The essentials in 30 seconds:
→ Bad leadership rarely comes from bad people. It comes from pressure. Often self-made.
→ Four levers we worked through today: catch anger early, show direction, let people grow, stop sitting on things.
→ In the end it all came down to one thing: communication. Not as a slogan, as a tool.
This week: a PhD leadership-skills course at the UZH Graduate Campus. 36 degrees in the room. I built myself an air conditioner, a fan plus a wet cloth. We sweated anyway. And we thought, sharply.
One sentence ran through the whole day, and I'll put it in large type on purpose:
This isn't an excuse for bad bosses. It's a diagnosis. Once you see that most leadership failures aren't a character flaw but pressure, a system, an expectation, you suddenly have a lever. Character is hard to change. Pressure isn't.
Four things we worked through today
Catch anger before it boils over
Don't swallow it, don't explode. Notice the anger early and give it a shape before it reaches the team. Leadership here means being a buffer, not an amplifier.
Show direction, even when you're unsure yourself
Nobody needs to fake certainty. But giving a direction, even in the fog, is the job. People don't follow a perfect answer, they follow a clear movement.
Let people grow instead of fixing them
The urge to "fix" people misses the obvious: most grow when you give them room and trust. Fixing makes people small. Letting them grow makes them strong.
Stop sitting on things
That's what it all came down to. The uncomfortable conversation, the overdue decision, the conflict in the team, what you sit on rarely gets smaller. It grows quietly. Naming it is almost always the cheaper path.
"Communication is the key." Exactly that.
Sounds like a fridge magnet. But it's the core. All four points above are communication at heart: catching anger is communication. Showing direction is communication. Letting people grow is communication. And sitting on things is the absence of it.
I had a real blast with these open, curious people. After the lunch break a few even brought me an iced coffee, at 36 degrees the finest compliment of the day.
The one question that stays:
What are you sitting on right now? In leadership, in your team? The thing you know about but have been avoiding for weeks is usually exactly where movement would begin.
What's stuck on your side right now?
30 minutes, no sales pitch. You tell me where leadership or the team is jamming. I listen, then straight talk. Often what looks like a person problem is a pressure problem, and that can be changed.