What does your leadership style or model look like? And how does it differ from traditional structures?
Linda de Beer and Viktoria Drabe:
We lead as a Co-Leadership tandem, which means we share our role, responsibilities, and disciplinary leadership, even though we often drive topics independently. The biggest difference compared to traditional structures is that we use mutual sparring for all important decisions, intentionally incorporating different viewpoints. This allows us to combine perspectives without compromising decisiveness or clarity.
How does this approach show up in day-to-day work? Can you share some examples?
Linda de Beer and Viktoria Drabe:
We divide topics according to our individual strengths, while keeping each other informed and aligned. Wednesdays, our shared working day, are dedicated to strategic topics, team decisions, and exchange. Our team can approach either of us at any time. We seamlessly represent one another and stay closely aligned to ensure leadership remains consistent. For subject-specific topics, responsibilities are more clearly divided. However, when it comes to team and people-related matters, the tandem approach is particularly important to us. We conduct employee discussions together and share disciplinary responsibility.
If you had to describe your leadership model or philosophy in three words, what would they be?
Linda de Beer and Viktoria Drabe:
Trust. Energy. Responsibility.
That said, structure and team spirit are equally important to us.
How do your team and the company benefit from this type of leadership? What tangible results or changes has it created?
Linda de Beer and Viktoria Drabe:
Our team benefits from consistent accessibility, diverse perspectives, and clear decision-making. For the company, this creates greater quality and continuity, even during absences. Decisions are reviewed from multiple angles and can therefore be made more quickly and with a stronger foundation.
For HES as an employer, the tandem model opens opportunities to develop more people with different life situations into leadership roles. Sharing leadership makes it more accessible, for example for people with caregiving responsibilities.
What challenges come with this leadership approach, and how do you handle them?
Linda de Beer and Viktoria Drabe:
It simply does not work without strong coordination and effective handovers. We work in a structured and closely aligned way, not only with each other but, most importantly, with our team. That is why we are both included in Teams chats, share a calendar, and use a joint email address. Coordination certainly requires discipline and structure.
What role does ownership play within your team? How does your leadership model encourage participation, co-creation, and agility?
Linda de Beer and Viktoria Drabe:
Our leadership tandem also creates a higher expectation of ownership within the team. As leaders, we provide the framework, trust, and psychological safety. Within that framework, the team takes responsibility and acts independently. Ownership is therefore absolutely central to our approach.
We create clear goals and boundary conditions while allowing the team to decide how to achieve them. We encourage participation through open discussions, transparent priorities, and iterative ways of working. This enables both speed and resilience, because responsibility lies where the expertise is. And, of course, enjoying our work should never be overlooked.
How do you measure or recognize the success of your leadership model?
Linda de Beer and Viktoria Drabe:
For us, success is reflected in team feedback, decision quality, goal achievement, and collaboration. Since our department is still relatively new and the team is continuing to develop, regular reflection is an essential part of the process.
Looking ahead: How will leadership continue to evolve in your department? What new approaches or experiments are you already implementing or planning?
Linda de Beer and Viktoria Drabe:
We are currently building a strong team while continuously developing our leadership style. We see leadership as a learning system, one that evolves through clearer decision-making formats, increased responsibility within the team, and regular reflection loops.
Looking ahead, we want to transfer even more capabilities into the team and experiment with new ways of working. Our goal is a leadership approach that remains adaptable and grows together with the department. The HES Leadership Learning Network, where leaders from different areas learn from one another, provides an excellent opportunity to actively shape and develop leadership together.
New Leadership at HES Series
This article is part of our series on leadership styles at HES. Explore our other articles and interviews on New Leadership:
