NEWS July 2018 / ARGO news Nr. 26
TIME FOR STRONG LEADERSHIP
What is special about great leaders in the 21th century? Are there strong alternatives to autocrats, demagogues or populists?
Open Minded Leadership – Strengths as out-of-the-box Leadership.
Author: Ron Thoma
In part 1 the superficially successful concepts of our present time and their consequences have been described. Part 2 shows different models of acting and thinking. The „Dunkle Triade“ ( “dark triade”), described in part 1, a bundle of subclinical personality traits of psychopathy, narcissism, and machiavellism, leads to a self-centered, callous manipulative relationship and leadership style.
Photo: Gajus /Adobe Stock
This in itself contained leadership, meaning leadership without openness concerning other points of views and new possibilities, is extremely dangerous in the designed VUCA world. Open Minded Leadership differs fundamentally from this understanding of leadership. Open Minded Leadership treats the I, the YOU and the WE equally. Therefore, communication happens in all directions. Such a three- directed leadership concept doesn`t understand
itself as hierarchal even though there are, as always, different areas of responsibility. Anyway, the attention is not rigidly directed at one direction, but can be explained with a 360 degree all-round view: The view goes to the inside and outside, to the left side and right, up and down. One could say, an Open Minded Leader sees himself and his direct environment as a ball and this in a turn is a larger ball. It acts equally in all directions. This forward-looking, flexible way of leadership can`t be achieved or be kept without multiple relationship skills. It works only thanks to reciprocal interactions which define, form and build the relations to each other and which nourish and develop each other mutually. Modern leaders create such resonant relationships by creating and maintaining a completed and balanced relationship to themselves, their customers, employees, owners, as well as to friends and family.
4 factors of success... ...which characterize the personality profile of sustainable Open Minded Leaders:
Holistic sense of perception Mindfulness, meaning attentiveness of what is going on in myself and in other people. OMLs allow questions like these to „run along“ in the background, evaluate their intuitive answers on a day to day basis and include these answers in their action control: • What happens in a project or meeting between the lines? • How is the atmosphere within the team, which resources are available? • Which reactions do I feel with me? • Which own parts encourage me and others to do something or not to do it?
Differentiated decisiveness The ability to make decisions and to be proactive. OMLs are continually expanding their professional and personal skills to be prepared for this set of behaviors: • Decisiveness appropriative concerning style and content • To form an opinion, to represent it and to inspire others • To take over responsibility for steps or actions • To take the appropriate stand if it is necessary
Entitled trustworthiness Confidence and confidence building through courage to make the first step OMLs initiate trusting relationships thanks to advance performance and form trusting networks: • To research and use their own personal resource space in difficult situations • To meet people and situations with visible and tangible confidence, to give the environment an advance of trust, to encourage and to let act • To act transparently and fairly, as well as openly acknowledge mistakes • To help others to make new contacts and give these new interactions scope So Open Minded Leadership is about establishing the ability to move one‘s mindset between open and closed mode, not to say swinging, letting, see multiple worlds side by side and let them stand, and then in the spirit of the matter or vision be able to build viable bridges between all worlds. The flow of creativity from which this succeeds requires developments on three levels:
1.
2.
Resonance through communication at all levels (body language, language, voice, attitude, breathing, sound, dynamics, etc.)
3.
More about it in the book: Ronald Thoma, Nana Walzer: OPEN MINDED LEADERSHIP, published in the LIT-Verlag, ISBN -13: 978-3643508133
Targeted openness Transparency and clarity concerning values and expectations OMLs offer themselves in their entirety in order to be available, tangible, comprehensible and orienting by: • Naming own values and make them transparent • Explaining oneself in what one expects and offers • Giving traceable backgrounds for decisions and dates • Making own perception, interpretation and emotionality qualitatively traceable separately
Awareness through perception at all levels
(body, mind, emotion, behavior)
(Co) creation through cooperation
at all levels (with yourself, your immediate counterpart, colleagues, team and employees, the company, social environment, etc. by creating suitable resonance rooms, time windows and moods)
In company, OMLs create a working atmosphere in which employees can and want to develop their competencies - fully - in the best sense of the word. The results from this succeed through the formation of a resonance chamber with complete success. Through successful experiences, through which they also get recognition, people are willing to do much more than before and go the „extra mile“. Their self-motivation is much higher than it would be in another system. Such an open mindset also helps OMLs to anticipate upcoming challenges and to design soft-core solutions. At the end of the day - and life - the best possible results with the best possible quality of life can be achieved.
The following media In May 2018, ARGO carried are especially helpful out an ARGO radar on the subject and supportive: ARGO has developed a queue of new accesses concerning the spectrum of “Digitalisierung & Lernen – new contents up to creative formats: was macht Sinn?!” Of course, emotional intelligence, a central working model of ARGO, will (“Digitalization & Learning – remain a key competence in the digital 70% A complementary new focus of what makes sense?!”). Following, in Documents as world. our work that supports especially with Download challenges of agile organizations and keywords are the main results. the digital time, is the topic resilience.
We are happy to send you the complete results on request! 1. The influence of digitization is experienced above all in the type of communication in general, in dealing with customer requirements and in structures and 68% processes. Negative indicators can be found due to Explanatory increasing burden of time pressure and constant videos accessibility. 2. Desirable learning content to cope well with this development refers above all to general personal competences such as flexibility, openness to new ideas, communication or teamwork as well as general willingness to learn – IT fitness is expressly perceived as only a partial competence. 64% 3. Concerning learning formats, digital media are a Blended Learning meaningful support in learning, but can`t replace the personal exchange of experience in face-to-face events. Preferences regarding different digital methods become clear and stand out from private uses.
