Professor Dr. Rolf Arnold, born in 1952, obtained his PhD at the University of Heidelberg, worked thereafter in an International Adult Education Centre, obtained his postdoctoral qualification at the Distance University of Hagen, Germany, in 1987, and has been working since 1990 at the Department of Pedagogics (in the fields of Vocational and Adult Education) at the Technical University of Kaiserslautern, Germany. He is also Scientific Director of the Distance and Independent Studies Center (DISC), and the Speaker of the Virtual Campus Rhineland-Palatinate (VCRP).

• PrefaceIntroductionRule 1: Demonstrate how you became certain, but instill confidenceRule 2: Practice forming the visionRule 3: Identify and reinforce talent and potentialRule 4: Use time-outs to reflect, focus, visualize, and formulate your organization's strategic guidanceRule 5: Question the beliefs that shape your decisions and actionsRule 6: Stimulate creativity when performing tasks and requirementsRule 7: Ensure a systematic external audit and specify criteria or key measures to provide information to evaluate success Rule 8: Develop an understanding of the social environment Rule 9: Conduct regular exploratory conversations with employees Rule 10: Practice employee counseling sessionsRule 11: Practice the art of "eloquent silence" in meetingsRule 12: Attempt to orchestrate conflict with new ideasRule 13: Practice skills development with your employeesRule 14: Promote team developmentRule 15: Create a learning organizationRule 16: Practice capacity building, support individual and organizational networkingRule 17: Be a friend to the unexpectedRule 18: Avoid elaborate PowerPoint presentationsRule 19: The more confident and decisive your actions, the more you should distrust your choicesRule 20: Acknowledge your inner images of leadership and loyaltyRule 21: Analyze your attitudes and your motives Rule 22: Make an attempt at more elegant communicationRule 23: Reinvent “difficult” colleagues and practice the “emergence” viewRule 24: Exercise change management through self-transformationRule 25: Banish the “ice-cold manager” in you – become a more humane leaderRule 26: Accept the limits of leadership and learn to manage dissent Rule 27: Work with synergy markers. Avoid the trap of individualizing and personalizing! Rule 28: Learn to lead knowing that you can be replaced and ensure the system you are, temporarily, responsible for will live on Rule 29: Mistrust in rules and explore your own relationship to rules AfterwordBibliography

This is a book for which we waited a long time. For too long, emotionally-poor leaders have damaged our people and weakened our organizations. Rolf Arnold’s book is a new starting point for emotional literacy for leaders. It opens our minds, providing us with prudent rules, tools, and instruments about the art of leading yourself, other people, and organizations. Arnold’s views are a breath of fresh air. I have learned much.