Part 2:
Positive Leadership in practice

5. The three dimensions of leadership

Part 1 has provided an overview of the concept we call “positive leadership”. It also discussed the principles of positive leadership in detail: meaning, confidence, and influence have been established as central guiding elements for new organisations and, as such, new approaches to leadership.

Part 2 will connect the two main topics – the tasks and principles of positive leadership – and illustrate how they shape and guide the practical application of the concept. Simultaneously, it will be necessary to evaluate and redefine these principles on the basis of practical experiences on a continuous basis.

Figure 17 shows the map of positive leadership, which will guide us through the following chapter and, hopefully, bring us a lot of joy at the same time.

Part 2 will grant you an insight into the personal experiences I have gained from applying the tools of positive leadership to my professional practice as a consultant. The following sections will focus on these three dimensions of leadership.

5.1 Leading oneself

The key task of leading oneself is continuous reflection on one’s own conduct as a leader. Reflection is a form of self-observation. It requires you to gain a critical, appreciative distance to yourself. It essentially assigns you the role of a spectator observing your own interaction with others. This allows you to gain new perspectives on yourself and your own behaviour. Reflection can be achieved by means of targeted and structured contemplation, external feedback, or questions.

Leaders who do not consider themselves to be central elements of leadership practice cannot relate to the impression they have on others. They do not know how their own behavioural patterns and subconscious, internalised movements influence their leadership and are trapped in these “blind spots”, which ultimately lead to a lack of understanding in many respects.

There are countless possible perspectives of self-reflection and self-observation. I would like to emphasise the three topics of reflection that I consider significant for the quality of management and positive leadership (cf. Fig. 18):

1. Reflection on one’s own person with one’s individual experiences, goals, values, patterns:

Which values and principles are important for me and my behaviour as a leader?

What do I want to achieve with my leadership work?

Which development do I want for myself as a leader?

What would others (employees, colleagues) consider to be “typical” of my style of leadership?

2. Reflection on one’s leadership role and others’ expectations from this role:

What do my employees, my colleagues, and my own leaders expect from me?

How do I know if my behaviour is out of line? How do others know?

How does my professional capacity fit into my personality, my values, my passions?

3. Reflection on the structure of one’s own work:

How do I divide my schedule between managerial and operative tasks?

How do I organise my work as a leader? How much time do I give myself? Am I always available?

How do I establish a foundation for my work as a leader? How do I obtain information and evaluations?

How do I design my employees’ work?

The framework of positive self-management also specifies a focus on one’s own energy: how can you supply yourself with energy or get your existing energy to flow?

5.2 Leading people

Leading people is primarily a communicative task. Every organisation requires people who perform work and supply performance. Communication serves as a medium for connecting people with the organisation and its goals, but also with other people within the organisation. Communication ensures the existence of an “emotional contract”, i.e. the commitment and connectedness of people with their organisation, and of the process of performance itself. The role of leadership, then, is that of a communication centre. Leadership creates communication, shapes it, and constitutes an important part of it. Communication is the central medium of leadership.

There are three dimensions to designing communication (cf. Fig. 19):

Direct communication refers to all direct interactions between leaders and other persons. Its purpose is to

give and receive feedback,

ensure that the relationship between the leaders and the other parties is positive and productive,

facilitate discourse and dialogue about important, open questions.

Direct communication establishes concrete relationships between people. It has an effect both in terms of content and on an emotional level.

Organised communication takes place in the formalised channels and settings:

“reporting lines”,

regular meetings,

rules.

Organised communication provides clarity and sets the rhythm of the organisation.

Informal communication is a self-organising form of communication that happens everywhere, at all times. It is part of what we refer to as a “shadow system”:

gossip,

informal networks, etc.

Informal communication is sometimes more powerful than official communication.

Positive leadership of people has the aim of recognising their potential, supporting it, and helping them to grow.

5.3 Leading the organisation

Every organisation is a context for work. Work and the long-term productivity of the organisation are therefore always at the centre of all considerations regarding the management of organisations. Leading an organisation always requires a keen eye on two topics, in particular: the “business” and the “organisation”.

In the context of delineating one’s own scope of responsibilities (which can be a department, an entire organisation, or a larger project), leadership always deals with complexity. The complexity surrounding organisations is permanently growing, which makes it particularly necessary to deal with highly uncertain situations confidently. Complexity is only a problem if it is disregarded or neglected and its potential is wasted.

Leading organisations involves decisions: a particular form of communication that allows the organisation to remain capable of taking action. Decisions are a tool for processing complexity in a way that ensures orientation and competence.

In any organisation, decisions are made constantly. I would like to emphasise three large topics that are relevant to organisations in the context of positive leadership (cf. Fig. 20):

Structuring leadership as a system: Reducing leadership to an individual person should be consciously avoided in organisational contexts. In organisations, leadership is a system whose tasks also include the structuring of leadership.

Organisational design: Leadership shapes the organisation which it leads. Today, we speak of “organisational design” as a means of shaping all elements of the organisation – strategy, structures, processes, systems – on the basis of clear principles.

Structuring change within an organisation: It has long become known that the paradigm shift is permanent. Leadership of an organisation means to ensure its effectiveness in the conflict between necessary change, on the one hand, and necessary identity and stability, on the other hand.

6. Leading oneself positively

6.1 Becoming an efficient leader

The role of leadership is complex and multi-layered. It is constantly caught between two stools: on the one hand, the organisation can rightfully demand that its executives represent its goals, interests, and values both internally and externally. On the other hand, its employees can demand equally rightfully that their leaders consider their requirements and skills and ensure optimal conditions in which to perform the work to be done. Of course, leaders themselves are only human, too: they have interests, emotions, goals. The leadership and the individual holding a leadership role deal directly with all conflicts of interest in their organisation.

In order to become and remain an effective leader, you must balance these contradictions and paradoxes as...