organization around him." Because I can't guarantee employees their jobs, I inevitably disappoint them. With every decision I make, I restrict freedoms that I can't turn into a sense of well-being, even through persuasion. As a manager, I am constantly creating new conflicts. This is as unavoidable in the interests of the whole as it is right to say to a team member: "If you can't let go of your traditional way of thinking, we won't fit in with you anymore."
- Allowing space, despite the temptation for actionism. Former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt once told me that when he was in office, he met with writers once a year for a day to discuss issues with them. As chance would have it, this day in 1977 coincided with the hijacking of the Landshut airliner by Palestinian terrorists, who wanted to blackmail the release of imprisoned members of the German terrorist organization Red Army Faction (RAF). Despite the borderline 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 extreme emergencies so that he could discuss with dissenters in peace. I think we can learn from this: the best support we can give managers now is to give them space to reflect with themselves and others. About questions like: What do I perceive in my team? What do they need more or less of from me? How can I remain confident? Or more fundamentally: If we were on a greenfield site, how would we position ourselves today? A retail company has made confidential rooms available to its managers in small groups of eight managers from different areas of the company, so-called leadership forums. Every second Wednesday afternoon for three hours, remotely if required, moderated in turn and occasionally enriched by suitable external impulses.
- Generate robustness. Numerous studies show that individual leadership seminars that are isolated from day-to-day business are ineffective. Managers are strengthened on an ongoing basis if they are able to continuously deepen the skills they have learned through coaching and mentoring in their day-to-day work. One biotech company has followed Helmut Schmidt's example and holds leadership forums with sociologists and psychologists to provide social and psychological context in times of upheaval: "I feel better because I can better understand what we are all about," commented one participant.
Managers need a positive attitude towards uncertainty: "Now it's up to me. Now I can shape things." 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.
