Culture as a competitive advantage: Dr. Hans C. Werner on calling, the Honesty Gap, the question of what leadership really means in everyday life, and what this has to do with customer satisfaction an
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“When leadership is seen as a career goal, what it actually means at its core quickly falls out of sight: intensive, demanding work that requires stamina, empathy and resilience. At the same time, many organisations underestimate corporate culture as a strategic competitive advantage, with tangible consequences for employees, the customer experience, and business success.”
In our interview series with experienced leaders and experts, we talk about the topics that really move leaders and organisations.
In our conversation with Dr. Hans C. Werner, we discuss the honest examination of the leadership role, the tension between rational logic and psychological reality, and why culture eats strategy for breakfast.
Contents:
Leadership as a calling, not a career goal
Why Breakfast Matters: Strategy needs culture
The Honesty Gap: When aspiration and reality drift apart
Culture as a competitive advantage: What happens inside is perceived outside
Don’t forget yourself: A piece of advice for leaders
Conclusion
About Dr. Hans C. Werner
Leadership as a calling, not a career goal
From your perspective, what is currently the biggest challenge for leaders, and where do we need to look now in order to remain effective over the long term?
Dr. Hans C. Werner: There are a great many inspiring books and posts about leadership, and millions of recommendations on how good leadership should be designed. I would rather focus on the question of what leadership feels like in everyday life and who is suited to it. Our society still holds firmly to the idea that leadership confers prestige, which is why many people strive for leadership roles and see them as their career goal. But leadership is not simply self-fulfilment; first and foremost it is intensive, demanding work that requires great endurance, empathy, and a high degree of resilience. Leadership is like the fire brigade: you have to be there where the fire is. You face difficult situations and tough decisions. It is about moving an organisation forward, about competition, customer satisfaction, and about the employees who shape the customer experience. In this context, you have to make decisions that are not pleasing to everyone, decisions that may deeply disappoint individual people. And yet, such decisions are necessary, for the company, for its competitiveness, and therefore also for the employees themselves.
Leaders who are honest with themselves know this challenge, keep it in mind, and must be willing and able to withstand that pressure. Very often, it also means working through criticism and loneliness. On top of this: leadership happens all the time, is visible all the time, in every minute. Whether it is greeting team members before a meeting, having a coffee at the machine, or eating lunch in the canteen.
People in leadership roles are watched very closely at all times; every word carries weight and is interpreted, even when it was not meant as a weighty word.
Only those who take genuine joy in this task, who fundamentally enjoy working with people, who like to step up and take responsibility, only those who are honest with themselves about whether this is truly their calling, only they should take on a leadership role with all of its challenges. All of this may sound very negative, but it is not, because when leadership is a true calling, it is an incredibly great source of fulfilment! But if you don’t love music, you shouldn’t become an opera singer.
Why Breakfast Matters: Strategie braucht Kultur
Which leadership behaviours do you see as decisive for not only defining strategy, but for truly anchoring it within the organisation?
Dr. Hans C. Werner: A strategy is meant to anchor a company’s position in the market and against the competition, to strengthen competitiveness, and, building on that, to align the organisation and all of its employees around shared, customer-focused goals. Only when employees understand this strategy can measurable business results ultimately be achieved and real value created for customers.
But how do I win employees over to a corporate strategy? A first approach is meaningful involvement of employees in the phase when the strategy is being developed. Anchoring works more easily through co-creation than through top-down decree. Every strategy must also address employee topics: What kind of leadership do we practise? How do we treat one another? How can employees develop further within the company?
Culture arises through everyday behaviour, not through nice words on the wall. If it is not possible to create a motivating environment for employees, a strategy will hardly achieve its goals. The phrase “Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast” (Peter Drucker) has proved itself thousands of times over. Strategy and culture are like a screw and a nut: when they don’t fit together, the whole object falls apart.
For many, however, the term culture is very “fluffy,” barely tangible, and people struggle with binding, measurable culture work. But just as with focused, KPI-driven strategy work, the same applies to culture development: “There is no Debating if You Let the Numbers Make the Statement.”
The Honesty Gap: When aspiration and reality drift apart
Where do you currently see the greatest tension between fact-based steering and psychological reality, and what are the consequences in day-to-day life?
Dr. Hans C. Werner: The tension between fact-based steering and psychological reality is ever-present. Fact-based steering is heavily grounded in numerical logic, while everyday life follows psychological reality. This plays out in the corridors, in online meetings, simply everywhere people inside a company interact with each other, and ultimately also in their contact with customers.
