Contemporary Leadership

The challenges that executives have to face have escalated considerably over the last few years. On the one hand, they are confronted with increasing dynamics in the business environment, including ever-shortening developing and product cycles, mounting interchangeability of products, aggressive competition, financial turbulences and a growing interconnectedness and interdependency, creating a situation in which traditional management wisdoms and approaches will be bound to fail. On the other hand, dynamics within the company are speeding up at the same time, and the ability to learn and to change is constantly challenged. When combined, these external and internal factors will result in a climate of ambiguity and instability, leading to a dire need for strong leadership.

But what does good leadership look like these days? There are no patent remedies. But still, there are some essential requirements which become more and more important for executives if they want to efficiently embellish their role. In order to be able to do this, they do not only need basic knowledge about contemporary leadership instruments such as the yearly appraisal interview, they also need to critically assess their own attitude, their ability for self-reflection and answer the question if they found the right balance between leeway and control.

Increasingly, the ability to devise solutions based on “as well as” – in order to cope with ambiguities – is called for, replacing the classical “either/or” solution. Especially when it comes to shaping communication and change processes, executives often have to brave contradicting demands: They have to take into consideration soft as well as hard skills and factors, give room to different perspectives and approaches and efficiently use the potential of the situation while at the same time acting as decision-maker.

For us at cidpartners, the essence of leadership is the ability of an executive to provide for a reliable framework for the staff, enabling them to do their work, even if the business environment is a dynamic and turbulent one. We support executives and management teams in this task through analyzing their management skills, executive coaching or team development training, aiming to reflect upon, enhance and further develop their communication and leadership skills.

cidpartners supports managers in dealing with todays challenges by

• Analysis of business environment and stakeholders
• Analysis of concrete leadership behavior (360°, decision-making, communication)
• Individual executive coaching
• Coaching for mangement teams
• Development of individual learning architectures