today I did something pretty simple flew
to Tokyo got DS and something obvious
I asked colleagues and peers marketing
rockstars
who never sugarcoat things by the way
how they would describe my leadership
style so people with whom I’ve been
through the highest heights and the
deeper steps in the past years people
who saw me a tempered angry sad happy
motivated energized crazies like
basically every motion that you can
imagine so what would you tell your boss
if he’d asked you to describe his
leadership style to the great amusement
of my team I rolled with a title they
gave me which is the title of my talk
here today naked leadership oh wait
don’t jump into wrong conclusions about
my role or my industry for me this is
really a great compliment for me this
means being open being transparent
honest and vulnerable as a person and as
a manager and most importantly I feel
confident to lead my team by naked
leadership in the present and in the
future world of work a world full of
countless opportunities but also certain
uncertainty where only change is
guaranteed and dynamic increases rapidly
so we all will have to redefine our
career paths several times throughout
our lives and we need to adapt if we
don’t want to be left out pretty scary
thoughts right especially when you’re
German nerd like me whose thoughts his
five generations are running the
workplace technology is growing
exponentially and new possibilities to
get work done are created daily so we
are live in a world full of instability
insecurity and constant change as humans
with intent to ask for advice for
guidance and for leadership and we are
wired that way from the very beginning
of our lives have you ever seen that
little five-year-old child who feels
unsecured and and lost and then he
slowly reaches for your hand to be
guided and directed that is a deep sign
of trust trust that there’s someone whom
he can rely on whom we can guide so why
don’t we act like that at work
why don’t we trust each other there and
looking back at the journey I took with
the marketing team at at manpower group
without really consciously aiming for it
I think this was exactly what we did by
naked leadership we will trust in
ourselves and then in each other and on
that foundation everything is possible
so we developed the marketing from a
small team of five people that was
mostly known for handling giveaways and
running the Christmas campaign into a
high performance department of twenty
five connected specialists we are no
we are the digital and innovation
powerhouse that creates the new stuff
that makes our company fit for future
and we are copied with pride
internationally in our structure in our
campaigns and in our culture and this
transformation really took place at the
same time as my own transformation
starting with that company as a
half-baked working student into the
director of marketing communications and
digital and it brought me on TEDx stage
with this pretty cool
for us Trust is based on three
ingredients caring the ability and
integrity so let me start with caring
which is the backbone of trust in our
team when top management asked me to
become the new marketing team leader
knowing that if I failed I would fail
fast and cheap there were second
thoughts so what is the agenda of this
young man will you succeed does he even
care and I think especially this last
question does he care is crucial so you
cannot ask people to care about your
departments your company’s goals or to
Carib even about you as a manager if you
don’t value and respect them so first
you take care of your team your team
then will take care of you caring makes
the difference here but what does it
mean to care so you care by listening by
getting to know your people by being
approachable and naked leader does not
keep his guard at all the times he shows
emotions and he shows his feelings
caring means protecting and supporting
your team and difficult times it is
exhausting yes and it will cause you
sleepless nights but if you really care
you simply won’t be able to let your
team down but caring is not only about
the soft factors sharing responsibility
and challenging each and everyone to do
that one step further out of the comfort
zones is also a part of caring it’s
about meeting every team member on a
lever and treating them as fully capable
adults I’m okay you’re okay so you don’t
have to lead every single person into
the detail just put up a canvas and give
them the pencil to draw on their own and
you will be surprised about beautiful
and floating ideas and pictures that
comes out of people so one sentence my
team hears a lot just do it caring means
giving people the chance to do it on
their own terms
so they can prove themselves over and
over again so by believing your team
right from the start they can build
trust in themselves and then in you as a
leader ability our second ingredient of
trust imagine there’s someone with a big
mouth entering your team someone taken
over the team lead shortly after someone
with no track record in leadership and
even in marketing coming straight from
university what do you think how will
you feel about it would you trust that
person to lead your team and do so
yeah and that was the first thought of
my team as well and I can’t I can’t
blame them for that
so with this starting situation
I understood that before leading I had
to learn first
so I dived into our daily work and each
and every one’s task from branding to
campaigns from social media to platforms
from design to fierce and many many more
of our project projects and daily tasks
I showed passion and presence and I
worked hard still I think the ultimate
basis for personal success so in order
for people to be able to lean on you you
got to lean in in order for people to
trust you you have to show that you are
worth to trust the third and last
ingredient of trust within our team
integrity so let me tell you a short
story because I think that’s what the
people do on TEDx Aegis right last year
a young professional working student my
team sets up video ads on a platform and
Intendant Lee with the daily maximum of
15,000 euros instead of 1,500 and then
he left for a long weekend you will know
what happened we call this he almost
bought YouTube funny thing is a couple
of days later we found out
corrected the campaigns paid the bill
covered him and nobody realized that we
screwed up big time it was actually the
other way around
we were cheered at for generating so
many views on our videos and we promoted
him to full-time employee we do have a
platform to talk about mistakes like
that it’s our bi-weekly fuckup our this
is where we share our mistakes openly
small ones and big ones and we do it
proudly so that everyone can benefit and
learn from it we can do this because we
trust each other
it’s our safe space we screw up we’re
humans so being an ake leader means to
lead with good example do not hide your
mistakes let the team see them and show
them and voice critique openly and if
you make a mistake say sorry a simple
story is what is trust is about the
glass door of my of my office is always
open
except this when a team member comes in
and giving me this we gotta talk look
you know that and I can tell you in the
beginning the door was quite closed a
lot another part of integrity is keeping
your promises in being liable always if
you want your team culture to be based
on trust you cannot allow any exceptions
to that rule if you promise someone a
race make it possible if you promise
someone a free lunch
invite him if you promise someone a
unicorn deliver it it wasn’t roller
coaster ride and riding it as a naked
leader is really not anything that that
you should try at home unless you 100
percent sure and that was the part where
but now good for you even better for
myself my wife did not allow it but
still to sum it up I can see the
different ingredients coming together to
a delicious and beautiful recipe that is
called trust so here they are keyring do
I love she respect and empathy for the
people I work with even if we go on each
other’s nerves from time to time ability
that’s my team think that I can do the
job without screwing it up too often and
third integrity can my team judge me by
my words do I walk the talk so why
stress so important why is naked
leadership working the three reasons
because the world of work is not run by
robots yet because the meaning of work
has changed from just making some money
into finding purpose and really
following your passion and in times of
certain uncertainty and constant change
Trust is the glue that ties people
together so when it comes to work new
realities are rising quickly but all
values like trust they do not change
they become even more important with
these ingredients we transformed our
team and ourselves into open transparent
honest and vulnerable people true naked
leader because we know that only with
naked leadership we will be able to
disrobe with grace why because leaders
can no longer trust in power instead
they rely on the power of trust thank
you you
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