In many organisations, this has allowed an “Honesty Gap” to take hold. On the patient, fact-based surface, strategies and goals are anchored, leadership principles are described, values are written down. But when fact-based logic disregards psychological reality, or when the rational thinkers inside the company are not really aware of the actual psychological reality, perhaps because they move in a world of their own, far away from the front line and from customer contact, then a profound gap opens up between aspiration and reality.
Then employees know that the words written down have no meaning in everyday practice. The bigger this gap is between fact-based logic and psychological reality, between patient documents and what actually happens in the corridor every day, the smaller the credibility, and with it the trust that employees place in the organisation.
People are not machines. Purposeful steering must include psychological realities alongside fact-based logic. Only those who manage to create an environment in which customer focus and ambition are combined with appreciation and a degree of psychological safety will, in the end, achieve measurable business success. And here, too, the rule applies: “There is no Debating if You Let the Numbers Make the Statement.”
Culture as a competitive advantage: What happens inside is perceived outside
From your perspective, what is currently the greatest risk to business success: a lack of strategic clarity or an unhealthy corporate culture, and why?
Dr. Hans C. Werner: To create a compelling customer experience, you need motivated employees. Without a cook in the kitchen, the restaurant has to close. Without nursing staff at the bedside, patients have to be turned away. High turnover and high sickness absence are expensive, and at the same time they are clear indications that something is not right inside. Customers walk away. Leadership failure very quickly becomes business failure. What happens inside is perceived outside.
A strategy that is brilliant on paper but staffed with demotivated employees will never succeed. A strategic direction with certain gaps, but with highly motivated, proactive people, will prevail. Culture is a heavily underestimated competitive advantage. Anyone who wants to compete must stand out from their competitors, must have edge. One of the strongest competitive edges is a distinctive corporate culture that puts both customers and employees at the centre. This advantage is powerful not least because building and shaping a strong culture takes many years and intensive work, and therefore cannot simply be copied by the competition overnight.
Don’t forget yourself: A piece of advice for leaders
What one piece of advice would you give to leaders to help them stay courageous and capable of action despite high expectations and uncertainty?
Dr. Hans C. Werner: As described earlier, the leadership role is intensive and demanding. Leaders have business success in mind, and to achieve it they need to win over and motivate employees, bring the team together and rally it, set the direction, give people room to shape their work, and, when necessary, make clear decisions. At the same time, in everyday life and in dealing with employees, they should show appreciation and meet people on equal terms. This mix, especially in today’s context of disruption and density, is very demanding, and over time it costs substance.
The whole thing can be compared with competitive sport: you can only successfully complete a marathon if you are well trained, can realistically pace your energy, and also plan enough time for recovery alongside training and racing. Leaders therefore need to pay attention to themselves, to develop the sensitivity to recognise their own limits and the courage to accept them. Over a longer period of time, only those who keep an eye on their own resources alongside those of their team, and who, despite the hectic pace of daily life, do not forget themselves, can remain courageous, alert, and inspiring.
Conclusion
The conversation with Dr. Hans C. Werner makes one thing clear: leadership begins with honesty, towards yourself and towards your own organisation. Anyone who understands leadership as a genuine calling rather than a status gain, who grasps culture as a strategic competitive advantage instead of as a “fluffy” side topic, and who has the courage to close the Honesty Gap between fact-based logic and lived reality, lays the foundation for sustainable business success. And one thing must not be forgotten in all of this: leaders, too, need recovery, self-reflection, and the courage to recognise their own limits. Because anyone who wants to lead effectively over the long term must first look well after themselves.
About Dr. Hans C. Werner
Dr. Hans C. Werner is an experienced Board Member and HR Executive with international leadership experience in the financial, industrial, and telecommunications sectors. His focus is on cultural transformation, strategic HR management, and the future of work, all set in the context of competitiveness and business success.
In his role as Group Head Human Resources at Swisscom, he was responsible for many years for the alignment of HR strategy with the corporate strategy, the transformation of organisations, and the introduction of modern HR structures and systems.
Today, he serves on various boards and advisory bodies, including Careum, Kantonsspital Aarau, and as a Member of the Advisory Board of Jester Advisory.
His work is shaped by the conviction that leadership, culture, and talent development are decisive for sustainable business success.
