Part 3 - The Pyramid Effect of Social Competence

The core of our ethical approach lies in the responsibility of the individual, in self management, which encompasses all areas of life. In business, whoever would like to achieve a culture of learning, promote corporate social responsibility, or implement a value-oriented overall concept needs to acknowledge his own “glasses”. Without self-awareness, no growth in skills that are anchored in the personality is possible. Otherwise, they remain as a suit that does not fit, somehow on your body, but not real or authentic. With growing self-awareness, the ability prevails and falls in all areas of communication, goal-setting, the life balance ... especially, however, of conflict management. The effect that currently occurs is best depicted in the form of a pyramid.

According to our conception, conflict management is not primarily a (learnable and teachable) method, but an element of personality development that is constructed on self-perception. Therefore, conflict management must be acquired in a learning process. No one can learn skills integrated into their personality in a course. And of course it does not work implicitly without learned material, methods and examples. Growth in the area of social competence exacts me as a person — completely. Only in this certainly challenging way is enduring personality development possible. The classic location of the primary procurement of social competence, of the ability to live in relationships and to structure these positively and proactively, is the family of origin.

Personal Illustration

The pressure on this “Educatope” has dramatically increased in the last two decades. The primary social dimension, which is becoming smaller and smaller, is hardly in the position anymore to provide the needed competencies to adolescents in the financial sense, by way of the increasing speed of change, and due to the glaring influence of multimedia-based reality. Therefore, the keyword of psycho-social health will be a core subject in the years to come. But because this primary value-provider is overburdened in many aspects, it is that much more important to address the development of personality competencies. A basic principle is (as can be seen in the following diagram) that growth in soft skills always transfers to increases in self competence. “Wash me — but don’t get me wet” cannot be the motto for up-and-coming leaders. Quite the contrary. Only he who presents himself as a role model to his own personality development and also does this in a clear way will be able to develop his employees on an enduring basis.