“Expanding our leadership skills beyond care and control” (Structures and interactions to explore the magic of understanding each other)

Guest Speaker: Ulf Brandes (Berlin)

Background – The magic of understanding each other

Key factors in successful organisations include a high level of trust and harmony within a team. This depends on the prevailing “people skills”,  particularly those of the nominated leader as a role model. Many of these skills in turn depend on our self-awareness and understanding of those around us.

However, the reality of our experience as leaders is that whilst we understand the range of desired behaviours of our role – ranging from exercising a measure of control to offering kindness – the actual application of suitable behaviours in various circumstances with consistency and fairness remains a continuous challenge.

Inevitably far from experiencing serene harmony, tensions and conflicts irk our lives. As an example, we all know so well how much kindness matters. Yet it can be hard to be kind in stressful and pressurised times, particularly when tough KPIs are perceived as being a board’s focus and priority.

This workshop provides us with proven structures and interactions to explore “the magic of understanding” that precedes and obviates conflict and resolution at both work and at home.

Workshop Content

This session builds on Ulf’s workshop last summer where we explored how emotional leadership can influence mindsets and how this is rooted from inside us. This time he asks: „How can we shift more easily from command to connection, and practise kindness in our professional and private relationships with greater ease, thus building bridges, and avoiding stokIing up conflict even further?“

To this end, we’ll have the opportunity to evaluate practical structures and to discuss perceived quality in relationships. From the wider picture of both Western and Eastern wisdom, we will deepen our understanding of systemic roots of relationships and look at family and ecological systems.

We’ll also discuss practical systemic principles to shift culture more permanently as applied to our own professional and private lives.

Executive Summary and Outputs –In this interactive workshop, we will:

• Explore and reflect on proven structures and their transfer into our everyday work and private life.
• Get to know useful indicators of contact and relationship quality and the science behind them so that we can better manage our own behaviours as leaders.
• Dip into the wider picture of understanding & conflict, roaming Eastern world views as well as Western Psychology and Ecology.

Keynote Speaker Profile

After an MSc in Physics and Behavioural Economics Ulf spent 15 years in international innovation, digitalization and transformation leadership at Procter & Gamble, PayPal, and three start-up SMEs.

For the past 10 years Ulf has developed his own consultancy to help organisations change the way they work, by building capacity for more agility, resilience, and future-fit, facilitating transformation from within. During this time Ulf has inspired and led cultural change in hundreds of organizations as an independent facilitator, author and film maker.

Ulf lives in Berlin, Germany, with his wife and their three sons.