Henkel Leadership Commitments – Leadership is everyone’s business

In an increasingly challenging world, companies need a solid foundation and the flexibility to quickly react to a changing environment. Henkel is a high-performing company with successful innovations, brands and technologies and a strong presence both in mature and emerging markets.  Our powerful position is the achievement of all employees worldwide, their work and dedication, following our company purpose: to create sustainable value.

Our global team has made Henkel successful in the past and is crucial for our future success. But only if everyone at Henkel is enabled to leverage her or his full potential, we will find our full strength. The foundation for a winning culture is an environment of trust, that embraces innovation and empowers decision-making. A strong leadership culture with clear commitments and guidance will help us.

“Our Leadership Commitments set high expectations when it comes to leadership, agility, and collaboration. As challenging as change might be, it also creates an opportunity to question the status quo and to improve,” explains Sylvie Nicol, Executive Vice President Human Resources & Infrastructure Services.

Leadership is everyone’s business at Henkel. We want all employees to actively shape our culture, by implementing our leadership commitments into their daily work life. This will help driving an inclusive culture. We strongly believe, that each of our about 50,000 employees can make a difference, starting with small changes in everyday situations. 

But where to start? We gave our employees a hint: We are implementing little changes by using so called leadership hacks. A hack is a shortcut, a way of cutting through an apparently complex situation with a simple and small solution.
Here are two examples: 

1. The hack “Monday Kick-In” is a quick stand-up meeting, where every team member shortly  explains his priorities for the week in a very brief and informal way. Therewith, synergies can be used more efficiently and double work can be prevented. 
2. The hack “Pairing Up” can be also very powerful. Sometimes it is very helpful to obtain a different insight from a peer, who can provide a new perspective, insights or specialist knowledge that could be relevant to a project or a complex task. Furthermore, working in pairs can also strengthen and accelerate cross-team collaboration, which will enhance the company culture.

Sometimes even a small hack has the potential to drive productivity, efficiency, and fun on a large scale.