Updates & insights
Learning about intimacy in dementia care
Menschen mit Demenz werden zu 80% von ihren Angehörigen betreut. Meist sind es Familienangehörige, die sich um Sohn, Tochter, Mutter oder Vater kümmern. Die Fähigkeit, Bedürfnisse nicht unmittelbar auszuleben und sozial auszubalancieren, geht Menschen mit Demenz oft im Verlauf ihrer Erkrankung sukzessive verloren. Sie äußern ihre Impulse deshalb häufiger viel direkter als wir das erwarten.
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Care: INQA Coaching funding can help small and medium-sized care providers find innovative solutions
Challenges in the care sector — skills shortage, time pressure, high sickness rates, high turnover, quality issues, too little time for training, physical and mental strain, reliance on agency staff…
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Digitalisation in adult education
Digitalisation in adult education — The term "adult education" describes non-vocational learning for adults. Unlike vocational training, offerings for volunteers are usually central…
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professore.de is the e-learning specialist
Our e-learning expertise — In business, public administration and academia it is increasingly important to present topics clearly in electronic form and enable didactically sound, sustainable learning…
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Understanding leadership — reading recommendations
Here I provide reading recommendations with original sources that help understand leadership and management. In following blog posts I will often refer to these sources…
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INQA Coaching: A new funding programme for small and medium-sized enterprises
Current challenges for SMEs: digitalisation, demographic change, sickness-related bottlenecks and skills shortages — the technological and staffing challenges for companies are many. Above all…
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Manager feedback as a tool for HR development and quality management
Good managers are in short supply. People given “personnel responsibility” often land in a supervisory role that has little to do with leadership. A management seminar is then usually tacked on…
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Industrial relations and co-determination
Industrial relations are the foundation. Managers need to understand rights and duties arising from employment contracts, collective agreements and co-determination law…
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Book: Praxiswissen Führung
My book provides foundational knowledge for anyone who wants to engage seriously with leadership. It offers reflection for managers and HR leaders and encourages questioning your inner attitude…
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Behavioural change? Not helpful!
On 23 Sept 2017 Stephan Grabmeier published an interview in the Haufe blog favouring behavioural change for reshaping companies. Manipulating behaviour through material incentives is dangerous — here is a response:
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Workplace health management: employers and works council must act together
Workplace health management is in companies' own interest. People are a non-copyable resource; their experience and skills are unique and…
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Understanding leadership – Part 20: Organisation shapes people (and vice versa)
In recent posts I explored images of human nature and how we "construct" others so we get what we always expected—also in organisational culture: which organisation needs which employees?
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Understanding leadership – Part 19: Humanistic image of humanity
In posts 15–18 I explored images of humanity that shaped leadership thinking for a century. Depending on how I see "people", I will…
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Understanding leadership – Part 18: Theories of human nature by McGregor
McGregor rightly assumes every leadership decision rests on assumptions about human nature and behaviour. He shaped two opposing assumptions about people…
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Understanding leadership – Part 17: Taylorist image of humanity
Taylorism and vertical division of labour (see post 12) are still widespread today. Although social conditions in Western Europe have moved toward democracy and co-determination…
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Understanding leadership – Part 16: Images of humanity according to Edgar Schein
Schein's (1965) typology of images of humanity is widely known in the literature. HR developers know it by heart. Schein distinguishes four groups of hypotheses about…
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Understanding leadership – Part 15: What is your image of humanity?
Our image of humanity shapes our social behaviour—it shows how we see "people". We perceive real people through that grid and act accordingly…
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Understanding leadership – Part 14: Leadership best fit
Lessons from history: how leadership in industry and services has changed sharply over 150 years. Depending on economic, political and social…
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Understanding leadership – Part 13: Do you lead bureaucratically?
People as task carriers: in the 1920s the bureaucratic-administrative leadership approach spread worldwide from Germany. With its principles and methods…
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Understanding leadership – Part 12: Grasp the principle of division of labour!
The term "division of labour" barely appears in today's Work 4.0 debates—it seems antiquated, belonging to the steam age. Yet in the age of social media and the "internet of things"…
Learn moreUnderstanding leadership – Part 11: Do you understand Taylorism?
After discussing psychological and social foundations of leadership in recent posts, this turns to organisational principles of leadership and management that changed the world. Why…
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Understanding leadership – Part 10: The influence of leaders
I believe debate on decluttering structures and new HR approaches would move faster if leaders' influence were better understood…
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Understanding leadership – Part 9: Leadership as social construction
When I think my boss is "great", they are not great as such—I interpret them as "great". I follow interpretation patterns imprinted since birth, shaped by my…
Learn moreUnderstanding leadership – Part 8: Do you behave rationally?
Can our behaviour be "rational" at all? Do leaders assess staff on rational criteria? How objective are appraisal talks? Using the model Human Behaviour in…
Learn moreUnderstanding leadership – Part 7: The company as a social system
"Company as social system": Want to know how interaction, vicious circle and clinch work (Part 6)? Join the next posts on a journey into…
Learn moreHCC guest post: What does leadership cost, Mr Winterkorn?
An intervention by Prof. Martin Schütte (Human Capital Club) sets out leadership principles from employees' perspective…
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Understanding leadership – Part 6: Leadership in clinch and vicious circle
Vicious circle: eventually leaders have the employees they deserve and employees the leaders they deserve. Companies also get the board—and works council—they deserve…
Learn moreUnderstanding leadership – Part 5: Charismatic leaders and the "saviour archetype"
The leader as charismatic renewer. After the hero archetype, the saviour—styled as charismatic renewer with devoted followers. Transformational leadership critiqued…
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Understanding leadership – Part 4: FIGHT FOR US… the "hero archetype"
Hero myths come from war stories. The hero saves the day, fights dragons, passes trials—almost invulnerable and lonely in greatness…
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Understanding leadership – Part 3: THE ONE UP THERE… the "father archetype"
We all know the patriarchal leadership style—the 1950s boss who jovially cared for "his people". Many ideas of leadership still stem from this father–child image…
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Understanding leadership – Part 2: Archetypes
Relationships are shaped by primordial images—Jung's archetypes—still active unconsciously today (cf. Jung 2011…
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Leadership today – Bosch abolishes individual bonuses!
Bosch has done its homework on motivation: Stuttgarter Nachrichten report individual bonuses will end—they do not motivate, says CEO Denner…
Learn moreUnderstanding leadership – Part 1: Forget leadership styles!
When I took over "personnel leadership" as a professor in 1995 beside technology assessment, I thought it would be easy. The library was full of…
Learn moreUnderstanding leadership – leadership knowledge every Friday
Guidebooks offer tips on leading and letting lead—storytelling for coaches, selling seminars—but rarely solid leadership knowledge…
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