Führungskräfte auf dem Meditationskissen – eine Investition in die Führungskultur bei Bosch

As a result of our fast paced working environment managers are constantly faced with high requirements, which leads to a high stress load. These can impact their professional and individual achievements negatively. The following practice case is illuminating “mindfulness” which plays a highly decisive role in facing these challenges. In the automotive electronics (AE) division at Bosch interventions have been developed, in which “mindfulness” is in the focus. In this case, concrete topics of the interventions are examined, as well as questions about how and why this procedure is useful. The results of the evaluation show, that even when requirements remain high, the perceived stress level of each individual participant is reduced. Moreover we observe an increase in the ability to concentrate and in productivity.     

Die Dynamik von Führung, Vertrauen und Konflikt in virtuellen Teams

The importance of virtual teams for collaboration of globally networked organizations has long been debated. But although this new form of division of labor appears in nearly all companies, which poses special challenges to managers and team members, scientific findings and recommendations have not sufficiently been integrated into practice so far. This article discusses on the one hand the challenges and opportunities of virtual teams, on the other hand wants by the presenting of scientific findings both provide food for thought, as well as concrete recommendations for implementation in practice.     

Mindful Leadership: Sind achtsame F��hrungskr?fte leistungsf?higere F��hrungskr?fte?

In the last years, mindfulness became the focus of increasing research interest in the health sciences. More than hundred studies highlight the positive impact of mindfulness based interventions on a variety of health relevant parameters. Mindfulness became a well-established intervention in clinical and non-clinical contexts such as stress prevention, substance abuse treatment or relationship counselling in couples. The concept has until now not received much attention in business contexts; implications and applications in this field are highlighted in this article. In particular, it is described how mindfulness may help leaders and managers to perform their tasks more successfully and in a much more relaxed way.     

Führung virtueller Teams

Thanks to an ever-advancing technology and the ensuing development of new media, the boundaries between private and professional life become rather blurred, with digital tools enabling affordable, easy and fast communication, cooperation, organization and production. Organizations everywhere are recognizing the possibilities and benefits to be derived, and are developing cross-border work models to accommodate the new “economic world order”, where nothing is bound to a stationary, existing location anymore. Prime targets are, in particular, virtual teams, whose team members predominantly communicate by information and communication technologies (ICT). There are, however, new challenges to face and solutions to be found. What exactly lies ahead of us? What factors are key to a successful virtual team? Where do present virtual teams stand, and what will future virtual teams look like? The global management consulting firm Hay Group in collaboration with FKI – Führungskräfte Institut have asked both experts and leadership in a survey to share their opinion (N = 289). The results of the survey have shown that virtual teams are a very common form of cross-border work and will gain importance in the future. Furthermore, those six factors determining the success of a virtual team in particular degree, could be identified by the survey. Worth mentioning here in particular are the development of trust and the team leader.     

Macht und Führung

The article highlights the relation between leadership and power in organizations. Paradoxes and dilemmas related to the power endowment of the leadership role are analyzed from a systems-theory perspective. The article closes with recommendations for the shaping of the supervisor role.     

Klassenführung und Gruppendynamik in der Grundschule – Eine empirische Untersuchung zur Popularität und Trivialität von Klassenführung

Teacher surveys indicate continued intense discipline problems in elementary school classes. What can you do about it? As the teacher behavior has a strong relationship with active cooperation and misbehavior of students, a skillful group or classroom management of the teacher for an undisturbed instruction is important. However evidence suggests that some in the research literature as particularly relevant documented behaviors hardly appear in teachers’ subjective theories of reducing discipline problems. It is therefore presumed that the level of awareness regarding these insights is low in elementary schools and that it is difficult for teachers to recognize their extraordinary relevance solely by teaching practice. The present study tests this hypothesis on a sample of 101 elementary school teachers. The potentially far-reaching implications of the results are discussed.     

