Academy “Leadership and Personality” for High Potentials

With our academies, we are responding to a pressing problem in the education of talented young adults who will aspire to upper management positions, found a start-up or take over a family business: Technical knowledge, also in the area of management and business leadership, is taught at universities, but the training of the competence to lead people is clearly neglected. This competence presupposes to mature in one’s personality, to lead oneself and to be able to give oneself orientation in existential questions of life.

Within the framework of the Academy, you will become familiar with the contents, methods and exercises that the philosophical tradition and the Jesuit Order have developed in its more than 450-year history in order to train young people for leadership positions. The focus of the Academy is on your individual process. There are no papers or lectures given at the Academy, not even on the topic of leadership. Rather, the daily content inputs provide you with methods to become more sensitive to yourself in times of silence and meditation that characterize the days – in order to then learn to lead yourself and work out orientation.

Because we are convinced that, in addition to all professional competence, a leader – especially in top positions – needs a mature, stable character. Without a high degree of self-reflection, self-awareness and the ability to deal personally with existential questions, no leader will be able to make responsible decisions and provide orientation for others. Learning to lead oneself is therefore one of the great challenges for anyone who wants to be a leader in a top position.

The academies are therefore aimed at young adults who are prepared to spend an intensive period of time looking at themselves. This process is supplemented by discussions with top leaders from business, politics and culture.

Our guests

At each academy, we are visited by two or three guests who, in a confidential conversation, do not talk about their company but about how they, as people, manage to lead a life in top positions in business, culture or politics without losing themselves in the process. The names of the guests will be announced in due time.