Don't fly blind - Decoding Your Leadership Algorithms - A Step Ahead. Leading Change. Best Practice Portal.

Becoming a leader often starts with a surge of excitement – a new assignment, a fresh challenge, and the prestige of a new position. However, that initial joy is frequently followed by a period of doubt. We begin to wonder how to truly make things happen and how to navigate the complex reality of leadership. We soon discover that our team members are not mirrors of ourselves – they don’t always behave as we expect, and their motivations may differ vastly from our own.

In this search for influence, the core question remains: how do you effectively pursue your role as a leader to cultivate a truly high-performing team? To explore these dynamics, I am joined by my Guest Heidemarie Oberg-Fischer. With her extensive experience in developing leaders and teams within international contexts, she brings a wealth of insight into the nuances of global leadership.

In this episode you will learn:

Why understanding a person’s worldview is more critical for leadership success than simply speaking the same language
How to distinguish between what society expects of us and how our unique personality determines our actual impact
Why leaders naturally hire people who mirror them and how this creates a dangerous tunnel vision
How to leverage different ways of thinking to solve complex problems and drive innovation
How to identify the automatic, stress-induced behaviors that knock you off your professional rails
Why the fear of rejection sabotages honest communication and how to overcome it
How to map your team’s psychological safety and motivational drive to prevent burnout or apathy
How to shift from being controlled by your triggers to being in control of your actions through deep self-awareness

When you listen to this conversation, please think about any leader, HR, DEI expert that can benefit from it and share with this person later on. I really care to be reaching the right people with my content, so thank you very much for this in advance.

You can also watch the conversation on YouTube!

I wish you fun and discovery!

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If you need to educate leaders in how to create psychological safety in your remote teams, or if you would like to increase inclusive leadership practices, or resilience of your employees – please contact us at ETTA www.ettagoglobal.com.

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The Shift from Language to Worldview

The journey into leadership development often begins with a fundamental realization: language is rarely the biggest barrier. For Heidemarie Oberg-Fischer, who grew up between German and Mexican cultures and later lived in Switzerland, this insight came early. While working as an interpreter for the board of a major German automotive company in Mexico, she observed that even when words were translated perfectly, understanding remained elusive.

The real challenge lay in the Cosmovision – the distinct worldviews and priorities that shape how people perceive reality. While cultural norms dictate what is expected of us in a specific society, personality determines how we actually show up. This interplay between “how we are formatted” (culture) and “how we choose to be” (personality) is where true leadership impact is forged.

The Breach in Communication

A central tenet of Heidemarie’s work is the belief that people do what they consider right based on what they consider true to get the best outcome they can. When expectations aren’t met, we don’t naturally assume good intentions; instead, we are often triggered by a negativity bias. This leads to harsh judgments and annoyance, whether in personal relationships or high-stakes business negotiations.

In a business context, the lack of deep personal connection – what Heidemarie calls a lack of “unconditional love” – makes these communication breaches even more likely. She recalls a pivotal moment early in her career during a looming labor strike in Mexico. A German HR specialist and a Mexican union leader sat across from each other for hours. The German focused on macroeconomic data and facts; the Mexican focused on family pride and long-term stability for future generations. Because their worldviews never intersected, the talks collapsed, and a massive strike broke out.

The Clash of Orientations

Beyond cultural differences, the way a leader’s personality is structured significantly impacts team dynamics. Using the Global DISC™ framework, Heidemarie identifies two primary axes that define our behavior:

Task vs. People Orientation: Task-oriented leaders prioritize goals and direct, neutral communication. Conversely, people-oriented leaders privilege relationships and use a more indirect, emotional approach. A direct statement from a task-focused leader can easily be perceived as an offense by a relationship-focused team member.
Active vs. Reactive Styles: Some leaders have an intrinsic push to “make things happen” (active), while others are more attuned to what the environment requires before responding (reactive).

This clash is particularly visible for female leaders. Often, they face a double bind: they must navigate universal expectations of “female competencies” while frequently feeling pressured to adopt masculine leadership styles that may not feel authentic. Finding a balance between these principles is one of the hardest aspects of modern leadership.