Etablierung einer Vertrauenskultur zwischen Führungskräften und ihren Mitarbeitern/Mitarbeiterinnen

Trust is considered to be fundamental for satisfactory social relationships. In organizational systems, trust is also necessary, but sometimes neglected and underestimated. Considering young adults (millennials), trust and its power as a social resource seem to be highly relevant for the future: In public perception young adults show low involvement and commitment, for example in social or organizational assignments. But, participation and commitment are closely linked with the experience of trust. Authentic and fair behaviour as well as presenting oneself as a role model are crucial to promote a culture of trust between leaders and employees. To outline this, a leadership-model for promoting commitment and participation by trust actions is presented.     

?Kollegiales Coaching‘ in der Führungskr?fteentwicklung des Landesdienstes

Despite the fact that coaching is since long time established as an instrument of human resources development for senior management development, especially in business and politics, there are still needs for clarification and support at the management level in the federal public services like the administration, justice and police. Target group of a scientifically monitored pilot project initiated by the formerLower Saxons University of applied Sciences for Administration and Judicature has been the middle management levels of administration, justice and police. In the following article the model of ??Cooperative Coaching?? is being introduced as well as selected project results. Moreover its compatibility with different company cultures will be discussed. The organization immanent aspects played a role as well as the Person-Centered approach, those can be influenced by applying adequate methods and dynamics.     

Effektive Führung heterogener Teams

This article in the journal “Gruppe. Organisation. Interaktion. (GIO)” analyzes theoretical and empirical findings of international research on the role of leadership in diverse teams. While practitioners often tend to expect primarily positive effects of team diversity, research has revealed both positive and negative consequences on team performance. Thereby, realizing positive outcomes of diversity appears to depend on additional boundary conditions; among these, leadership is often considered to be crucial. According to our analysis of the literature, established leadership styles (e.?g., transformational leadership, LMX, leader consideration) may contribute to increased performance of diverse teams. In addition, they will be most effective when leaders perceive and treat their followers as individuals rather than as members of a (sub-)group and when they carefully adjust their behavior to the most critical diversity attribute in the team. Based on these results, we provide practical implications for leadership in diverse teams and discuss how adequate leadership skills can be systematically developed in organizations.     

Auch im Netzwerk tobt das Leben – zur Relevanz mikropolitischer Prozesse in virtuellen Kooperationsverbünden

In this paper the concept of micro-politics is linked with the field of inter-organizational, predominantly virtually organized networks. Building on results from research on both politics and network governance constitutive situational, personal and action-based factors of political influence processes in network settings are identified and affiliated with each other in a theoretical model. In addition, options and limits of a micro-political approach to virtual network settings are discussed and first recommendations on a meaningful formation and organization of networks under a political perspective are given.     

Wie fühlt man sich in einer virtuellen Arbeitsgruppe?

Participants of a virtual seminar have been examined and compared with participants of a real-life seminar using a questionnaire by Ardelt-Gattinger and Schlögl (1998) which measures emotions as well as norms within groups. In both settings, participants scored higher on positive than on negative emotions and group norms were perceived in a similar way. A closer look at means and standard deviations reveals a high inner-group-variance for items dealing with rivalry or anger, which shows that some students were less satisfied than others. ?Free riders“ and ?drop-outs“ seemed to be responsible for feelings of insecurity and anger of the others. Participants of the virtual seminar liked their group members more and showed lower variance on that dimension than real-life participants. Intensive social contacts may have not been expected before and so afterwards they were valued higher (than they would in a real-life-setting). Participants of the virtual setting rated group conformity of medium intensity, which could be responsible for a reduced feeling of commitment or security, leading to varying intensities of involvement in the group.     

Das TIMP-Inventar – Ein Beitrag zur ökonomischen Erfassung von Kern-Faktoren salutogener Führung

Occupational health management and science increasingly focus on the issue of health-promoting leadership. Meanwhile a lot of leadership behaviors have been identified that affect the health of employees. To measure them requires high costs. Therefore, the aim of this study is to identify core-factors of salutogenic leadership and to operationalize them for an efficient diagnosis. As an integrative work-related indicator of employees’ health sense of work coherence (Work-SoC) was chosen. In a deductive and inductive process the TIMP-inventory has been developed that enables the economic assessment of three leadership dimensions: Trust, Incident Management and Pressure. These factors explain with less items more variance of the Work-SoC construct than established general and health-related leadership scales of transformational leadership, consideration, social support, demanding leadership as well as positive and negative health behavior. That is why the TIMP-factors can be recognized as core-factors of health-promoting leadership.     

