When Leadership Becomes Plural: Rethinking Authority in a Dionysian Age
by Janka Krings-Klebe and Jörg Schreiner

In the first two parts of this series, we explored how the Dionysian imperative challenges core assumptions of modern management. We saw how organizations must move beyond the Apollonian pursuit of order and stability, embracing instead a more dynamic interplay between structure and emergence. We followed the transformation from hierarchy to ecosystem and asked what it means for companies to behave more like living systems than machines. But even as strategies evolve and structures adapt, one domain resists change most persistently: leadership. Despite the shift toward distributed intelligence and decentralized action, the image of the omniscient leader – decisive, visionary, in control – still dominates our organizational imagination
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The Ecosystem Shift: Rethinking the Architecture of Enterprise
by Janka Krings-Klebe and Jörg Schreiner

The Dionysian imperative, as described in the first part of this series, invites organizations to embrace unpredictability not as a threat to control, but as a vital source of renewal. Yet for leaders steeped in traditional management logic, this call can feel abstract. What does it really mean to transform conventional business operations into an ecosystem that auto-adjusts to emerging challenges and opportunities? How does one move beyond the familiar architectures of hierarchy and efficiency without losing coherence or accountability? The answer begins not with the latest org chart innovation, but with a fundamental shift in perspective: from managing parts to cultivating wholes.[…]

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How the Dionysian Imperative Changes Business Management
by Janka Krings-Klebe and Jörg Schreiner

While the landscape shifts beneath our feet – marked by disruption, blurred boundaries, and accelerating change – many organizations still cling to outdated instincts. For generations, management has been guided by a quest for order and predictability, trying to tame uncertainty through rigorous processes and disciplined decision-making. This inclination aligns well with what Nietzsche, in The Birth of Tragedy, called the “Apollonian” impulse: the drive toward harmony, rationality, and controlled form. Yet Nietzsche also highlights a contrasting “Dionysian” force – one that brings forth ecstasy, chaos, and the powerful wellspring of creativity. Balancing these two impulses, he claimed, was vital for the brilliance of ancient Greek tragedy, where structure and chaos coexisted to produce artistic greatness.[…]

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Serving People – #6 Revolutionizing Leadership Development
by Janka Krings-Klebe

When the pandemic hit, few companies were prepared for the unpredictability of the threats and related challenges that it brought. The completely unexpected need to switch the internal operating system to fully digital within days ruthlessly exposed the flaws and booby traps hidden in many organizations.erforum.org/blog/?p=3503″>[…]

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Making Management Great Again by Janka Krings-Klebe and Jörg Schreiner

Following the business news in the weeks after this year’s Drucker Forum, it became clear that management, as taught at business schools, is headed for irrelevance. Today it no longer solves problems. It creates them. So-called “best practices” of management have caused a multitude of problems that only became apparent after a delay of decades, but are now making themselves felt with force[…]

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Growing Innovation
by Janka Krings-Klebe

Unlike classic collaboration setups, open business ecosystems are not limited in their possibilities. Participating companies can combine their capabilities more quickly in order to jointly exploit new opportunities. Drucker Forum 2019 This article is one in the “shape the debate” series relating to the 11th Global Peter Drucker Forum, under the theme “The Power of Ecosystems” taking place on November 21 & 22, 2019 in Vienna, Austria.#GPDF19 #ecosystems Flexibility and speed in cross-company collaboration is what distinguishes ecosystems from other business setups. Innovation superclusters are a special kind of ecosystem, with one additional distinctive feature: they make it simple to quickly grow innovations to profitable size. Innovators in superclusters can easily partner with corporations in […]

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