Leadership and Culture - Christian´s reflective blog

Within the last days i was working on several tasks dealing with ideas, personal business models and the things that are essential to business leaders as well as to all other people within a company who have to make decisions. I´ve learned a lot about the business model canvas while i was working on it in its special framework. This kind of developing a business model was totally new to me but it teached me some things that i knew before but also i discovered some new facts about me.

Before i was working on the business model canvas task i thought that i own some of the characteristics a leader shoud have. I looked at myself in my „business environement“ and noticed at first that when it comes to describing my key ressources i could easily name then. My strength are for example my way of strategical thinking as well as that i know how to manage several things connected to each other. I organize efficently and my success oriented view on tasks helps me to reach the goals most effectively. Besides the characteristca of the „core business“ i have the talent to motivate people and to go forward. But in my opinion there is one attribute that is maybe not essential to a leader but it is helpful and gives you the „real“ power to act – Passion. So i knew before that some characteristica are important to business leaders but the canvas model showed me that even if i own it, some attributes are not needed. They are additional items of myself that are helpful. You don´t see your own talents because you´re just used to it. So while working with others your strenghts come up to the surface. The canvas model proved to me that one thing makes a person a real leader, this is authenticity. In my „business environment“ i see myself partly as a leader, partly not. But this is no problem i have to work on because through the business model canvas i finally realized that some characteristica and talents go hand in hand with some leading tasks and of course fields of action. So with the attributes i own there are several fields of action that really fit to my personality. It´s not just beacuse of the way i see things or think about them. Furthermore the whole package including also interests and passion are the points that really matter if i want to become successfull in life as well as in my future job.

So the business model canvas showed me a direction i could take into consideration for my future business life. I love fire fighting but this is only an action. If i dig deeper it´s an action to help people. So connected to this on the one hand a job in the fire fighting industry would be a great choice and on the other hand the field of CSR would be a good decision. Technique and a growing demand for people who are familiar with CSR make this jobs a great choice. So in my opinion i should focus on this field of action.

I really don´t know business leaders and i don´t think that their actions or words that get public could be used to compare myself with them. And for sure i´m right now not in the position to compare myself with one of them. They are true PR experts and know how to behave the way it is best for them and for the company. So when it comes to characteristics or decision making i am sure that the real ones, reasons or intentions of the things they do are hide behind a curtain. All CEOs or managers of companies who stand in the spotlight are mostly not authentical or honest.  So the real business leaders are those of small and middle sized business who take all the risk on their own and have to lead a company on their own. I know a few and they combine their businesses, their families and their hobbies to fill out their lives as they want it to. At least those leaders take their role in the society serious and behave the way it is best for all. But when it comes to characteristica of a leader some directly come to my mind. Those are honesty, reliability, authenticity and courage. So if i want to become a business leader i should work on these to become a good leader.

I want to become autonomous and i want to own my own business. Their are a lot of reasons for that but at least it all comes back to passion. Passion for the things i like, passion for the job that results out of this and passion for the way i am doing all this.