“Influencing people and events positively”: That is what leadership is about, explained the management consultant and business coach Peter Baumgartner at the final panel discussion on “Leadership and fairness in times of crisis”. While good management consisted of “delegating” in earlier times, today leadership is a highly complex activity, emphasized burnout advisor Evelyne Hubert-Reitan at the economic forum of the Tolerance Talks. Simply distributing tasks is not enough to cope with globalization, densification, competition, digitization and, currently, a pandemic. Leading means being a diagnostician, conducting dialogues and enriching them with ideas. According to the expert, change management is currently a big topic, because change must not be at the expense of people. “It costs a lot of money when employees end up in a burnout”, warned Hubert-Reitan. Changing processes, rethinking business models, setting priorities and taking employees with them – managers are constantly faced with responsible tasks. “They also take their responsibility very seriously,” said Iris Straßer, head of the corporate carinthian network “Responsibility”. The most important ability that defines a manager is that he likes people. “Because communication and trust are crucial. Growing into the task is important.” Managers are not born as managers,” stressed Straßer. In any case, good expertise alone does not make a successful manager. “Managers are brought in because of their technical expertise and thrown out because of their personal performance,” said Günther Tengel, Director of management consultant Amrop Jenewein, quoting his experience. That doesn’t seem entirely fair, but fairness is possibly an overused, hollow requirement in the business world anyway. Tengel pointed out that Apple, the most valuable company in the world, does not have the best reputation in this regard.