Awareness as the Catalyst for Growth

Most leadership training focuses on external competencies – how to detect skills or how to communicate. However, they rarely address preferences and triggers. By using assessments like Global DISC™, leaders can bridge the gap between how they see themselves and how they are perceived by their coworkers.

“People get to be much more aware… by facing leaders with the way they are seen from their co-workers, colleagues, etc. They really can grow in their self-awareness because it is so different than what they think originally.”

A striking example of this disconnect appears in the implementation of new technologies like AI. Forward-thinking, active leaders often use the language of “change” and “discovery” to excite the workforce. Yet, for a significant portion of the team, “change” is a threat. They value stability. To reach them, a leader must pivot the narrative: it’s not about changing the world, but about how these new tools can help maintain stability in an uncertain environment.

True leadership, therefore, is not about forcing everyone into one mold, but about learning how to make the best out of every orientation in the room.

The Trap of the “Mini-Me” and Cognitive Diversity

A common pitfall for leaders is the tendency to recruit “Mini-Mes” – individuals who act, think, and react exactly as they do. While this creates a sense of immediate harmony and empathy, it ultimately fosters a dangerous tunnel vision. True innovation and problem-solving require cognitive diversity: the ability to look at a single problem from vastly different perspectives to ensure every angle is covered.

Heidemarie illustrates this through a recent workshop with a German company. The CEO, a dominant and outspoken personality (often referred to as a “red” type), was frustrated that his Mexican team wasn’t “pushy” or “outspoken” enough. During a blindfolded team-building exercise, the CEO’s natural trigger took over; he immediately pushed his ideas forward, unable to keep quiet. In the process, he completely talked over his CFO – a quiet introvert who actually held the brightest solution to the problem.

This highlights a critical misunderstanding of introversion in leadership:

The Blockage of Pressure: When an introvert is pushed to speak loudly and quickly in a public setting, it doesn’t trigger ideas – it blocks their brain. The pressure of the “loud” environment causes them to retreat.
The Value of the Counterpart: While speed and extroversion are highly valued, they often hinder leaders from digging into crucial details. You need the analysts and the focused observers to pull the brakes and ensure the solution is actually viable.

Redefining Managerial Courage

The concept of “courage” is often misinterpreted through a cultural and personality-driven lens. Monika shares an example of a company requesting training on “managerial courage” because they felt their local Polish leadership was too quiet. However, the issue wasn’t a lack of bravery; it was a mismatch of communication styles.

In some headquarters’ cultures – particularly those that are more confrontational – “courage” means speaking up loudly and debating openly. In other cultures, such as the Polish one, where harmony and long-term relationships are highly valued, the “courageous” act might actually be choosing the right moment to speak to avoid unnecessary conflict. When a team has one person holding the big picture, another managing the details, and a third thinking of contingency plans, that is where great teamwork lives – not in everyone adopting the same aggressive style.

Triggers and the Automatic Response

To lead effectively, a leader must move beyond “firing” people they don’t get along with and instead look into personality clashes. Heidemarie notes that many of her most valued employees were people she initially struggled to understand. Success came from finding ways to respect differing beliefs and principles rather than seeking the easy exit of getting rid of someone.

This requires a deep awareness of one’s own triggers. When stakes are high, stress is mounting, or a crisis hits, we all tend to retreat into our “comfort zones” – utomatic behaviors shaped by childhood experiences or past successes. These responses are often driven by:

Unconscious Biases: Strongly rooted beliefs shaped by the past that we mistakenly accept as universal truths.
Emotional Hijacking: When emotions run high, our brain defaults to repeated patterns that may have worked before but are entirely inadequate for the current situation.

“We are not very aware of the way we are handling situations because we tend to go into our comfort zones… we’re not aware that we’re acting out because of fear, or because we want to achieve things, or looking for apparently being successful.”

Mastering self-leadership means recognizing these triggers before they dictate our actions. By understanding that our “automatic response” is just one possible reaction – and often not the best one – we open the door to a more inclusive, cognitively diverse, and ultimately more successful leadership style.

Understanding Your “Derailers”

When we encounter a situation that sparks a sudden wave of intense emotion—like the suspicion that a colleague is trying to control us—we are often experiencing an unconscious bias. These triggers are rarely about the other person’s actual intent; more often, they are a reflection of our internal “algorithms.”

