Our friends at metaBeratung, an authorized Hogan distributor in Germany and Switzerland, recently hosted events in Zurich and Munich, featuring Hogan Founder and Chairman Dr. Robert Hogan, Hogan CEO Dr. Scott Gregory, IMD Business School Professor John Weeks, and metaBeratung CEO Nicole Neubauer.

The events, titled ‘Future of Leadership: From Charisma to Humility,’ were held at Hotel Widder in Zurich on July 2and at Hotel Bayerischer Hof in Munich on July 3, and the events were attended by more than 140 business leaders and talent management professionals in Zurich and more than 70 in Munich.

With humility being the core theme of the events, Dr. Hogan spoke about the importance of identifying and promoting humble leaders, as opposed to their charismatic, and likely ineffective, counterparts. Organizations for decades have heavily leaned toward the promotion of charismatic leaders because they are socially and politically skilled. However, Hogan’s research on leadership shows that although these leaders tend to emerge within organizations, they historically are less effective than humble leaders.

Professor Weeks spoke to attendees about how leaders should act as role models with a positive, skillful, and intentional approach to engaging their teams. This heavily relies on leaders following the age-old adage “actions speak louder than words.”

Neubauer’s presentation focused on the topic of women in leadership. With research showing that women tend to be more humble than men, she highlighted how important it is for women to become more visible within their organizations. Simply put, equality between men and women in organizations is something that does not exist and is in desperate need of improvement.

Overall, the events were a huge success for metaBeratung, IMD Business School, and Hogan. It’s so exciting to see the work our distributors are doing globally to raise awareness about the importance of personality and how it affects leadership and organizational performance.