Blog

You don’t get to mastery by avoiding effort. You get there by making so much of it that, eventually, effort itself gets in the way. That is one of the strangest paradoxes of mastery. Athletes train for years so that, in the decisive moment, they no longer think about every movement. Musicians practice obsessively until […]

You probably believe your executive team has Psychological Safety. Most of my clients do. They’re fooling themselves. Not because people don’t speak up. Quite the opposite. Meetings are respectful. Feedback is encouraged. Different opinions are welcomed. On the surface, everything looks exactly as Psychological Safety is supposed to look. The illusion only breaks when someone […]

History doesn’t care how successful you were. It only cares whether you’re still relevant. I’m beginning to wonder whether Germany and many corporations in this country have misunderstood the nature of the crisis they are facing. We debate energy prices, labor costs, AI, China, tariffs, regulation, and bureaucracy. They all matter. But what if they’re […]

Our house is burning. Not metaphorically. Not someday. Spain is burning. France is burning. Across Southern Europe, forests, homes, and entire ecosystems are being consumed by fires intensified by heat and drought. Yet many of us still act as if climate change were an abstract debate about targets, technologies, and distant generations. I am not […]

We don’t have a talent crisis. We have a complacency epidemic. For years we’ve been told that talent is overrated and hard work is everything. It’s an attractive idea. It motivates people. But it’s also incomplete. Science tells a far more interesting story. Talent matters. People differ in cognitive ability, emotional regulation, creativity, learning speed […]

I’ve been sitting with a troubling thought for quite some time. A recent international study finally gave it a name.  More than 45,000 people across 53 countries were assessed on a personality trait called narcissistic rivalry - and Germany ranked highest.  Before anyone gets offended: this is not about clinical narcissism.  It is about something far more common - and, in my view, […]

What if some of the biggest problems in your life exist only because of the way you’re trying to solve them? The longer I work with leaders, the more I find myself wondering about that question. People rarely come to me because they lack intelligence, experience, or tools. More often, they are trapped inside a […]

The leaders I admire most all stopped saying, “I’ll make it happen.” Before you conclude I’ve become another coach who thinks ambition, accountability and performance are outdated, stay with me. Organizations desperately need leaders who step forward, make difficult decisions, take responsibility and deliver results. Without them, nothing gets built. Every successful executive goes through […]

Some leadership conversations on LinkedIn have become strangely disconnected from the economic reality I increasingly encounter inside Executive Board meetings. Too often, they reflect the mindset of prolonged complacency rather than the demands of structural disruption. I spend much of my time with Executive Boards, and one thing has become impossible to ignore. Behind closed […]

One day, death stops being an idea. It becomes someone you love. That may sound like an odd topic for LinkedIn. But it isn’t. I have been thinking about this a lot recently because I keep encountering it in my coaching. People reach a stage of life where a parent dies. A close friend receives […]

Many senior executives have learned how to perform leadership without ever maturing as leaders. I see it every week. They know how to ask coaching questions, how to deliver feedback, how to demonstrate empathy, how to practice Radical Candor. And yet beneath all those polished techniques, I still see the same fear, the same need […]

I have seen brilliant CEOs fail. I have seen others carry pressure that would break most people and still lead with remarkable clarity. If you ask me what separates them, my answer is not intelligence. By the time someone reaches the top, intelligence is almost a given. Four qualities make the difference: judgment, curiosity, decisiveness, […]

You have opinions. That’s okay. We all do. The danger begins the moment you stop holding them as opinions and start treating them as unquestionable truth. More than 250 years ago, Voltaire wrote: “Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is absurd.” I believe that sentence has become even more relevant today. Not because […]

Many organizations say they want younger leaders. What they often want are younger people willing to live by the assumptions of an older generation. Recently, I heard about the final contract negotiations of a woman who will join an Executive Board next year. She is in her thirties, has an impressive track record, carries international […]

If you’re sitting on an executive team, you already know which conversation your team keeps avoiding. The real question isn’t whether there’s an elephant in the room. It’s what it’s costing your team to keep feeding it. Most organizations respond with better communication, facilitation, offsites and team charters. In my experience, they’re solving the wrong […]