The Balanced Leadership concept stands for a new kind of holistic understanding of leadership that is made up of a "set" of different leadership styles that complement and reinforce each other. Thus, Balanced Leadership takes into account the complex requirements in an organization and provides a framework for leadership culture and behavior at the individual, team and organizational levels.

The concept of Balanced Leadership is based on three fundamental assumptions: Leadership as context design, Leadership as service, and Leadership to support self-leadership. Implementing these views in practice represents the key to developing a responsive, Healthy Organization.

Relationships describe the way in which communication takes place within the organization and at the interfaces to the outside world. Relationships are part of the communication culture, can be read in communication structures and are regulated by communication processes.

Internally, eye-level relationships are formed through cooperation, mutual trust and support, commitment and positive presentation of the company. Externally, in the quality of interaction with stakeholders through fair dealings with one another, adherence to compliance rules, recognition of diversity, long-term partnerships, and the assumption of social responsibility.

Community culture is characterized by fundamental assumptions about valid behaviors, guidelines and their daily visible manifestations. Subcultures (learning, error, communication culture) shape the overall culture. A fit between culture and strategy is desirable because it creates value for the organization and society.


Live common values and accept values that deviate from them. Create a balance between tolerance and sanction. Boundary transgressions are corrected via social control. Design your systems to encourage communal behavior and discourage non-communal behavior. Ensure that culture is reflected as part of daily life.

Employees (or "co-entrepreneurs") are the starting point of any activity in the company. They create the essential added value, fit with each other and with the organization. If employees are healthy and committed, this increases productivity, innovative strength and customer satisfaction, while at the same time reducing absenteeism.


High-performing employees find an environment in which they can develop their potential to the full. They can do what they are best at every day. They experience their work as meaningful, perform as many different activities and holistic tasks as possible, make a contribution to the big picture, can help shape their work and use freedom productively. They have opportunities for personal development, are recognized for their achievements, participate in the company's success and are socially integrated.

Strategy is the totality of all activities of the organization for the sustainable achievement of the organizational purpose as well as the goals derived from it. It is based on the mission statement, in which the future image, meaning and purpose of the organization as well as its values are described.

A market- and resource-oriented strategy ensures meaning and survival on the way to achieving the future image, always taking into account the organization's responsibility towards employees, customers, society as well as the environment. Keep the balance between turnover, profit and sustainability (economic, social, ecological).

Processes describe procedures and workflows for specified and predefined business transactions. Hybrid processes should be like the "belly girth": not too bloated and not too lean. Bloated makes you sluggish, lean makes you fragile. Hybrid processes distinguish between controllable-mechanical and living-dynamic environmental conditions. They include the possibility of continuous adaptation to the respective context.

The key lies in the balance between flexibility and stability. What is controllable and routinely always runs the same way can be described precisely. Complex problems, on the other hand, require creativity and a successive approach. Hybrid processes then contribute to motivation, value creation, dynamics and quality. They enable lean production, the avoidance of errors, the waste of resources, and working in networks.

Moving to a new building or another part of a building, newly assembled teams or setting up completely new business units are occasions to rethink the space situation. Thinking about the use of space quickly leads to thinking about the general use of space. What should and can take place in premises?

Space has an effect on the organization and on the people in it. It promotes or blocks good processes, communication and cooperation. A given space situation, to which everything else must adapt, limits entire business ideas and business units. New forms of collaboration ("new work") require spaces in which new work is also possible.