pointing more reliably upwards and a stable “ongoing crisis” has set in, the feeling
is spreading that there is nothing to celebrate anymore. Everyone is waiting for
a better tomorrow, and entire businesses are in a nervous permanent mobilization
for the future. Or the individual employees are emotionally “already gone” because
they feel that they could lose their jobs at any time anyway. The here and now, the
“we” doesn’t count. But it does – actually, it’s the most important thing.
It is at celebrations that the employees feel again that they are all sitting in the
same boat and are pulling together. They feel that they are appreciated by
the company’s management, that they are really the most valuable “capital” of
the company, and that the company is ready to go to some expense to ensure they
are happy. Celebrations offer communication platforms outside of the copier-room
or coffee kitchen and open up (time-) spaces for meetings. “Celebrations create
anticipation for what lies ahead of us, allowing us to expect a change for the better”
(seeHandelsblatt, August 13, 2004). This positive team spirit that people can refuel
at celebrations motivates them more than anything else. It gives a meaning to
overtime and sets a sense of (positive) self-fulfilling prophecy in motion. As
Sprenger has put it, “Nobody lives for achievement. We all live for the superfluous,
for the surprises, for the little bit of luxury, for the splendor that festivities every
now and then lend to our lives. Festivals are part of the identity of a company. For
the grand stories, without which cooperation and cohesion are impossible.” And he
is absolutely right. Even small successes are reason enough to enjoy each other’s
company and celebrate the performance of others. Celebrations spread a feeling
of wellbeing, community and security.
3.2.9 Leading Means Having Power
Today the word “power” has a clearly negative connotation. It suggests fear and
sounds like manipulation, abuse, arbitrariness and despotism. For this reason many
leaders, however, refuse to see themselves as powerful and to openly exercise
power. But even democratic leadership is not without power. Power is a motor,
as Peter F. Drucker once put it, and power is the basis of decision-making and
responsibility. Especially young leaders often fail to fully use their capacities
because they don’t yet understood the positive dynamics of power or haven’t
yet developed the necessary instincts to obtain power and to exercise it, as John
P. Kotter notes.
To put it very clearly and unequivocally: even systemic leadership is based on
power, because without power you cannot claim leadership or enforce decisions –
you can do nothing. If managers on the one hand deliberately sacrifice their own
stability in order to give their employees freedom and to spark change, at some
point they will have to regain the stability they have lost. In large organizations
powerlessness may be a bigger problem than the exercise of power. Consulting and
coaching for managers must aim to give them more power or to give them a sense of
their power.
3.2 Leading with Your Head and Heart 175