The classic text for business leaders wishing to take their understanding of themselves to the next level and lead authentically and effectively has been updated and enhanced for today’s rapidly changing and often bewildering environment.
In the second edition of Hostage at the Table: How Leaders Can Overcome Conflict, Influence Others and Raise Performance, George Kohlrieser, Distinguished Professor of Leadership and Organizational Behavior at IMD, and his son Andrew Kohlrieser, share how to enhance your personal and professional leadership skills through what they have learnt in high-stakes hostage negotiations and business conflicts.
Kohlrieser is Program Director of High Performance Leadership, a six-day immersive program at IMD that has been going strong for 25 years. Since its launch there have been more than 135 iterations, and there are now more than 10,000 graduates, many of them in the C-suite. “People often describe the experience of coming onto HPL as transformative,” said Prof. Kohlrieser. “We hope they can get a similar experience by reading this book.”
The new edition dives deep into mindset, the bonding cycle, how to “put the fish on the table” (boldly flagging something that isn’t working) and grief. “Knowing what impact we’ve had in the past, we’ve put the emphasis on certain elements this time around,” Kohlrieser explained. It also takes in the developments in digital and artificial intelligence that were still science fiction back in 2002.
The authors reveal the part emotions play, beginning with a question to the reader: “What happened to you?” as a starting point. Instead of looking at what’s wrong with you, or how you can improve, they suggest to consider the events in your past, positive or negative, wherein lies the key to your unique leadership power.
“If you’re lacking in confidence, or feel guilt, anger, shame, regret – all of these things are holding you hostage. This is a book about how to get free,” Kohlrieser said. “We have taken everything we have learned from the first edition and applied it to the second edition in a more understandable way so you’ll be able to come into your full power as your own leader, authentic.”
He stressed the importance of dialogue: “We now understand, more than when the book was first written, that leadership is a relationship. It’s not command-and-control. So we have new parts that deal with psychological safety, the emotions, and how to become a leader who is able to create failures at the right level. The world needs kind leaders, not nice leaders. We need leaders who are honest. Because nice is a kind of lying, whereas being kind means being willing to rock the boat.”
“The metaphor of being held hostage captures that terrible sense of being trapped without options. Kohlrieser shows us that we do have options; they lie within,” said Amy Edmondson, Novartis Professor of Leadership and Management at Harvard Business School and Author of Right Kind of Wrong: The Science of Failing Well.
“I hope anyone who reads this will further understand the foundations of who they are as a leader,” said Kohlrieser. “As you read this book, you will learn to unravel the events that happened to you. Understand transitions and challenges, let go of what is in the past, and you’ll be able to live fully in the present, as the full leader you can be.”
Before becoming a business-school professor, Kohlrieser was a professional hostage negotiator. He trained as a psychologist, and first worked with the police department of Dayton, Ohio to reduce homicides in domestic violence situations. During this period, he was himself held hostage himself four times. He then started to teach hostage negotiation techniques at the Dayton Police Academy and worked at a psychiatric hospital, teaching mental health professionals how to work with chronic schizophrenics.
These early career roles led him to a deep conviction in the power of emotional bonding and what it can accomplish. He has since worked with the police, the military, and humanitarian organizations in conflict zones and hotspots, as well as with police departments and academies around the world, including the FBI. His son and co-author Andrew Kohlrieser is an experienced leadership, negotiation and conflict resolution consultant.
“What we have noticed throughout our work is that, whether domestically or internationally, we all have more in common than we think,” the authors write. “We want to help leaders at every level to leverage that common ground to make the world a better place, one negotiation, one conflict resolution, one dialogue at a time.”
Hostage at the Table: How Leaders Can Overcome Conflict, Influence Others and Raise Performance by George Kohlrieser and Andrew Kohlrieser is published by Wiley.
Related article: https://www.imd.org/news/leadership/celebrating-25-years-of-high-performance-leadership/
