Relaxed and moderate: Cool leaders we need

Did you expect this? To be cool ist not only a hit, but has got also the very same meaning worldwide. In such diverse and different cultures as India, USA, China, Chile or Germany people do associate the same attributes with “cool”: extravert, hedonistic, powerful, open, adventurous and autonomous. This is the outcome of a new study by the famous Princeton University 6.000 subjects from 12 countries and 5 continents have participated in over a period of 4 years.

For your positive impact and image it is key, though, that you do not try hard to be “cool” under all circumstances. Relax is the motto. And: You should stay moderate! Being extremely extravert, extremely adventurous or extremely hedonistic, shifts the positive effect to the negative.

According to the researchers “to be cool” stands altogether for innovation and creativity. That given an appeal to coolness could establish a collective understanding for change all over the world. Since we all want to be cool people.

Pezzuti/Warren/Chen, “Cool people”, in “Journal of Experimental Psychology: General”, 2025, 154(9), 2410–2431

From the practice:

But can we transfer this common understanding of coolness into the business world? Absolutely! Particularly 5 out of these 6 attributes of “cool” are synonyms for leadership – at least for me. Each leader should be extravert, powerful, open, adventurous and autonomous. Only the term “hedonistic” I am sceptical about. Perhaps in the business context the term “confidence” is more appropiate than hedonism which means the thrive for lust, joy and pleasure.

In any case: How would our work worlds – from the office to the construction site and from the laboratory to the field – look like, if leaders aspire to be cool in the definition described above?

Words with few synonyms and only one meaning are memorized best

To all advertising guys, political consultants and communication coaches: there exist better indicators whether your clients will remember one of your words or whether they won´t than imageability, high frequency or trigger words. The more an expression is unchangeable (only one meaning) and distinctive (no or few synonyms) , the more your memory will keep it regardless which language you are speaking, how big your vocabulary is and what the context seems to be.

These are at least the results of a new US-American study where not any Department of Communication provided the key authors but the MIT (Massachussetts Institute of Technology).

“An avalanche of precise vocabulary has a lot of advantages.” “Avalanche” and “Vocabulary” – unmistaken and with no alternative – were remembered best by the participants. “Precise” and “Advantage” they could memorized least.

Tuckute/Mahowald/Isola/Oliva/Gibson/Fedorenko, “Intrinsically Memorable Words Have Unique Associations With Their Meanings”, in: Journal of Experimental Psychology: General”, 2025, vol. 154, no.8, 2059-2075.

From the practice:

Exciting and plausible: a word where your brain needs not to consider what sort of meaning may count here, AND which as the only option mills itself into your memory, is remembered best.

These new learnings expand our opportunities to communicate unforgettably. And still there are even additional criteria how to make your words memorable, criteria which the current study does not even mention: i.e. that a word/sentence needs to be short, not complicated and easily to be pronounced.

Pretty funny for us as German-speaking people: one of the words that were considered to be unchangeable and unforgettable in the study would not at all have the very same effect in our language: Pineapple – cristal-clear and unique in English – turns in German to “Ananas”. And that´s how we also call strawberries. So we may assume that “Ananas” is according to the researchers not the best example for being easily kept in your memory.

Psychological detachment is strongest factor for employee´s well-being

The vacation effect is not only measurable during the vacation per se, but prior to it (anticipation) and particularly afterwards: up to 43 days after having returned to the working place more engagement by employees is being delivered. Strongest factor for well-being due to vacation is the psychological detachment which means not to think about the job and its challenges and to be unreachable for a certain period of time at least. Additionally physical activities are also proven to be important triggers in that area. Hence, if vacation should be better spent abroad or at home remains pretty unclear according to the outcomes of a meta-analysis where 32 international studies have been examined.

Basically this US-American paper can be read as an appeal for US-American authorities and companies alike. To revise their system of only max. 19 nationally mandated vacation days.

Grant/Buchanan”Shockley, “I Need a Vacation: A Meta-Analysis of Vacation an Employee Well-Being”, in: Journal of Applied Psychology,2025, Vol. 110., Nr. 7, 887-905.

From the practice:

Undisputedly we do have a way better understanding for employee vacation – for its importance and its benefits. Still I´d like to join the appeal for taking vacation as one of the best form of getting well-being back and like to address top managers and particularly owners and self-imployed ones.

Correct: it is a major challenge to leave the job, orders and projects, back for days let alone weeks if you are paid a lot for leadership & responsibility. Especially if times are as difficult as now.

Still I recommend to give this psychological detachment a try – at least for one day or another unless your organisation is currently going through its worst time ever.

No client, no business partner and finally also no employee wants to deal with exhausted and therefore thin-skinned and error-prone managers or consultants.

