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Anyone can perform hard management; you just focus on the numbers and only care about the employees to a limited extent. And of course, you do that under the safe protection of your own ego. But is it effective? To be sure, it has nothing to do with leadership. Leadership means taking care of employees. If you deal with your employees in a correct way - generously, supportively, trustingly, openly communicating, informing, participating - then employees will be more motivated, have a greater commitment, and accordingly will perform better.

In short: Leadership leads to better economic results.

For me, bold leadership means having the courage to step beyond the limits of your own inner world and to open up and dedicate yourself to the environment. To do this, you have to move out of the comfort zone of your protective ego. You will only be able to look after your employees, if you have the courage to do so. So, it takes a strong personality to engage in bold leadership.

This book serves to share bold and disruptive leadership techniques with executives. There is a lot of material on leadership; books, articles, interviews, studies, videos and personal experiences that are shared publicly. Many experts are very educated, have a lot of expertise, and apply scientific studies. However, you have to filter heavily in order to find the information you need bundled together.

It starts with the questions: What is leadership? How do you define leadership? If you look at the definition from various experts, you get as many different results. However, there are topics about which there is a consensus and there are some terms that are mentioned again and again: Leadership is about people; Leadership is about inspiration, motivation and vision; Leadership is about development, integrity, empathy and goals; Leadership is a skill that can be learned.

I have had my personal definition of leadership for a very long time and it is based precisely on this premise: Leadership is the ability to motivate people independently in the direction of a common goal by means of integrity, inspiration, and support, with the help of a vision.

For everyday life, however, I use a simple definition that also fits more with bold leadership and simple leadership

Leadership is easy: Just take care of your people! Marco Bensen

I will never claim that I know more than others. However, I can definitely say that I have examined, studied, and collected significant information from theory and practice on all leadership topics, including 25 years of leadership experience. In addition to studies, seminars, books and articles, this also includes a large number of personal conversations with real leaders from various industries. Combining all this theoretical and practical information, I have synthesized highly solid information on leadership. You will find it all in this book, so all you need to do is process the information and filter out what you need.

You will find that I am an absolute believer in soft management – soft leadership. Put simply, that means having a positive focus on employees. Only inspired and satisfied employees will achieve optimal performance in the mid- and long term. Soft management is by no means about softness, about an ideal world or being sweet and nice. It’s about tough facts like performance, goals, and results. For me, employee-oriented leadership is the true spirit of leadership.

The hotel and catering industry, where I was privileged to gain my experience, is part of the service industry and as such, an industry par excellence where people management plays an absolutely crucial role. However, leadership principles are universal and apply to all industries and organizations that work with people. Bad people management will lead to even the most well-regarded company performing far below its potential. Proper people management and leadership, on the other hand, will do wonders and will also jumpstart even a mediocre company into top performance.