86% feel the effects of digitalization very clearly or clearly in everday life / their professional environment.
communication in general
19%
7%
constant availability
21% type of
within strucures and processes
11%
increasing time pressure
9%
ways to respond to customer requests
Digital Media and Learning Methods.
78%
consider digital media to consolidate the learning content in everyday life extremely helpful.
74%
aboard
believe that digital media will not replace face-to-face or classical training in the long term.
Stress management has always been a central topic but in the past it has often been handled equally with resistance to stress.
The image of the pillar of strength, on which everything bounces off, is too rigid, if seen as a sole model and too burdensome in the long term, especially in times of increasingly dense impulses, requirements and changes. Here, the bamboo principle of resilience, the resonating and reeling back into its original form, is the complementary and healthier metaphor. ARGO works with “Resilienz-ZirkelTraining nach dem Bambus-Prinzip”®, a resource-oriented access to resilience, with the certified consultants Bernhard Gattermeyer, Jakob Riser, Christian Rumpler and Barbara Thoma.
57%
RZT® Resilienz-Zirkel
facts
July 2018 / ARGO news Nr.26
Digitally supported self-study programs
Targeted contents and a format that is future oriented connect the „Project: Moment of Truth“, following the ideas of 54% Flipped Training: Where classical maUpstreams nagement relationships dissolve in agile organizations and lead to new forms of cooperation, or even where new leadership is required in traditional structures, it is time to think about the new moments of truth. Where, in which situations, is success or failure of a cooperation defined? How competent do I design these critical moments?
There is always something happening in the office of ARGO: Bea Kubalek tops up hours and is available for our clients now five days a week. She is the contact partner for our customers on questions concerning accounting and seminar organization. We are afraid that we have to do the project support without Carina Graf for some time as she is expecting her second baby. Anyway, we can congratulate our former trainee Sara Haberl for the successful completion of her exams and we can welcome her as the representative during the time of her colleague’s parental leave. We are happy that familiar faces in intimate quality are supporting our customers and projects.
(continued from P. 3) When these moments have been identified in a
company-specific way, documents are designed and transmitted to the participants for self-learning and self-research. Specific questions check the learning performance and ensure consistent basic competence for the training. Only then, in one-day presence units and small groups of participants, the critical behavior is intensively trained according to the MoT. Each participant exercises, each participant receives feedback, each participant reflects and gives continuous feedback! Individual supervisions anchor what has been learned and what has been experienced in everyday life. That way learning is turned upside down: Knowledge transfer is no longer carried out in the seminar, but resource-saving depending on needs and prior knowledge, but on one’s own initiative. Attendance time is used to maximize the critical behavioral aspect of the MoT – that is Flipped Training! Barbara Thoma will happily provide you with progress reports. Another resource-optimized format, especially in international projects, has been developed by Matthew Strauss: For an US Company, with executives all over America and Europe, an innovative idea of a virtual platform has been chosen which reduces additional travel and accommodation expenses to
a minimum. The frame of the development field was set in a personal kick off meeting. Based on this, two-hour Online Group Meetings and One-to-One video coaching followed. Each participant experimented in „Development Sprints“ between the coaching sessions. In close coordination with and supported by the commissioning executives, this program was handled as the essence of agile working with complete success. The ARGOnauts also use the Online Group Meeting tool as a platform ; ) A modern tool to deepen necessary contents is presented thanks to our cooperation with an offender of tailored LernApps (learning Apps): Contents of learning can be accessed via an app on the move and deepened in a playful competition in exchange with other users. Especially for young employees, the gamification of the central content is a learning incentive!
outlook
• ARGO talktime As every year, ARGO invites to join the ARGO talktime in the Almgasthof Baumschlagerberg. The date is 8th to 9th October 2018 and the topic of the event: „Resilienz – Ressourcen nutzen in der VUCA Welt!“ („Resilience - use resources in the VUCA world!”) Invitations will be sent within the next few days! Barbara Thoma & Bernhard Gattermeyer are looking forward to these repeatedly exciting two days!
social
• PzM Summit 2018 From 13th to 14th November 2018, the 16th Process Management Summit takes place in the Orangerie Schönbrunn. Again, ARGO joins this with a presentation and a seminar: Matthew Strauss explains the meaning of Coaching as the pillar of leading culture in organizations in the presentation “Coaching für Process-Excellence, Qualität, kontinuierliche Verbesserung und Agilität“(“Coaching for process excellence, quality, continuing amendment and agility”). In the seminar: “Kommunikation is a Hund” (“Communication is a dog”) Oliver Bender & Patrick Thom present basis models for communication analyses and they help to significantly influence between success and failure due to the understanding of communication dynamics. We look forward to your participation. We raffle 10 tickets among our clients! The new ARGO cuvee 2016 is ready! The group, led by Ronald Thoma and Dieter Bernhold have complied, in sacrificing turns, a Cuvee from Zweigelt, Merlot and Cabernet Sauvignon. Allow yourself to be amazed!
imprint Barbara Thoma ARGO Personalentwicklung GmbH Heiligenstädterstraße 31/ Stiege 1/ Top 602 1190 Vienna tel +43-1-369 77 00 mail: b.thoma@argo.at
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