Leadership Teams

Challenge

Leadership teams are like a microcosm of the organisation, in which individual emotions, group dynamics and dialogue between powerful people interact with each other in complex ways. The challenge of management teams extends far beyond the mere fulfilment of objectives. In the paradox of everyday life, it can quickly happen that decisions are made about “right” or “wrong” instead of coming to harmonious next steps together through intuition and resonance. Or contact is avoided instead of sought due to devaluation, power struggles and unfavourable shared experiences. It is not only the results that suffer from such patterns, but also the individual team members.

Guidance on an equal footing

My focus for your leadership team is on the perception of the group process. We work on your team patterns by first creating a safe space for exchange and interaction. With increasing security, there is then more freedom to observe the team patterns you have created yourself. This makes it possible to talk about role allocation, emotional interpersonal situations, ways of achieving goals and uncomfortable issues. I support you in better understanding your own team, initiating change and enabling growth. I work in an impartial manner and address what I can feel in your team and what might be relevant.

Leading consciously together:
mastering paradoxical situations, feeling connected, creating something new

Relevant questions for leadership teams

How do you as a team try to achieve the common goal?
What patterns of interaction have you developed over time?
What is the balance between the goals of the team members and those of the organisation?
Are there unresolved conflicts or tensions that affect the group dynamics and how do you deal with them?
What about trust or mutual support in the team?
How can individual personality contribute to the team dynamic?
How does the team deal with weaknesses, mistakes, uncertainty and fears?
How do the team members experience their leadership and how does the leadership experience itself? And what can the team be proud of?
What feedback and self-knowledge would you like to receive?

Important aspects of collaboration:

Where does the team development take place?

I work with management teams on site, directly in the meetings themselves or in external retreats. It is crucial that sufficient time is available to constructively question the fundamentals and work out changes where necessary.
How does a team development process start?

I always design the exact setup together with you and customise the process to suit your situation. I usually start by holding substantive preliminary dialogs with everyone involved and then making my analysis available to everyone simultaneously and on an equal footing. Another option is that we start together by collecting all the individual views relating to your current team situation.

Depending on the size of the team, I bring in trusted advisors.
How does a team development process work?

The workshop design is often developed in co-creation with you. It is important to realise that a design only serves as an initial idea for the workshop. In order to use the time together in the workshop as effectively as possible, the original plan can be changed in favour of important emerging topics – in my experience, this is regularly the case, as I respond to your group dynamics.
How long does a team development process take?

Especially when it comes to building trust and relationships, this process takes time. A one-day team event is not enough – it can only serve as a prelude. I often accompany teams over a longer period of time with regular meetings and interim reflections with the client.
Which methods do I use?

In my team development sessions, participants come into intensive personal contact – usually through dialogues on relevant topics, self-reflection with subsequent collection of perspectives from all participants and live work on current challenges. It is crucial that we bring you current situation to life.

My approach to team development is a mix of the following methods: group dynamics, theme-centred interaction, liberating structures, systemic coaching, agile tools, transactional analysis and mediation.

I orientate myself on the metatheory of change by Klaus Eidenschink. Specifically on team dynamics with its guiding processes and their polarities: Goal setting, goal processing, interaction patterns, team maintenance, team boundaries and team reflection. Diagram: Team dynamics / In detail: Team dynamics in metatheory

Conflict dynamics become relevant when conflicts occur – diagram: Conflict dynamics – in detail: Conflict dynamics in metatheory.
In which languages do team developments take place?

I speak German and English.
What is important to me when working with you on team development?

It is particularly important to me to work with you in a spirit of trust. You don’t get any generalised concepts or recipes from me, but I pay particular attention to what you need individually, how our relationship and that of the team members develops and where our joint process is heading. Carefulness and joint interim reflections help us to harmonise and fine-tune.

References

I have worked with clients from various industries and company sizes:

AOK*

Biotest*

Bischof + Klein

Caritas

Computop

Datev

Deutschlandradio*

Eberspächer*

Fiducia*

Fraunhofer

Internationaler Bund

Malteser

Media-Saturn

Minimax

N-Ergie*

Radio Bremen

Rehau Group / Meraxis

Schnellecke Logistics

Siemens*

Stadt Nürnberg

Teambank

Volksbank

in collaboration with co-operation partners

Thank you very much, Mr König. With your calm and very focussed manner, you manage to create commitment. Thanks to your support over the past six months, we have become capable of dialogue in the management team and can discuss solutions with each other instead of entering into conflict. You have given me and my team new motivation for our growth.
Managing Director - Social Economy