Heidemarie describes these automatic, stress-induced behaviors as Derailers. The metaphor is vivid: imagine yourself as a train moving steadily along the tracks. A derailer is a small, often unnoticed detail in the environment that suddenly knocks you off your rails. These behaviors are deeply attached to our survival instincts. At some point in our lives, they helped us navigate a challenge, so our unconscious brain continues to use them, believing they are “saving our life.”

The Fear of Rejection in Leadership

One of the most common derailers in management occurs during the feedback process. Many leaders experience significant stress before giving critical feedback. While they may consciously tell themselves, “I don’t want to hurt their feelings,” the deeper, unconscious trigger is often a fear of rejection.

As social animals, our primary brain equates social rejection with a threat to our survival. This fear can sabotage the authenticity of the conversation. A stressed leader may “sandwich” the feedback with forced positivity, while the recipient – also stressed and biologically prepared for a “hit”—completely ignores the praise, waiting only for the inevitable “but.” When both parties are operating from a place of fear rather than authenticity, the feedback loop breaks down, leaving both sides feeling upset and misunderstood.

Beyond Competencies: The Individual Deep Dive

Standard leadership programs often focus on external skills like strategic vision or situational leadership. However, Heidemarie argues that these are insufficient if the leader remains unaware of their own internal patterns. A truly effective development program must involve:

Personality Analysis: Understanding your baseline preferences and the “how” of your interactions.
Derailer Identification: Naming the specific behaviors you default to when triggered—whether you become defensive, overpowering, or retreat into silence.
Bias Awareness: Uncovering the rooted beliefs and “cultural normalcies” that you take for granted but may not be universal.

“A leader who does not know themselves is like a pilot flying blindsided or without instruments. They are trying their best, but the crash is imminent.”

The Growth Zone: Mapping Team Dynamics

Once individual awareness is established, the focus shifts to the team level through tools like the Growth Zone Analysis. This assesses two critical factors: Psychological Safety and Motivational Drive.

The Growth Zone: High safety and high motivation – where innovation and creation happen.
The Comfort Zone: High safety but low motivation – people feel secure but have stopped striving.
The Burnout Zone: High motivation but low safety – high pressure with a “tunnel vision” focus.
The Apathy Zone: Low safety and low motivation – a state of total disengagement.

By mapping where a team sits, leaders can stop imposing arbitrary rules and instead facilitate a process where the team discovers their own “rules of engagement.”

The Outcome: Broadening the Horizon

The ultimate goal of this six-to-eight-month journey is to transition from an “automatic” leader to a conscious leader. When you give a name to your fears and triggers, you stop wasting energy on futile attempts to protect yourself from non-existent threats.

The result is a leader who is in control of their behavior, rather than being controlled by their triggers. This self-knowledge also softens the way we judge others. We move away from harsh criticism and toward a deeper understanding that, just like us, every member of our team is simply doing the best they can based on what they hold to be true.

As Heidemarie concludes, the most successful leaders are those who dare to find out who they are. By inviting feedback and engaging in the messy work of self-discovery, they gain the “instruments” necessary to fly with clarity and purpose.

The Growth Zone™

If you want to learn how to measure team dynamics and work developmentally with organizations to create High-Performance Teams, I invite you to equip yourself with the tools that make this measurement possible. As a certified provider, I offer licensing courses for the ICQ Global toolkit, including Growth Zone™ – a framework specifically designed to define and track high-performance parameters. This allows you to build every development program on hard data, not hypotheses.

Growth Zone™ makes the “soft” and elusive aspects of teamwork visible, providing concrete, numerical, and practical insights.

Who is Growth Zone™ for?

Trainers and Coaches looking to enrich their portfolio with professional, credible diagnostics.
HR and L&D Professionals focused on building effective and healthy work environments.
Leaders who need measurable evidence that their development initiatives are delivering real results.

If you want to work with this tool independently – you can obtain a license from me.

If you want to see how Growth Zone™ can support your organization – I invite you to collaborate with ETTA. Go Global, where we implement full diagnostic and development projects.

Curious about how Growth Zone™ can change the way your team or your clients work? Get in touch – I would be delighted to share more!

Thank you!

Photo by Aditya Vyas on Unsplash

Don’t fly blind – Decoding Your Leadership Algorithms - ASA 25