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10 years of Leadership Dialogues
Since 2016, the Leadership Dialogues have brought together selected leaders, experts, and practitioners to discuss the questions that truly move organizations: responsibility, collaboration, cultural transformation, and the future of leadership.
Not as a conference. Not as a traditional seminar. But as a curated space for shifting perspectives, honest exchange, and shared thinking among people who carry responsibility.
To the next Leadership Dialogue on 6 November, 2026
Leadership needs spaces where people who carry responsibility can engage in genuine dialogue with one another.
People in positions of responsibility need spaces where they can reflect with others who carry responsibility on fundamental questions of leadership, culture, collaboration, and accountability.
Not through one-way knowledge transfer, but through guided dialogue, with input from experts, shifts in perspective, and focused exchange.
Hans-Georg Gadamer pointed out, in essence, that genuine conversation always carries the risk of failure.
The place we chose for this is a bar. A setting where conversations unfold differently, and where people with different backgrounds and perspectives can meet and engage as equals.
Since 2016, our Leadership Dialogues in Mannheim have created exactly this kind of space: for conversations that go beyond the obvious and explore what leadership means under real-world conditions.
From Dialogue to Network
Since 2024, we have also been continuing the dialogue in other settings through our Leadership Visits. Former guests of the Leadership Dialogues invite us into their organizations, moving from guest to host.
The Leadership Visits are topic-focused, invitation-only formats for selected clients from our network and former participants in the Leadership Dialogues. They combine insights into organizations with dialogue on questions of leadership, organization, and change.
We celebrate 10 years of Leadership Dialogues!
Ten years, many perspectives, different topics, and always the same idea: bringing people in positions of responsibility into conversation with one another.
A decade in dialogue on leadership and transformation - Insights from 10 years
Selected topics from ten years of Leadership Dialogues show how the questions facing leadership and organizations have evolved: from systems thinking, digitalization, and transformation to connected leadership, AI, and culture, as well as responsibility, safety, and the productive use of difference.
2016
Talking about Systems by Mapping them — Stanley Deetz
Von Industrie 4.0 zur Arbeit 4.0 — Wolfgang Kötter
2018
Expect the unexpected – wie man strategische Transformationen klug „steuert“ — Kristien Weidenmann
2020
Connected Leadership in a Digital Age — Luis Suarez
2022
Wie hilft uns KI bessere Entscheidungen zu treffen? — Thorsten Heilig
2023
Wie rockt man Kultur im Unternehmen? — Uwe Schöpe
2024
What Every Leader Needs to Learn from 36 Years of Safety Culture — Monica Haage
2025
Turning Difference into Creativity — Stanley Deetz
Participant Voices from the Leadership Dialogues
"These Leadership Dialogues are an exciting format for exchanging ideas with other executives on highly current topics. Through the input of an expert, the practical knowledge gained from experience is complemented by theoretical perspectives. The shared exchange is at the heart of the format, which is why learning from one another plays a crucial role during the events."
Nina Lehmann, Project Manager Labor Market and Education, Metropolitan Region Rhine-Neckar GmbH
“Since 2016, I have regularly participated in the Leadership Dialogues. Each time, they provide valuable inspiration for my own work, both professionally and personally, through the stimulating exchange with the diverse group of participants.”
Carsten Härtl, Consultant in the Soraya-Kandan network and former client (BASF)
“What I particularly value about this format is that it is intentionally small and dialogue-based. There is no conventional stage programme, but genuine exchange among leaders from mid-sized companies, large corporations, and innovation-driven environments.”
Birgit Stelzer, enabler for innovation/ co-founder/ coach/ lecturer
"The Leadership Dialogue is an amazingly open and modern format for everyone interested in current developments and challenges in the context of leadership. It allows participants to immerse themselves in the insights of the respective expert as a group and, through dialogue and direct exchange with the other participants, to explore different perspectives and thoughts on the topic. The event has always been valuable for me, and I am looking forward to participate in the next one.”
Constantin Klein, Global Product Lead Microsoft Syntax Systems GmbH & Co. KG
The next Leadership Dialogue
"AI is everywhere. Leadership isn't. How does leadership change in times of AI?"
The next Leadership Dialogue with Hardy Kuhn on November 6, 2026, will explore Agentic AI and how leadership changes when AI increasingly becomes part of decision-making and work processes.
It continues what the Leadership Dialogues have been doing for ten years: examining technological and societal change early on through the lens of responsibility, trust, and leadership.
More Info
Hardy Kuhn, Head of Service Management Solutions, SAP
Ten years of questions. A future in dialogue.
The Leadership Dialogues were never designed to present finished answers. They open conversations around the questions that shape leadership, culture, collaboration, and responsibility. The next ten years will challenge leadership even more. AI, geopolitical uncertainty, demographic change, and new expectations toward work and responsibility are not only changing processes. They are changing what leadership means. This is why we continue the Leadership Dialogues: as a space for questions that do not have simple answers, but deserve better conversations. And through the Soraya-Kandan Newsletter, we continue this dialogue with selected impulses on leadership, culture change, dialogue, AI, and responsibility.
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