Inspiring leadership and vertical leadership
Reading time: 4 min
Do you want to lead your employees effectively and don’t know where to start? This is completely normal – and at the same time a great opportunity for personal growth. Because there is still a lot of room for improvement: according to a study by Bielefeld University, 85% of Kununu users describe toxic leadership behavior. Employees would like to see more appreciation, clarity and respectful communication from their manager.
Tobias Mayer, an expert in self-leadership and culture and founder of the beautiful unleashed truth, explains how this can be achieved in practice in an interview with our HXM Transformation Manager, Felix Ehrenfels. In the interview, both talk about vertical development as a profound change in one’s own mindset, perspective and awareness – and about how an inspiring, modern leadership culture is created.
When we talk about modern management development: Where do you currently see the biggest challenges?
We continue to move strongly between horizontal and vertical development. The need for horizontal development remains high: programs, seminars, workshops, communication training, conflict management, AI training. Anything that expands skills and competencies.
At the same time, we need significantly more vertical development: personal development, self-management, inner maturation. It is not a question of “either or”. Both directions are necessary. What is crucial is that we become more aware of this balance.
How do you currently perceive the market? Are companies already focusing on both – vertically and horizontally – or are they more one-dimensional?
The focus is clearly on horizontal development. We have been doing this for decades. Our education system is structured in a similar way: from school onwards, the focus is very much on imparting knowledge and less on personal development. This is exactly where change is needed.
We have been preparing managers for many years to shine on the organizational “stage”: delivering good results, resolving conflicts and performing professionally. But development is all about the people behind the stage.
We need fewer business cases and more real life stories – examples of people who show how they have become the person they are today.
This is still clearly lacking in today’s development landscape.
What is the golden rule of good leadership for you?
Good leadership starts with yourself. Only when you can lead yourself well can you lead others. Why do you always get into conflict with certain colleagues? Why do you find it difficult to give feedback? Why do you sometimes feel the pressure to shine in discussions?
Self-management is the key to good leadership.
To put it bluntly: as a leader, you have to like people. If you don’t like yourself in certain areas or carry around a lot of unresolved inner issues, it’s hard to accept others. It’s not about being friends with everyone, it’s about being able to genuinely connect with people or at least show appreciation, even if you’re not on the same wavelength.
We talk a lot about leadership models – transactional, transformational, situational. Where do you categorize inspirational leadership?
Not at all. Inspiring leadership is not a model, but an attitude.
If you lead yourself effectively, take good care of your health, are able to set boundaries and remain stable in stressful situations, inspiring leadership almost comes naturally. You don’t need another method or another label. Leadership becomes strong when it is thought from the inside out.
It’s about authenticity, self-clarification and inner stability.
Does this attitude also increase the resilience of my employees?
Whether the resilience of employees increases automatically cannot be guaranteed. But a manager with an inspiring attitude deals with pressure and stress differently, promotes potential and development, supports people more intensively and creates a much more constructive working relationship.
This reduces conflict costs and makes collaboration more resilient.
What would be the first step in developing vertically? Is there a universal entry point?
Intuitively, I would say yes. Not as a technique, but as an attitude. The first step is honesty – this pause in which you stop moving through your role and instead really notice where you are at the moment. What is actually working and what is just compensation? Where are you being effective and where are you reacting on autopilot?
As long as you are completely identified with your reactions, you are not developing vertically. You are just repeating yourself – at a higher level. Getting started is therefore not “doing more”. It is an inner step back: creating space, establishing regulation, allowing clarity. And then act from this clarity. Everything else builds on this.
