For this first episode of 2021 I have invited a very special guest – my dad! My dad has been leading teams for around 20 years at DEG, a German development bank. As a child I perceived my dad to be working long hours, spending time with his team members rather than us kids and once a year inviting his team to our home for a BBQ in the summer. But never have my dad and I really sat down to discuss about his leadership experience. During the Christmas vacation, I wanted to change that and invited him on the podcast. In our conversation, you can hear about my dad’s rocky start as a first-time leader, how he saw his role as leader also in being a sparring partner and how it was important for him to have the people in his team feel that he has their back in difficult situations. Enjoy the conversation!

Destination Leadership

#15 Rolf Grunwald – Be a sparring partner

Welcome to the 14th episode of Destination Leadership. Today’s guest is Anna Roizman, who is an agile coach at Porsche. She was recommended to me as someone not in a hierarchical leadership position like the other guests in this podcast, but rather as someone leading informally within a community at a large organisation. As I believe that it will be in future more and more common that young leaders gain first leadership experiences in project teams or communities across organisations, I wanted to invite Anna to the podcast. In our conversation we talk about how she and others set up the agile community at Porsche, her concrete recommendations and lessons learned when setting up such a community and her wish for more courage in organisations to just try out new ways of working & exchanging in communities without clear KPIs and a traditional set up. As Anna feels more comfortable in German, we did the interview in German, which I know many of you listeners also understand. That’s why without further due, viel Spaß bei unserem Podcast Interview!

#14 Anna Roizman – Community leadership

Today’s guest is Nicole Wilke. Nicole is the Head of International Climate Policy within the Federal Ministry for the Environment in Germany and the German lead negotiator as well as one of three EU lead negotiators at international climate conferences, such as the Paris Climate Change Conference in 2015, which you have surely heard about. I’m really honored to have a leader in my podcast, whose personal and team actions have such a wide reach! In our interview we talk about Nicole’s first leadership position outside of work in an association and how this prepared her for taking over her first team at the Ministry for the Environment. This team is 16 years later actually still her team, just always with new team members. I am impressed by how Nicole found her leadership style of trusting in her team and giving them a lot of freedom, whilst being very open and vulnerable also sharing in our conversations challenges she had as first-time leader at the beginning. For those listeners who might have some difficulties to let go and trust their team members, there are quite some recommendations for you in this episode!

#13 Nicole Wilke – Be honest & yourself

Today’s guest is Sohaila Ouffata from BMW iVentures. In our conversation we talk about her different leadership roles from starting off in a management consultancy leading a project team in India, to leading more than 120 developers in Tel Aviv as someone born & raised in Germany with Moroccan-born parents. We also talk about her current leadership role as an investor supporting start-ups to succeed. What I especially enjoyed was talking to Sohaila about how she puts her strengths & network into practice for her passion project, the African Tech Vision. It’s a private initiative empowering African female entrepreneurs at scale. Its aim is to nurture the next ecosystem of purpose-driven female founders on the continent. As I know Sohaila has been very selective so far with podcasts, I am very proud that she accepted my invitation to join Destination Leadership to share her learnings and inspire a diverse community of listeners!

#12 Sohaila Ouffata – Purpose-driven leadership

Today’s guest is from a completely different world from the ones we have had on the podcast so far – the world of politics. It’s Julian Voje, Head of Programs at the Munich Security Conference, who previously worked in the office of a German parliamentarian at the Bundestag and a political foundation. I find that our conversation shows the great positive energy & humour Julian has and at the same time his deep rooted trust and the importance for him of being approachable for the people in his team. We talk about his lessons learned on giving feedback, role models he had and why he would describe his leadership style as “Papa Bear”. One word on today’s audio quality - it is not as clear as it usually is, bear with us and the German internet connections on the country side!

#11 Julian Voje – Leadership in a political environment

In today’s episode, 5 tips for remote leadership are shared based on Katrin Grunwald’s experience as team-and organisational development consultant and coach for first-time leaders. The tips include 1. You as a leader are the key to a good remote team 2. Create individual relationships and inspire trust 3. Take care of your team’s remote logistics 4. Take time for team time 5. Use technical tools to activate and raise engagement

#10 Tips for remote leadership

In this episode Sebastian Wächter shares how at the age of 18, he had a severe accident leading to 95% of his body being paralyzed. That’s why the first team he was actually leading was a team of 24/7 caretakers at quite a young age. We further talk about the role of leadership during his active time playing and coaching wheelchair rugby and lastly about his main topic where he is a real expert and keynote speaker: change processes. I am impressed by the way Sebastian connects his personal experiences with change to change processes in organisations!

#09 Sebastian Wächter – Change Mindset

Welcome to episode number 8. Today I am talking with Lisa Glassner who has been recommended to me as an inspiring leader by one of her team members. She is someone who doesn’t just talk about mindfulness, she really lives it! Both in the way that she finds habits for her own well-being in a busy working life as well as in the interaction with her team by giving them the space to go with their energy flow. In our conversation, we span the many years lasting from Lisa’s first leadership experience, which was actually outside of work where she was leading a Toastmasters club; to her working experience in Sweden, where we talk about how equality of men and women can be seen in the daily life; all the way to her current role as Regional VP EMEA for Global Client Collaboration at Steelcase. I find Lisa to be a true inspirational international leader! Enjoy the conversation!

