I’ve met countless numbers of people over the past decades, and I’ve always been curious about how they acquired their skills, talents, and abilities, and how they recognized these qualities, especially attributes that were not immediately apparent. My greatest passion has always been to work with others. Whether I’m hiring new employees at Bertelsmann or meeting young people all over the globe, one thing fascinates me: What makes a person unique? How does someone attain inner strength? Why do some of us not only accept life’s challenges but use them for personal growth? And last but not least: What does it take for someone to become a leader? And by leader, I don’t mean just someone with a high position within a company. Being a leader means leading by example—whether working in an honorary position or managing projects in social, cultural, or other fields.
Of course, having expert knowledge is a must. To be at the top of your profession, you need to have an excellent education as well as substantial professional knowhow. But that’s not all. I have met many extraordinarily talented and well-educated people who become insecure when dealing with others, who won’t discuss controversial subjects, and who avoid taking a personal stand. In short, they retreat just when it’s their time to step up. They don’t trust their own instincts, and they won’t take a stand. But a keen intellect and proven capabilities are not enough to be successful. We know today that our brain’s subconscious can process much more information than our rational, conscious mind can.1 Contrary to what we in the West have been taught for generations, feelings or intuition do not stand in opposition to intelligence. Rather, they are a type of intelligence.
Until just a few years ago, it was frowned upon for women of my generation to discuss the impact of their feelings on their decision making. If you showed your emotions, you were considered intellectually weak. And if, furthermore, it was a woman who drew on her intuition, her friends and family would humor her, but her colleagues would certainly not take her seriously. For a long time, concepts like “emotional intelligence” and “intuitive judgment” were considered feminine or female-oriented. Any old-school, traditional manager would have just laughed at them.
This has now all changed, with a special impact on the women of my generation. Today we know that qualities like intuition contribute to making a great leader. If we trust our feelings, we can grow as human beings. We can be open to new possibilities, take unexplored paths, develop new ideas, and launch new projects. We can bring individuals together who otherwise would have never met, and tap into unknowable potential. Believing in the power of your own intuition makes way for endless opportunities. I have seen innumerable examples of it.
Of course, intuition isn’t everything. Our emotional knowledge still needs an intellectual framework, including professional expertise and analytical thinking—just as intellect without intuition has its limits. Together, however, intellect and intuition are unbeatable. The more I learned to trust my feelings, the more courageous I became. Suddenly I was going forward with projects that I hadn’t dared dream of before. These are the opportunities that I want to talk about here, the key to many of my projects and initiatives. At first, I often just had the sense that something needed to be done, and so I would reach for the phone. An idea was born, and then others followed. A spontaneous initiative grew into a network, which many people then joined. An intuitive decision unleashed great creative force—what began small grew big. And yet in today’s schools, students’ creative potential is still not nurtured nearly as much as rational and academic learning.
Anyone who wants to make changes in our society needs to step off the well-trodden path. We must dare to try new things. We must question and rethink that which is familiar, to make sure we’re really on the right track. We must be allowed to make mistakes. And we must become curious again, to want to learn our whole lives long.