“Vanity is the beginning of the end”, Alexander Schwörer, Geschäftsführer PERI GmbH

The twenty-first episode of the Future of Leadership Podcast is
about crisis-proof business models, the future of globalization
and a characterization of the leader of the future. Joining
Sebastian Morgner is Alexander Schwörer, CEO and Managing
Director for Marketing and Sales at PERI.


The conversation starts by discussing the impact of Covid-19 on
Mr. Schwörers everyday day business. He states that they used the
time to pull forward investments which anyway would have been
necessary at some later point. He then tells he never felt
threatened for PERI or himself, although the pandemic was and is
an emotional roller coaster. This could be traced back to PERIs
business model and its fast response on the crisis, which means
focusing on rental, switching fast to short time work and having
a strong supply chain.
Despite Covid-19 hitting global trade hard Mr Schwörer does not
think that it will stop the process of globalization. Still he
emphasizes that companies need to hedge which includes to create
redundancy and to analyse who their suppliers are.


Further he explains how requirements for leadership do change.
For example, cultural understanding will be most important, by
which he doesn’t mean to understand the cultural background of
your employees at all time but understand the culture of your
company.
That is why the CEO concludes that owners and leaders would have
to develop this culture, live it and make sure it is alive and
strong. Therefore, vanity and self-focussing is the beginning of
the end, because future leaders must be “empathetic,
understanding and can listen but at the same time give a clear
direction”.