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good afternoon today I want to share
with you my leadership
Utopia and when I was discussing this
with a friend of mine he was asking
leadership in
Utopia would we even need leadership in
Utopia isn't Utopia finally the place
and the moment where we can get rid of
all of these leaders and live free well
I don't know I think in uh Utopia there
will be humans hopefully and if they're
humans they will hopefully still be
social beings as well and whenever there
are social beings they come together as
well and form sometimes groups sometimes
organizations as well and when there are
these organizations then I think the
words of Peter draa are true only three
things happen naturally in
organizations friction confusion and
under
performance therefore you don't need
anything but everything else requires
leadership so I do think also in Utopia
we should look at a leadership but the
question is what kind of leadership
should we look at the hero model of
leadership where the shining star is the
ideal person I don't know today I want
to explore with you a different kind of
leadership and for this I want you to do
a little thought experiment think about
the best leader you have ever worked
with take a couple of seconds think
about that
person what did he or she
do say and so
on now all of you will have experienced
other people but I would dare to say I
don't think you will have things like
well you know the way that person yelled
at me in the morning that was excellent
that was that was just brilliant the way
and I wanted always have more probably
not probably that person would have done
different things and I want to explore
that together with you now I do think
leadership is an interesting thing and
sometimes it's over glorified but
whenever you you become a leader and I
had the chance to lead small teams large
organizations nonprofit profit
organizations whenever you become a
leader you have like a Rendevous with
reality leadership is a bit like
parenting right you have all these
visions and ideas what you will do and
then you're in the moment and then what
I would call the leadership problem
formula kicks in and probably the people
you have thought about just as second
ago have mastered this formula what does
that formula look like every leader and
every of you who has ever been in a
leadership position might have face
these challenges I think every leader
faces the leadership problem formula and
that goes TLT times people times
power first one is TLT which for me
stands for too little time there's just
not enough time to do things and you
can't pass it around oh somebody will
take care of it no it's you and then you
need to do something and what many
people then fall back in is what I would
call The Headless Chicken syndrome they
run around and say oh no no you do that
you do that you do that you do that and
that might then not be the greatest
leadership then comes as well people all
leaders have to deal with people and for
me I'm always reminded of my very first
official leadership position more than
10 years ago so I would have my first
direct reports and the first direct
report was coming into the room and I
had it all lined up I had the vision I
had the team spirit I had the story to
tell basically and that was a very
assertive young gentleman who came to me
and said L that's all nice but I have a
question for you actually I studed the
email policy of the company and you know
I have a motto I live by and I always
include this and I have this for the
past five years I always include this in
my email signature can I do this as well
in this
company and there I was with all my
stories and with all my vision and so on
I was like what is that what leadership
is all about so was studying the manuals
for two hours and so on finally we said
okay let's go ahead with this one but
everybody who's ever leaded will see
like it's not always about the Glorious
and shiny things it's all about the
little things the little discussion that
we have to do the last element is power
that's an interesting one there's a very
interesting study done University of
Berkeley in 98 and they brought in
random students and selected them
randomly in groups of
three and from these groups of three two
of them had to do a two-hour assignment
and one of them was randomly assigned to
be the
supervisor and then as social science
experiments goes there was a special
twist to it at half an hour the
researchers then brought in
cookies and of course it was
videotaped and then they observed what
happens actually there they had some
hypothesis and sure enough the people
who were randomly assigned to be
supervisors significantly at more the
cookies but not only this they actually
left significantly more of the
breadcrumbs as well on the table like
I'm this and it was very visually
measurable and that it shows after 30
minutes of random status higher status
this power thing kicks in it's something
within as in humans and I think that is
also something to be need to take care
of now I do think these are the cassic
leadership problems that are not very
often taken care of but I think in a
Utopia we need to address those so how
do we do that what is the way out for
this one I think we need to travel back
in time actually almost 18 1900 years to
Rome to a person called marus
aelius now some of you might know Marcus
aelius Marcus aelius is one of the
predominant figures of the stoic School
of philosophy the stoics like the Zen of
the West
almost but Marcus orus is interesting
for leadership because he was running a
little like you know little side
business also on the side he had a
little side job in Moonlighting he was
and that's why on the Statue he's also
you see in there on a horse as well he
was at the time as well on top of being
a philosopher he had the side job of
being the emperor of Rome at the
time and the historian William Irvine
calls him actually the true Beacon of
enlighted leadership he was supposed to
be one of the last of the five good
Kings of Rome now Marcus aelius what we
know of him said things like this the
happiness of your life depends on the
quality of your
thoughts he said so act virtuous use
your time well and be cheerful then when
