How to Lead

Sometimes leadership is simply a matter of thorough alignment between management and workforce on the vision and the plan as well as financially. Since the Frank Appel became chief executive of Deutsche Post DHL in 2008, he has sought to make the German postal service and international courier an engaging place to work. The humdrum activity of moving things from A to B can be boring. But to Mr Appel, his 522,000 employees play a critical role in forming the backbone to globalisation, or what he calls “the biggest peacemaker on this planet”. “What drives people is not top-line growth,” he says, in an FT interview at DHL’s innovation centre in Bonn. “Our purpose has to be very explicitly understood by every employee. The more it’s understood, the better the performance of the company.” His core belief: when goals are mainly financial, purpose is often lost. You can read more in a Financial Times article at https://www.ft.com/content/8aa737dc-f3b9-11e7-88f7-5465a6ce1a00