Interrelational skills stand for long-term performance – particularly in technology oriented firms

Due to recent prominent bancruptcies questions have popped up if not the respective boards have been responsible, too, to say the least. But could better controls and better decisions actually have avoided these failures? Rather yes is the reply of a Swedish-Israelian scientific paper where interviews with 336 board members out of 200 publicly listed firms have been analysed. Crucial is according to the study leadership of the head of the board – extraordinary reputation, brilliant expertise in the field and exceptional networking contacts are particularly in volatile times not sufficient. This resonates especially with technology-oriented firms.

The researchers recommend leadership trainings to establish and enhance interrelational skills.

Nahum/Carmeli/Uman, “On the Power of Professional and Relational Respect of Chairpersons”. In “Psychology of Leaders and Leadership, 2025, vol. 28, Nr. 1, 65-95.

From the praxis:

What are interrelational skills? Well, the capability to communicate respectfully, to build up trustful relationships and to motivate toward constructive cooperation. When dealing with alpha animals – and we can assume each of the members of a board is one of these – it is key that professional leadership applies and steers the best processes beyond any possible differences in opinion. That´s the only way to create respect for each other and therefore to provide an atmosphere where an efficiently working board can get to bold decisions if necessary.

Ok, but why is this so important for boards in the technology-oriented field? Because there – even up to my own observations over decades – social skills and so also interrelational skills are upgradable both on the operative level and in the boards which control. I am offering leadership training for head of the boards for more than 10 years. So I am a bit proud that now my move is confirmed by science.😊

More damage than benefit, also for yourself

If you monitor change in short intervals the project and even yourself will not profit. This is precisely because those control freaks cannot help but notice with each check only small to smallest progress. This has got 3 consequences: 1. They are convinced that everything is changing way too slow = they are not satisfied. 2. They produce not highly motivated employees but make them unhappy and uncertain. 3. In case they are themselves responsible for the development, they perceove themselves the more they monitor the more as a failure.

Monitoring Frequency Effect (MFE) has labeled an American-European research team this phenonmenon in their in-depth study which was recently published.

Vaz/Mata/Critcher, “A Watched Pot Seems Slow to Boil: Why Frequent Monitorin Decreases Perceptions of Progress”, in: Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 2025, vol. 154, Nr. 4, 895-918.

From the practise:

Right! We can observe the MFE and its impact also during everyday life: the more we got onto the scale, or the more we watch our stock rates or the more often we double check the productivity of collegaue and staff the more we feel troubled unhappy and the more we would be allured to establish completely wrong, negative opinions.

Of course: continuous monitoring has its merits and needs to be executed from time to time, particularly in times of crises and threathing moments. For normal everyday life please let´s have in mind once again the dose.

Or at least we shall not forget the big focus and the main targets.

Motivation & commitment are starting long before workday 1

The time slot between the job confirmation and the first workday is more important than expected: communicating with new employees in high frequency, personalized and via various media ensures motivated, committed and more satisfied newcomers. These are the results of a new US-survey focussing on the question how employers can strengthen staff retention.

The time slot between the job confirmation and the first workday is more important than expected: communicating with new employees in high frequency, personalized and via various media ensures motivated, committed and more satisfied newcomers. These are the results of a new US-survey focussing on the question how employers can strengthen staff retention.

If you aren´t interested in the answer, don´t raise a question

Boomeraskers raise questions, don´t react on the responses, though, but reply to their own question quickly and detailed. Boomeraskers are people who utilize questions as a trick in any small talk for presenting oneself in the absence of any interest in them and their perspectives. (“Boomerask” means a question raised that retunrs boomerang-like back to oneself) . These type of networkers don´t do themselves any good: according to a brand new study by Harvard Business School they appear to be more unsympathetic than those who try to dominate and influence the talk openly from the very beginning. To not react on an answer at all, bespeaks of complacency and insincerity.

Brooks/Yeomans, “Boomerasking: Answering your Own Questions”, in: “Journal of Experimental Psychology: General”, 2025, vol. 154, Nr. 3, 864-893

From the practise:

I do confirm. Questions alone does not make a good impression per se – and that´s finally the only goal to achieve in any small talk and in any networking. To run a conversation in a way that next time the other one is cheering and not trying to leave the room or hang on. Due to my experiences this means: Please do listen carefully how someone is responding to your questions. That´s the only way to ensure follow ups like raising additional clarifying questions, asking for examples or question a wording which is noticeable for you. That´s also the only way to make your interlocutor believe that you are really interested in her/his stuff. And not before now please bring in your own response. Not always but in the majority of cases. If you don´t expose yourself, too, it even might appear like an investigative interview.

There is another absolute no-go when raising questions, though: If you don´t even let the other one respond at all, but answering right away yourself. “How are you? Well, aren´t you?” And yes: all this applies also to private talks.

