"Adapting Leadership" – Annette Mann | Banking on Success

Why I wanted to do a trainee program was because I was quite aware that joining a large company, it is quite tough to get good perspective and there's so many different kinds of jobs and expertises, right? And so it was a fantastic time with project work to just try to understand as much as possible how the business kind of works. And that time showed me that every time you change the role, you gain a new perspective and it widens your perspective, and there's never this one truth. And so this guided me a lot over my career. Always when I made a decision what could be my next job, I always wanted to collect different perspectives. And you said before, well, there was now more than 20 years of Lufthansa, and I always tried to be well once in headquarters, then out in the markets in sales, for example, in strategic positions, in operations positions, in projects. And so with all those different roles, this gives you more and more perspectives and a more holistic view of the business. And probably that's also what brought me then finally into this kind of position, collecting these different perspectives.

It was probably the time when I again learned a lot about how the business runs, because implementing premium economy, the tough thing was not sourcing some new seats and putting them into an airplane, but the thing was how do you launch a kind of new product line between two others? And when you compare that, and I use that example a lot, the challenge was to convince Lufthansa at that point of time, not only management but also lots of colleagues, that there is room for something between economy and business class. Because so many people were afraid that if we launched something, it could dilute business class, and business class at that point of time was always the most profitable product line, and airlines being very reliable and very dependent on that. And at the same time, not too many people believed, because economy is kind of a price-driven business, right, that there would be enough people paying more for premium economy. And so, discussing these beliefs and also changing these beliefs, that there is room, I used the example of cars where I said, look, pretending that there's no room for premium economy would be a bit like BMW saying there's no space between the 3 series and the 7 series, right? And there is a lot in between, indeed. And so I actually used that BMW example when implementing premium economy, and in the end it was successful, and it taught me a lot because it was about the strategic business case, but then also about how do you implement that in a commercially right way? How do you get the pricing right, the marketing right? How do you find the right target groups for this product in between? How do you attract enough people from economy and how do you hold enough people back from jumping down from business class? But in the end it worked out. And now, grabbing on that and switching a bit gears, because you know, living now the business case side of the premium economy, this required a lot of convincing skills and many other skills to change the mindset.

Yeah, I get that question quite often and I would say I try to adapt it to situations and I try to adapt it also to people. I don't think there is this one leadership style which makes you successful through your entire career in every situation, because well, over more than 20 years in aviation, there are always times where there is growth and where everything is booming, right, and then on the other hand we had deep crises. I mean Corona for sure was the deepest crisis and the most existential one, and in that time you need a different kind of leadership style than when implementing something new like premium economy. And the other thing is when you lead people, I'm sure we will also talk about diversity, right, I always try to have a diverse team not just in terms of men and women but also in types of character. And if you have someone who's really new in a leadership position, probably that person needs a different kind of leadership style than someone who's super experienced and probably on the way to the next career. And so I try to be sensitive on what's needed, and over time I tried different kinds of leadership styles. What is probably more the question is what do I like most? And it's probably a bit surprising. I like more the extremes. So it is kind of interesting to lead in a really deep crisis because then things become very clear and fast. So that's something that does fit me. But the other thing is like developing something new, building something new. That's very much my passion. And so that's probably something where I try to let others feel my passion and then try to get energy into the system. That's what I really do like, but yeah, you have to just be adaptive, I believe.

Well, actually I spent very little time in the formal headquarters. So I started with Lufthansa airlines, so I was deep in the airline business. And then I also for example spent two years out in the field in sales in Hamburg, and then also in 2015 I went to Zurich and already spent five years at Swiss. And so it is not the first time for me to be kind of out in a business unit. And what I always enjoyed is the jumping forth and back because then we're back to perspectives, right? And I think it is super important in upper management roles to understand both, right, to understand what's needed from a headquarters perspective but also to understand what's needed to be a successful business unit. And so I try to play that out. And do I have, when I would have to choose what do I enjoy more, I would really say it's hard. When you're in the one role, I can very much identify now being here and being responsible for a business unit. But I also enjoyed my headquarters roles. I mean there it's a huge wheel you can drive, right, and that also has its fascination. And it depends, and I like to be switching. Yeah.