Key players in the professional services industry work under constant deadline pressure and expect the highest quality, 
adherence to deadlines and precision from themselves at all times - for the benefit of their customers. The rapidly changing framework conditions and an ever-increasing flood of information add to the pressure. Under constant pressure, it becomes apparent that some professionals cope better than others with this high workload. But why is that? One key lies in mental and emotional strength and the ability to recover quickly from stress and setbacks. This skill is also known as resilience. For auditors, resilience is far more than a buzzword - it is an essential ability to cope with the increasing demands while remaining healthy and confident.

E-mails, digital meetings, LinkedIn messages - in today's working world, it is difficult or even impossible to escape the constant digital barrage. This is particularly true for managers, as they are subject to different requirements than employees. Being available until late in the evening or even at weekends is not uncommon, and the boundary between work and private life is often permeable. In addition, there is also a certain tendency towards self-exploitation: the great will to shape things in an often highly political environment, the enjoyment of power and responsibility and the pronounced work ethic, even to the point of self-endangerment, are just a few examples of this. For these reasons, resilience - and currently digital resilience in particular - is a critical aspect of leadership. This makes it all the more important that managers also pay attention to their own leadership, namely that of their own mental and emotional inner world. This is the key to being able to act with lasting resilience in the digital world of work.

Contrary to all attempts to flatten or even abolish hierarchies, they persist as an organizing principle in companies and corporations. Obviously, they fulfill an important function, regardless of whether they are imposed from above or developed informally through self-organization. Hierarchies seem to be indispensable to accomplish goals together with others. They fulfil not only an organizational but also a human need for order and orientation as well as the allocation of responsibility.

A corporate culture that recognizes death and grief fosters a supportive and empathetic working environment, strengthening employee loyalty. When an organization cares about their well-being and offers support in difficult life situations, employees feel seen and valued.

The large number of employees also makes a code of conduct unavoidable. In many places, this also includes values that are desirable and are even used to assess employees and managers.

What happens time and again in everyday organisational life is that values are set in the hope that they will have an immediate generative effect. Values are therefore often highlighted in management workshops, propagated in training sessions or strived for by senior management. This is particularly noticeable when a change project is announced that is based on establishing new, better values: ‘We need to become more effective, more innovative, more entrepreneurial, more agile, build a culture of error, become a family, drive cultural change.’

General lack of understanding of the importance of values

How It All Began
How do people manage to develop their full potential under the most difficult circumstances? And what can managers learn from these people? We have spent over a decade researching and working with countless managers to identify the individual factors that have a positive or negative impact on their crisis resilience. And we developed a scientifically sound procedure to measure the protective and risk factors, because skills can only be strengthened if they are recognized as relevant and if can be influenced. We are now in a position to present initial research data that provides exciting insights into the connection between crisis resilience and management careers.

Nothing seems to be easier to answer than the question if you are successful. But the moment you start thinking about it, questions come up like “am I really successful?”, “what does successful mean?” or “successful in relationship to what?”. In a recent study with over 200 managers from all over the world I asked the question “What does long-lasting professional success mean for you?” I wanted to find out which ingredients are widely accepted in the recipe for success.

Modern working life can often be stressful and challenging. People experience external challenges as a burden when they feel they have no control over them and do not believe they have sufficient resources to cope with the stress of everyday life. But there are ways in which you can make your working day stress-free.

We hear and read a lot about topics such as "self-management", "mental health", "resilience" and "inner world". We are looking for help to better cope with today's demands. A recent study by Techniker Krankenkasse shows that a third of Germans sometimes feel stressed and a quarter even feel this way frequently.

Wherever people come together or work together, conflicts can arise. But the healthy handling of 
conflicts can be trained.