Leadership as a friend

 To understand the term of “Friendly Leadership” and what it means to me I would like to share my definition of a real friendship with you first.

When I ‘m talking about real friendship, I am not just talking about the old definition that comes to your mind when you hear the word ,,Friendship”.

It is so much more than just being there for each other and helping each other when someone is in need.

It is having fun and being excited, while making something happen together. It is being there for each other, even when the other person is in a crisis and prove what real friendship means.

So now you know more about my definition of friendship. But how can I now connect my definition of friendship with leadership?

I’ll answer this question with two words: Friendly Leadership.

This would mean:

• Almost all the time, dealing with you is fun and excited
• You accept swinging moods, irritating phases, sadden withdrawal etc. just like friends do
• You do have “blurred lines” to jump into personal topics
• You crack jokes, but accept jokes on you with equal magnanimity
• You are not afraid to question inconsistency or bad behavior
• You are happy to see progress of colleagues and are not afraid to show it
• Colleagues are happy to celebrate and throw a party for you for good news at work but equally for good news in private life
• Take great enjoyment in pulling legs, teasing quirky colleagues and mimicking styles of leading colleagues

While I wrote all this, I realized that it sounds more like the things we did, when we went to school or college. 

But let’s face it, everyone says it was the best time of his or her life.

I am not sure if you all can say the same about your time at work.

Do you?

New generation - new style of leadership

Last week I saw an article in a magazine about “Why trainings on leadership mostly do not work”. Immediately this title caught my eye and made me think of all my previous experiences that I had with several leadership trainings during my career.

 After reading this article, I got reflective over all the training sessions I went through in my life. Mostly I came out old cold after a session, realizing I have learned nothing new. Same old same old – all these standardized trainings, are they so effective?

 If so, I am sure all the leadership problems in the world that we see or hear about on television, in the newspaper or in the radio could have been solved already. Unfortunately we all know it doesn’t work like this. What could work better? 

What if we look at different styles of leadership and different ways how you can be a leader? Can’t every single leader have his/her own style, prefer his/her own methods and still be successful? The world and the economy have changed and with it also the definition of leadership, right?

Get rid of the old, stiff and standardized meaning of leadership and think more out of the box? Leaders can be successful and respected across with having several other, different leadership styles. There is not just one right way to lead a team, a department or even a company.

 Every single leader can have his/her own style, his/her own methods and his own approaches. In the end, the leader has to decide which style he/she prefers, what fits best for him/her, which methods are most likely to be successful and what works best in his/her work environment. 

All of these styles might generate the same output, even though the input, the approach and the strategy of the leaders are totally different. There are so many ways to lead, to be a successful leader and how to define leadership. How about, for example, friendly leadership? 

A way of treating your colleagues more like friends, being there for each other, being kind and nice to each other, trusting each other. In the next couple of Blogs, I will be telling more about friendly leadership, what it means to me, my thoughts on it and I will explain to you why friendly leadership can be just as successful as other styles of leaderships or may be even more efficient? 

If you are interested in the topic of leadership and want some inspiration…

 Subscribe to my Blog !😏