Book "Leading with Alpha Intelligence: ..." published

Book "Leading with Alpha Intelligence: ..." Released

May 17, 2025 – In her new book, IFIDZ director Barbara Liebermeister presents an innovative leadership approach that empowers leaders to achieve the desired impact even in a world undergoing fundamental transformation.

"Leading with Alpha Intelligence: Ready for the Future Workforce" – this is the title of the new book by management consultant and speaker Barbara Liebermeister, which has been published in mid-May by Haufe Verlag.

In it, the founder and director of the Institute for Leadership Culture in the Digital Age (IFDIZ), Wiesbaden, introduces an innovative and integrative leadership approach with the Alpha Intelligence concept, which enables leaders to thrive even in

• an increasingly hybrid working world and

• a context in which "the greatest transformation of all time" is currently taking place,

successfully fulfilling their leadership role.

Thesis: Leaders Need a New “Brain Code”

The new 208-page book by Barbara Liebermeister builds on the fact that leadership increasingly takes place in an environment that is rapidly changing – keywords include AI and new world order. Our “old” brain, however,

• clings to outdated (thought) structures and

• tries to maintain the illusion of control even in “chaotic” situations and constellations

• even in management and leadership.

And this, even though we have felt for years: The digital transformation, persistent uncertainty, and increasingly unpredictable markets (or the "turning point," as we often generalize) require

• a new form of leadership and

• new competencies in leaders (regardless of the fields in which they operate – whether in business, politics, etc.).

Leaders Should Understand How the Human Brain Works

Barbara Liebermeister describes what such future-oriented leadership could look like in her book. In it, she links the latest neuroscientific findings with current changes and challenges in management and leadership. Moreover, she introduces a leadership and management concept under the term Alpha Intelligence®, which she and her team have developed and expanded over the years based on numerous leadership studies.

One of her central findings is that in our world shaped by rapid change and contradictory developments, mere competencies are no longer sufficient to adequately fulfill the leadership role. What is needed instead is a new brain code, which she calls Alpha Intelligence®, and partly new intelligences, which allow for situational and context-sensitive deployment of the available competencies.

Leaders Need New “Intelligences” and Competencies

In her book, Barbara Liebermeister describes five dimensions in which leaders must partly develop new intelligences in order to be so-called “alpha-intelligent leaders”; she also specifies the competencies or skills associated with them that empower leaders to elevate their leadership to the next level.

• Alpha Personality (Personality Intelligence): Be a master of self-leadership – competencies or skills include: Self-reflection, authentic leadership, maintaining inner clarity even in turbulent times.

• Alpha Relations (Relationship Intelligence): Be an architect of relationships – competencies or skills include: Actively shaping trusting relationships and sustainable networks – both internally and externally.

• Alpha Digitality (Digital Intelligence): Be a virtuoso of the digital world – competencies or skills include: Using digital tools confidently, categorizing technological developments, modeling wise interaction with AI & Co.

• Alpha Resilience (Stabilizing Intelligence): Be a crisis whisperer – competencies or skills include: Staying stable in uncertainty and change, recognizing opportunities, radiating confidence, emerging strengthened from crises.

• Alpha Synergy (Integrative Intelligence): Be a cyborg of collaboration – competencies or skills include: Utilizing technology purposefully, making diversity productive, fostering collective intelligence, understanding co-creation as a leadership task.

Leaders Must Become “Alpha-Intelligent Leaders”

As a central characteristic of alpha-intelligent leaders, Barbara Liebermeister describes that they

• maintain the necessary positive future outlook and the required inner calm amid uncertainty, and

• lead not through AI, but with AI,

which is why they also have the necessary charisma in stormy times to create the desired impact in their environment.

Want to Read the Book "Leading with Alpha Intelligence: ..."?

The book by Barbara Liebermeister, which offers new perspectives for leaders and personnel and organizational developers in the area of (self-)leadership, collaboration, and leadership, costs 39.99 euros. It can be purchased at physical bookstores and, among others, at Amazon.