Aufstiegsf?rderliche Führung – gut für den Aufstieg, schlecht für die Gesundheit?

The present study introduces the concept of career-supportive leadership within the contradictory context of career success and psychological strain. We describe four dimensions of career-supportive leadership: delegation, feedback, trust and promotion. In addition to positive relationships with career success, we expected negative relationships with psychological strain and work-home-interference because career-supportive leadership provides resources which might buffer the effects of career-related demands. In a longitudinal questionnaire study with 581 participants of different organizations we found mainly delegation and promotion to be positively related to different indicators of career success. Referring to psychological strain and work-home-interference, feedback was found to be protective. We discuss research prospects as well as practical implications.     

Digitalisierung der Arbeit: Konsequenzen für Führung und Zusammenarbeit

In this paper, we focus on the characteristics and requirements of digital leadership and cooperation when teams are working on complex and dynamic project tasks, and cooperation is mediated by modern information and communication technology. Based on current research results we discuss the question, whether the thesis can be supported that leadership of complex digital teamwork can only be successful if leadership functions are delegated to the team and personal leadership is complemented by structural leadership. Despite many ambiguous research results regarding the effects of digital leadership current findings seem to support that more shared leadership in self-managing project teams seems to be helpful for team performance.     

Gelassenheit und Handlungsfähigkeit durch Introvision als Methode der mentalen Selbstregulation – eine Einführung

Introvision is a new method of mental self regulation. Its development is the result of a long term research program at the University of Hamburg headed by the author. Introvision aims at resolving inner conflicts and mental blocks and hence regaining equanimity and a clear mind in difficult situations. It is based on the assumption that inner restlessness is the result of cognitive affective introference, a process of overwriting cognitions which entails selectively linking them with increased arousal, tension and inhibition. Introvision aims at extinguishing such automatic introference in two steps. Step 1 entails finding the core conflict by a set procedure which is based on the theory of subjective imperatives. In step 2, the subject is asked to focus his or her attention on this cognition without actively introfering with it awareness of-what-is in order to extinguish the automatic Interference coupled with this cognition. This method needs to be practiced beforehand over a period of several weeks.     

Nah der Wissenschaft und fern der Führung in einer Fach‑/Expertenlaufbahn?

In order to motivate and retain technical employees, representatives of strategic career management face the challenge of establishing alternative career paths in addition to the common leadership/management career. Surveying a sample of 629 doctorate holders from the STEM fields, we differentiated between five career paths within and beyond structured career models. Structured career ladders were predominantly present in major enterprises. Female participants less frequently reported to be part of a structured career path. Entering a leadership/management career seems to occur at a later stage compared to other paths. Generally, advancement on a leadership/management path was related to stronger increases in incentives than climbing up the technical/expert or project management ladders. Contrary to our expectations, we did not find members of a technical/expert career to work closer to basic research and their initial qualification than their colleagues on other career paths. Members of leadership/management paths reported to have significantly more leadership responsibility than those working on alternative paths.     

Was bewegt weibliche Führungsnachwuchskr?fte? – Typische berufliche Anliegen aus der Mentoringpraxis anhand von Fallgeschichten

The present work aims to illustrate mentoring processes for future women executives. Typical concerns of future women executives and how female mentors provide support in coping with these concerns are presented. Based on qualitative interviews with 5 female mentors, 18 mentoring cases were reconstructed. The analysis led to the identification of four categories of concerns: 1) job starting, job changing or career advancement 2) compatibility of job and family 3) acquisition of leadership skills 4) handling a disadvantage in the career evolution due to the gender. Nine functions were observed, which the female mentors take into consideration by handling such a case. At this juncture, it became clear that they support the mentees primarily with concrete and direct advice.