Sonja Becker - The Female Leader

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here is only the name of the author on the cover, but there is a whole team behind her.

Deepest thanks go first with all my heart to my parents, Alfred and Tina Schaer, who brought me up peacefully and naturally. They allowed me to go out into the world where I then made my appearance as a female leader, and they would often say, “You are more in America than with us!”

The greatest respect to my mentors, Martin and Gigi Sage, who brought out my natural leadership. Together with them I was able to research, teach and pass on the principles of leadership for 12 years. As a special trio we have pushed the evolution of more peace and love in the world and united the best from the USA and Europe.

I go on my knees before my men: Uwe, Eckhard, Volker, Sebastian and Chéfe. Each of you with his love has stood at my side like a rock.

You love me and have always helped me, have accompanied me on my innovative road and have brought up and protected all the children, grandchildren, customers and the team.

It has never been easy, but it is and remains an adventure for us all!

I thank my 6 children, Sebastian, Anneli, Christian Cyrill, Benjamin Moses, Konstantin and Joy that they are as curious as their mother, who opened the family system to the world. You were ready to move at any time, and whoever brought you up is welcome.

Special deep admiration for my oldest daughter Anneli, who has always been there devotedly and has borne all the intensive phases.

Thanks to all the many clients I was allowed to wake and who trusted themselves to stand by their individual talent and thus achieved independence. The new entrepreneurship is the trend of our generation, and will have a great impact on Germany.

My very special acclamation for the united learning and building of the “most innovative company in Germany” goes to my Wailea team: Irene, Margit and Monika. You have worked so hard and have become women who are genuine role models for society.

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acqueline Kennedy Onassis was a bright child. When she was only four she went off on her own during a walk in Central Park with her newborn baby sister Lee and the nanny. When Jackie lost her way, the little girl was found by a policeman. When she saw him, she said self-assuredly, “My sister and my nanny seem to have gotten lost.”

When Jackie Kennedy moved into the White House at the side of her husband, she resolved to renovate the building and turn it into a grand house. Unfortunately, there was no money for the project.

The First Lady decided to finance it through her own resources. And she had an idea: she would introduce her own love of beauty, art and history and show children a living White House. The boys would experience history through all the things from other times that they got to see there. The girls should find it beautiful and lived-in, so there always had to be flowers there and a real fire burning in the grate. The White House should have a purpose, and that should be restored. And all the visitors and children should feel and see this purpose. Jackie resisted merely decorating, stressing the difference from restoration, and she wanted all the previous Presidents to be tangible. She herself loved the Lincoln Room, which contains all Lincoln’s effects, things that he had handled; and the atmosphere was similar to that of a cathedral, the same sense of peace and meditation. Sometimes Jackie would sit alone in the room, and could genuinely feel Lincoln’s strength, as if she was communicating with him. She had the greatest affinity with Jefferson, but it was Lincoln she loved.

Then she realized that about two million visitors walked through the White House annually. And they were ultimately the “cause” of the rapid wear and tear of the building. In any case, she didn’t charge an entry fee. Instead she produced an illustrated guide to the building, which visitors could purchase for a dollar.

It was obvious to her that every visitor would as a matter of course wish to take home this one dollar guide as a souvenir. Within a very short time the money for an extensive and lasting renovation was raised. With the assistance of the National Geographic Society, over eight million copies of the guide have been sold since 1962. Jackie Kennedy was the editor.

Companies and businesses are like human beings. They are born, they grow and they die. And in between are several ages: innocent, curious and playful childhood; the wild storm and stress of adolescence; the erotic 20s; the decisive 30s; the level-headed 40s, rocked by midlife crisis. And so on… to old age, wisdom and death.

Just as humans, trees or businesses grow physically and organically, so too is there a mental growth that is largely undervalued. For example, as children we are curious about everything. There is nothing around us that is not new. The more we learn, the more our curiosity abates. We become curious about other things: in puberty about the opposite sex, later about self-realization, about money, about success, or about fame. And in every life of every person there is one thing that will always concern them, which will always make them curious and absorb them: their special talents. By realizing and using them a person will celebrate the greatest successes and will get the greatest enjoyment out of life. Curiosity helps us to grow mentally. As long as secrets exist, we have to discover them.

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ehind, however, lies experience, the awareness of an intuitive truth. Through many experiences we become undeceived in the true sense of the word, disillusioned, perhaps even embittered, melancholy or depressed. Once we have won back curiosity we grow beyond ourselves. We discover pleasure in the things we do, and experience our mental development as a career.

Curiosity is the mainspring of mental development. Our “performance scale” is based on this approach, which shows the different stages in mental growth. Whether individuals, families, enterprises or organizations –they all stand at a particular stage of development. You can frequently tell from the faces of individuals, of employees in a firm or members of a football team which stage they are at as soon as they perform: are they sad, worried, tense, or passionate, self-confident, full of enthusiasm? Once we have awakened curiosity in people, they will develop mentally. And our success grows at the same time.

The same type of growth exists in the economy. Without an awareness of the mental condition of a company or its undertakings nothing can grow further. Without knowing what doesn’t work you will not get any further towards being in the black. And that applies as much to a company team as it does to a football team.

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n any company, you only have to see how much time people spend coming to an agreement, what the mood is and how individuals behave towards one another and communicate. This is of almost more concern to the manager today that the turnover figures. It’s not surprising: everyone knows that they can only succeed as long as there is a good team. And that is why there is a demand for female bosses, with their clear-eyed perception of everything that passes between people.