On putting forth a clear vision: 5 questions with Conti's Andreas Gerstenberger

Andreas Gerstenberger has been with Continental A.G. for almost three decades and has worked in a number of leadership roles.

He was on the tire side of Conti until late 2015, when he moved over to ContiTech as executive vice president overseeing the global Industrial Fluid Solutions business unit. This May, as part of a ContiTech restructuring, Gerstenberger was named CEO of ContiTech USA Inc.

With our strategic realignment, we are introducing a new organizational setup to move closer to our markets and customers, bundle capabilities for the best possible offering, and go to market as one.

For me and all leaders this means that we have to lead by example. We need to show the mindset and behaviors that we want to strengthen with our strategy and new organizational setup, i.e., integrating the market and customer perspective in all our decisions, promoting collaboration across teams, units and business areas, and most importantly unite different perspectives behind our joint vision of becoming the first choice for material-driven solutions.

For me, the leadership role and style does not change with the number of direct reports and ultimately the size of the organization you lead. It is always about having and promoting a clear, understandable and actionable vision, because then you enable your organization to make consistent and swift decisions close to the customer and market that are in line with your overall strategy and business objectives.

To engage and align my new leadership team at ContiTech Industrial Solutions Americas with our joint vision, we recently held a leadership summit with about 90 leaders from across the Americas organization to reflect on our vision, define what it will take to achieve our goals, and develop a detailed plan for our path forward. This dialog and interaction brought everyone on board and will be the foundation for implementing our strategic priorities.

Leadership is always about learning and listening. Only by listening carefully to the case or challenge presented to you and asking questions to broaden your perspective do you get all relevant information and can ensure to come to the best conclusions. Of course, you should avoid making "lone wolf" decisions and involve your leaders in the decision making process because that improves the quality of the decision and also strengthens the execution. That is why I like my leaders to have a say in the decision making, then you get a real buy-in and their commitment to drive the execution.

My experience from different roles within Continental is: We have a common understanding of how we want to drive our business forward and of our roles and responsibilities as leaders. In addition, Continental ensures that all leaders have broad international experience and are sensitive to the different cultural contexts in communicating with and leading global teams.

Based on this common Continental approach and my long experience in North America, I feel very well prepared for my new leadership role.

Leaders need many strengths and capabilities including expertise, empathy, and engagement. But the most important thing to me is that leaders have the authority and authenticity to lead teams. This does not happen by itself, but only when the team sees that the leader puts the common goal and the team first, takes responsibility in difficult situations, and ultimately makes the team better and more successful. So these are the qualities I look for when selecting people with leadership potential from our many excellent talents.

The hardest thing is proving it every day. Leadership is not defined by your position but by your ability to earn the trust and get the buy-in of your people time and again. That is why leaders must remain humble and continue to learn every day how to better unite their team and organization for achieving the common goal.