Claims on Social Media: Apologies alone are not sufficient

The rhetoric principles by Aristotle – stating that Logos (substance) can succeed only together with Pathos (Emotion) and Ethos (morality) – are vivid and valid also for the online-complaint-management of the 21st century. The 3 principles are the most effective way against shit storms because one-dimensional communication is for sure not sufficient. Only  argueing or only apologizing falls short to calm frustrated or angry customers on Social Media.

These are the outcomes of a recent Netherlandish scientific paper. According to the researchers organisations are much better off if they combine various communication strategies: to say sorry AND to express explicitly understanding for the complaint AND to offer proactively solutions, compensations or concrete promises. In doing so organisations can rebuild trust not only with the complainants but also with the by-standers of postings.

Van Mulken/Heslenfled, “Improving Complaint Handling: The Rhetorical Turn in Defensive and Accomodative Strategies”, in: Business and Professional Communications Quarterly, I-22, 2025.

From the practice:

Isn´t that interesting? So often are we the key differences in communication styles of old and young ones, of Digital Natives vs. Baby Boomers, differences between the spoken and the written word, the analogue and the virtual settings or the defensive vs. the accommodative complaint management.

And today it seems that knowledge from 2350 years ago in how we should cope with conflicts constructively still applies. May wordings, ductus or volume of internet communication vary from traditional talking: the principles of interpersonal conduct have not changed. Nice.

Men have got risk taking, women empathy as their source for new ideas

Mixed teams are a good idea due to a lot of reasons. A current US-Chinese meta-analysis demonstrates that this is particularly key for processes of creativity, though. Why? 1. Men and women complement each other perfectly: Men are creative based on their tendency to take more risks, women do so since they can better put themselves on somebody´s place. 2. Therefore female creativity comes across as more useful. They are focusing more on workability and not only on the passion per se to develop new ideas. 3. “Usefulness” or “Workability” should according to the researchers be much more often taken as the criteria for judging and selecting inputs of creativity. By doping so automatically much more women will be invited for brainstorming sessions of any kind.

Kim/Vaulont/Zhang/Byron, “ Looking Inside the Black Box of Gender Differences in Creativity: A Dual-Process Model and Meta-Analysis”, in: Journal of Applied Psychology, 2024, 109(12), 1861-1900.

From the practise:

In challenging times as today the funniest innovative ideas are not necessarily applicable shortly. That given women could be motivated to knock louder at the doors of boards that are desperately looking for solutions due to these new scientific insights. And that´s terrific.

Independently I´d like to add on based on my multiple experiences as a moderator in workshops designed for the development of new ideas: you always need criteria for coping efficiently and properly with the bunches of creativity you are expecting.

Without any criteria you are inadvertently triggering ideas that you surely did not want to proceed – and thus disappointing from the very beginning those who have trusted on you and your alleged 100% open space creativity. Believe me: this is not a limitation of creativity since there is still an abundance of ideas possible. You are just focussing better and are still getting a lot.

Gap between PR-theory and Practice: Still Space for Improvement

Depending on the communication strategy managers, politicians or celebrities alike phrase their words highly different: Those who deny responsibility, instrumentalize figures to present their innocence, those who want to put the crisis into perspective, work with terms of unsecurement (“possibly”, “I believe”, etc.) and those who apologize, don´t shy away to express also verbally emotions like sadness or shame.

And: Phrases that hide the own involvement (ie “The accident took place due to ….”, “There were losses”) are still pretty popular – not really a signal for transparency.

These are the results of a recently published study from Belgium after having analyszed 179 audio-visual, on average 4-minutes-long crisis statements. The researchers point also to a gap between theory and practise when looking at the well known PR academies. There each student learns a lot about diverse communication strategies in the case of crisis. But what that exactly means in terms of wording for the speakers involved is not taught and not described anywhere.

Fannes/Claeys/Van Gorp, “Phrasing Crisis Communication: How are Distinct Crisis Response Strategies Put Into Words?”, in: Business and Professional Communication Quarterly, I-26, 2024.

From the practice:

Everybody knows – at least in theory: the accurate wording is essential in the case of crisis. That´s why I am particularly engaged to support my clients in advance by so-called crisis communication workshops. And the need is tremendously high: there are a lot of crisis plans in a lot of drawers, though, but much rarer the management is prepared for challenging communication moments and has trained any potential crisis interview with an external trainer.

For me a role model how to communicate properly in cases of crisis is Carsten Spohr, CEO of Lufthansa Group, in his 2nd press conference after he has been informed that the crash of a German Wings civil flight in 2016 was due to the copilot´s wish to commit suicide. Almost perfect and breath-taking how Spohr takes responsibility for the worst case ever “Employee kills 150 customers” by utilizing it to present Lufthansa as the best airline company with the best staff all over the world.