These days I conducted job interviews for a middle ranked management position and one of the candidates was a young German of Indian origin – smart, structured, straight forward, with excellent social skills and high ambitions – basically someone you would hire on the spot for a middle management position. Although I knew that my [...]

Leaders who possess strong soft skills perform better at driving hard results while executives with weak interpersonal skills were rated poorly on their ability to deliver good financial results, especially over time, and received predictably poor ratings as people managers. These are key findings from a study by U.S. organizational consulting firm Green Peak Partners [...]

It is gender diversity that becomes one of the most critical drivers for business success in the Western world. This world shaped by a structural framework of aging societies and a desperate lack of technical experts and leaders. Once Western – mostly male – managers understand the issue and make it a top priority on [...]

A huge majority of CEOs worldwide (93%) say that sustainability will be critical to their company’s future success. Despite the recent economic downturn, leaders are more comitted to sustainability than ever before. These are the headline findings of a study among nearly 1,000 CEOs, business leaders, members of civil society and academic experts making it [...]

My key finding: we as society execute excellent research based leadership studies, know about excellent theoretical leadership models and communication methods and consider best practice examples of leadership we observe or hear about. Out of history and current research, basically, our societies know everything valuable about this very topic. Our whole knowledge of how to [...]

Loyalty is a great strategy for employees, customers, managers and business owners. It maximizes economic and emotional value. We all know that the long-term success of any company depends upon the quality and loyalty of its people. Succesful organizations are built on relationships. It takes time to develop social bonds with our employees, our customers, [...]

The ousting of Hewlett – Packard (= HP) Chairman and CEO Mark Hurd earlier on this month has been widely discussed in the business sections of newspapers and magazines all over the world. For those unfamiliar with the story, let me quickly recap the main points.
There was a claim of sexual harassment against Hurd by [...]

Demographic studies forecast a sensitive shortage of technical experts and managers in Europe in the next years, latest from 2015 on. The need for top talent in natural science, technology and engineering shapes the structural frame in which companies in Europe start to rethink their recruiting and development strategies for human capital. All of a [...]

The huge oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the biggest environmental disaster in U.S. history, lifted the veil off BP’s leadership face. It brought to light an ugly picture of irresponsibility, insincerity and non-caring leadership.
Over the years, the meaning of the abbreviation BP has changed. Originally standing for British Petroleum, the company came up [...]

During a recent leadership training running for four days I asked myself as a participant once again the everlasting question what leadership is? We were trained to function in a framework of conflicts and to serve existing structures with its rules and paradigms. The training dealt pragmatically with the cruelty of today´s business and showed [...]

Thailand is beautiful and so are its people. They are beautiful for their gentle and kind way to treat each other, for their sensitivity, for their smiles and for their mindfulness not to hurt each other. All these wonderful attitudes on the other hand are frequently causing many challenging situations in the field of leadership whenever the Thai and Western culture are supposed to form an effective unity. What are the reasons for this and why is caring such an important part of leadership in Thailand? Here is some insight into intercultural awareness and its implications.

The German football team has so far (we are at the semi final stage when I am writing this blog) clearly shown the best performance of all countries participating in the FIFA world cup in South Africa. The fast-paced style of attacking football that Germany has displayed in recent weeks can only be compared with [...]