you drop from life's tree you will drop
like ripe
fruit now can you imagine these words
being Ed by some of the leaders like
Trump and so on today most likely not
really what did he do and we know a
couple of things that were transmitted
from this one I think that is a sign for
Utopia leadership that we can dive into
he was focusing a lot of his time on an
field which I would call Self leadership
leading oneself first before going out
and leading
others and I think that in my leadership
challenge has helped me enormously to
actually face some of the challenges of
the leadership um formula that I've
shared with
you the founder Visa de hwan said if you
want to lead invest at least 40% of your
time in leading yourself first before
you go out to others now now how do you
do that and what I want to share with
you are a couple of strategies that I've
tested that I've worked with and so on
to really try to see what can we do with
that field of self-
leadership the first strategy and the
first field of self- leadership that is
out there is self
awareness when you become a leader it's
actually some of the crucial things to
be self-aware of yourself but it's
getting more and more difficult any of
you have ever been a leadership in a
leadership position if you've ever asked
tried to ask for feedback that's not so
easy h you ask like hey team hey group
do you have some feedback and very often
what you encounter is this
silence like in these ancient western
movies with these dust
balls come on some feedback yeah
brilliant everything's fine and you know
no that's not right well there I mean
you're signing the the the paycheck
basically and they're like no great
brilliant now there are some ways on of
course to learn to ask also for better
feedback but one of the things I thing
every leader can do is to check that for
themselves and one of the tools that I
have is what I would call the character
traits check a character traits check
you can do that on a rainy Sunday and do
the following ask
yourself for example what was the worst
leader that you ever had and then think
what your face does then with this this
is me reflecting upon this and then go
further and ask like what did he or she
do actually to be such a worst leader
did he yell or did she yell or did he
maybe withhold information when I was
was doing this exercise I was like well
that bad leader withholding information
and here comes now the trick and this
tool give yourself a score from one to
five for yourself how good are you for
example at sharing or withholding
information how bad are you at this one
and for me that was like
oh I'm actually not very good at this so
what is my plan to move that up to
become very good at this one because we
what we find bad in others very often
resonates also with ourselves one of the
key things to do from time to time but
if you do that you will see also the way
Trail effect you do that the next
morning you're fully engaged but then
like one of these trails at the
beginning it's very sharp but later on
it goes it fades away and that's why
what you can do is a strategy that
Marcus aelius did every day and that is
self-reflection taking just a couple of
minutes during the
day and thinking about the challenges
that you have achieved but also that you
are maybe about to have during the day
Marcus radios was famous for doing that
in the night for me this five minute
reflection sometimes in the evening
sometimes off in the morning going to
pan having a quick coffee and then just
opening my black book and just asking
couple of
questions what are the challenges that
I'm about to say how did my leadership
go yesterday how would the leader I
would like to be do and face the
challenges that I'm about to face today
then asking this and putting this answer
in just one or two minutes of those
actually the interesting studies
University of California just one or two
minut minutes of those can help raise
your your compassion level as well for
others and maybe beat that cookie
problem that we've talked about easier
earlier as well
before self-reflection 2 to five
minutes and then we come to the last one
and that is self-regulation you know
you've done your awareness you've done
your reflection but you still will
encounter the moments you will still
encounter the meeting the the
discussions that you have where people
come in who've promised you yes I will
do everything I will have everything
ready and they come in the room and say
and let's talk it like let's talk
what the report you said it was ready oh
oh sorry I don't have this and all the
other things the people who challenge
you think they should be on your side
and you should be on the other side and
so on and all these moments where that
you will face as a leader when these
moments you think that stop doing this
do what I told you now this is of course
not the best leadership but how do we do
best through that self-regulation and
one tool that has helped me enormously
is what is called
reframing reframing is a simple tool
where you think like when you have this
this coming up like
I want you to know you stop and ask
yourself for one to two seconds well on
a scale from 1 to 10 how important is
that issue right now with 10 being
really my life goal so to speak where is
that if it's a 10 well then you better
engage really fully in it but maybe very
often it's more like a two or three and
so on and that reframing that taking a
step back can help you enormously and
actually addressing the situation small
strategies small things but what I would
encourage you to do is think about this
when you have a leadership position
invest this time in self-awareness
self-reflection self-regulation and
self- leadership in general before you
go out and Lead others because very
often we hear about leadership like
people want to lead others we want to do
everything but why not start first
leading
yourself I think if we all did this this
will lead to leadership Utopia that we
can strive for and I think we can start
all by doing now and hopefully if you
all start doing now and some asked in 10
20 years maybe in our Utopia the
question who was the best leader that
you've ever worked with then maybe they
think of
you thank you