Leadership is most successful when it combines mastery of the tasks involved
and a leadership personality that can move the people working at the company.
There are the leaders that sow seeds of growth. And this is only sustainable if
the manager also acts according to ethical and moral principles. These aspects,
together with appreciation, resource orientation, inner convictions and an ability to
make contact are the necessary conditions for effective and systemic leadership.
And allow me to say it once again: the effectiveness of leadership stands or
falls with the systemic thinking and acting on the part of the leader. That is
ultimately the personal insight that I wish to contribute to the leadership debate
with this book.
4.1.1 Typical Factors That Disrupt Modern Leadership
A modern approach to leadership development must start with the right learning
areas. If we consider the complexity of today’s leadership, it has much to do with
organizing cooperation that spans national borders, geographic regions and time
zones. And unfortunately leaders often have to deal with a number of cooperation-
related disruptions, e.g. in the form of demoralizing framework conditions.
If the leadership of a team or cooperation in a team is not working, usually one –
or more than one – of the following 13 problems is to blame. If a leader succeeds in
recognizes these factors, he or she can get the exchange of information back up and
running by moving the decision-making process forward and restoring the effec-
tiveness needed for cooperation.
- Communication problems
More than one person speaks at the same time. The others cannot understand
what was said. Group members who are less assertive and glib and speech are
not given a chance to speak and refrain from putting forward their arguments.
As a result, information is lost. - Authority problems
One group member will be listened to more because he or she ranks higher in
the hierarchy. The boss is always right, even if he or she knows nothing about
the problem at hand. More refined social skills, forcefulness personalities, and
sometimes even physical appearance often mask a lack of expertise, informa-
tion and arguments. Inappropriate factors gain influence and hamper or taint
group decision-making. - Relationship problems
Relationship problems between the group members mean that information and
arguments are not listened to or taken into account. Relationship problems are
transferred to the content level. This happens along the lines of the inner logic:
“I don’t like the other person. Therefore I will ignore or underestimate their
factually sound arguments, just because they come from them.”
192 4 More Than Just Talking or: The Instruments of Systemic Leadership