Good leadership makes us strong.
We will remain successful also in future, if we continue working together with openness and trust.
Tension, conflict and dissatisfaction not only stress ourselves, but also spread to our customers - and that costs us dearly! Because the success of our company depends on how we face our customers. Only if they feel good in our company, they will want to come back and become regular customers. Therefore friendliness becomes a competitive factor of primary importance.
Friendliness towards our customers requires an open trusting leadership climate which is mostly determined by superiors. Therefore we state in six simple rules what is important to us in leadership and co-operation. We have termed these rules 'guidelines', because we expect anyone who is in charge of staff to follow them. The fact that we are serious about them is shown by the consequences connected with these guidelines.

• In future, all staff in leadership roles will be assessed to what extent they meet these standards.
• Moreover, in future all staff will have the opportunity to give feedback to their superiors as to how they experience leadership and co-operation.

Superiors who make a constant effort to improve their leadership will benefit from this in particular.
However, we all need patience and calmness, until our understanding of leadership and co-operation has become natural for everyone.
What is most important is that each individual accepts the guidelines as standards and is willing to work on their implementation. We regard this as a personal commitment.

Managers have great responsibility; for the work results as well as the willingness to perform of those people they have been entrusted with. Whoever wants to meet this responsibility has to know what is important at KARSTADT when it comes to leadership and co-operation. Staff as well as managers need clear and reliable guidelines.

With these guidelines we express our conviction that only people who we deal with respectfully will be committed and work productively as well as creatively. In the end excellent leaders are characterised by one thing above all: The ability to create a community of performance.
With these guidelines we specify in six statements which fundamental values are to be guiding principles in achieving this goal.

For the staff in leadership roles they are instruction and standard, and for all other staff they are a natural requirement.

...you have to judge them on the basis of their performance.

KARSTADT expects its managers to accept and model the new basic values of leadership and co-operation.
Therefore we have incorporated the guidelines into the assessment criteria for our managers.

The assessment is an essential prerequisite for a career in our company. We do not transfer any responsibility for staff to anyone who does not fully agree to the basic values of our guidelines and make them the guiding principles of their actions.

Staff are entitled to be lead according to the guidelines, thus we demand a lot from our managers.  But plurality of opinion, openness, trust, initiative and further personal development are also challenges for all staff. Because they look for an open and fair dialogue with their superiors and give feedback as to how satisfied or unsatisfied they are with leadership and co-operation.

For this purpose we are introducing feedback processes. They will dissolve any critical dialogue between colleagues and their superiors. This presents a great opportunity for improving leadership and co-operation at KARSTADT.