#08 Lisa Glassner – Mindful leadership

Welcome to the 7th episode of Destination Leadership, a very special episode as this time it’s not a leader who was recommended to me to share their leadership experience, but a communications expert who works with a lot of leaders and will share her recommendations especially for first-time leaders on the topic of communication. My guest today is Katja Schleicher, whom I met at a conference many years ago. Katja has been working in TV productions, advertising, PR, corporate communications and has been running her own company for 15 years, working on a pan-european level. We will talk about her recommendations answering questions such as what to have in mind before starting a leadership position? How to introduce yourself to your team through storytelling? How to prepare for a townhall meeting? And very interestingly – when to use feminine and masculine communication patterns? As the recording was made at the location of the DLD conference, you will hear some background noises, but I hope they will not be too big of a distraction to Katja’s very practical and concrete recommendations. Enjoy this episode!

#07 Katja Schleicher – Authentic storytelling and gender communication patterns

Judith Sterl is the Head of Marketing and Communications of the German Accelerator. Leading her first team member 20 years ago, we talk about Judith’s leadership experience since then. For 10 years she was working for Yahoo in Europe, leading to some interesting intercultural insights! Judith was recommended to me as inspiring leader who gives her team members a lot of space & trust to drive their own ideas and at the same time has their back. Towards the end of the conversation there are many practical suggestions Judith shares from her experience on the topics of managing each team member individually and also on project management.

#06 Judith Sterl – Listen, really listen

Nicolas Deville is the founder of OfficeBots.io, a completely remote start-up. We talk about his learnings when setting up completely remote companies with employees spread around the world collaborating mainly virtually and we also talk about taking care of your team – whether there are there remote or live. Nicolas shares very specific examples of how he used for example walking meetings to find out more about what’s driving his team members. We also talk about the importance as a leader to have a clear vision and enabling team members to find their contribution to that vision in order to create even stronger engagement. One of Nicolas’ main drivers is learning, therefore we talk about his love for books and how he encouraged his team members to buy books on the company’s expenses and then share their learnings with the team.

#05 Nicolas Deville – Taking care of your team

Johann is the Managing Director at Techstars for the BSH Future Home Accelerator in Munich. In our interview we talk about Johann’s leadership journey from leading a team of 30 people already during his university studies in France all the way to founding his own start-up in 2007 in San Francisco and now working in the Munich start-up ecosystem. Whilst Johann is a technologist at heart, early on he became aware of the importance of empathy and being kind to people as part of his leadership behaviour. He was recommended to me as an inspiring leader who openly shares his vulnerabilities with his team, so we talk about how according to Johann this is a sign of courage and strength rather than weakness. I think Johann is an excellent role model of sharing his story including the successes and failures and I hope you’ll enjoy listening to the episode as much as I enjoyed recording it!

#04 Johann Romefort – Being kind and give first

Sandra is a former consultant and works at a large DAX company in Germany. In our interview we talk about: Her leadership journey from an IT project manager motivating people in a big matrix organisation without a hierarchical responsibility to her first leadership role managing right away 25 team members spread across 3 countries. What supported her in this challenge: the importance of sponsors, peer support and how a coaching and team development workshops at the beginning helped her to have more impact. Concrete tips for first-time leaders on how to structure your routines between operational topics as well as leadership responsibilities enabling all of your team members time with you Sandra’s leadership style is very much focused on strengths which impacts how she tackles also “challenging” team members with authenticity Lastly, we speak about what Sandra does for her own development as leader and what being brave and actively contacting possible C-level mentors via LinkedIn has to do with it!

#03 Sandra Zemke – Focus on strengths

Sarah Gevirtz is an HR director in the high tech industry in Silicon Valley. I had the pleasure to meet her this summer when I was in Northern California. She has been working for the past 20 years as HR director and in the area of organisational development. In our interview we talk about concrete activities on how to build trust with your team, how Sarah believes in empowering people to learn and grow – and how she does it. We also talk about the changes she has seen amongst requirements for leaders in the tech industry in Silicon Valley over the years and a lot about the notion of belonging. This includes how for example through encouraging diversity of thought, leaders can create an environment in which people want to stay as they feel they belong. Enjoy the interview!

#02 Sarah Gevirtz - Building trust, growth and belonging

In this episode, I am interviewing Philipp Heiler, doctor & co-founder of brainboost. - Philipp’s passion about the brain, people’s quality of life and how people can achieve their goals in life - What neurofeedback is & how you can train your brain - How not following the „typical“ doctor’s path was his first act of leadership - How he sees good leadership as humble leadership: “dream arrogant, but act humble“ - How Philipp emptying out the dishwasher each morning is for him an example for humble leadership – don’t be too snobby for doing stuff like emptying dishwasher or taking out the trash - How standing in front if his team when there is a problem is part of his leadership style - How delegation was one of the main challenges when growing the business, but why setting time aside to teach someone to do a task rather than just tossing tasks at people is important to him - How the investment into a team Christmas party early on was so valuable at this early stage of the company - How he cherry-picks from different rolemodels - How he plays with the balance between tech-stuff and meditation and how that relates to the team - How he deals with the challenge that the teams exists of people with very different professional backgrounds and thus different ways of working – and especially how a team development workshop on what everyone does and how do they see themselves in the team helped the team to grow - How taking a rather “crappy” place in the office can also be seen as act of humble leadership - How giving leaders an extra second before they react could eliminate all misunderstandings and make a difference in communication

#01 Philipp Heiler – humble leadership

Think back about the team leaders you have worked with: who would you say was an inspiring leader? What did that person do exceptionally well or differently than other leaders? In the Destination Leadership podcast Katrin Grunwald interviews people who have been recommended by others as inspiring leaders.