People modules
Source: https://www.fau.eu/research/research-careers/after-completing-your-doctoral-degree/faunext-career-program/people-modules/ Parent: https://www.fau.eu/
As a researcher, your main focus is on carrying out successful research. However, this is only possible if you know that you can rely on the backing of a good infrastructure, which has to be established and managed correctly. As the holder of a chair, group leader or project coordinator, you have to encourage a whole range of different personalities to work together well as an efficient team. Leadership qualities are more in demand than ever when pursuing a career outside the university as well.
The People modules give you the opportunity to reflect on how your own personal experiences have shaped your management style and how you could perhaps modify it to suit the requirements of your position or your staff. Our hand-picked coaches offer you their valuable expertise to help you improve your leadership qualities in the long term. This is just as relevant when pursuing a career outside the university as it is if you decide to remain in academia.
FAUnext modules in the area of people
You can choose between the two self-contained modules P1: “Developing your own style of management – Cultivating self-awareness” and P2 “Developing your own style of management – Managing yourself and others.”
The coaches will get in touch with you directly before the module starts to pass on details about what will be covered in the modules and to let you know if there are any documents which you should submit beforehand.
Modul P1: Developing your own style of management – Cultivating self-awareness
- Date: November 17 and 18, 2025, 9 am to 5 pm
- Location: in person
- Places: 10
- Registration period: until September 30, 2025
What type of person am I? How do I lead others? How do others see me as a manager? What is the management style I aim to achieve? How can I become a better manager? These are the four questions we will focus on during the practical seminar. You will reflect on your own leadership resources, explore your own management style and sharpen your awareness for perceptual filters and implicit assumptions which guide our management behavior.
By sharing with other participants, reflecting and considering input from others, you can develop your own management style tailored to suit your individual working environment and requirements. Step by step, you devise a practical guide to help you find your way through the daily ‘management jungle’.
Module contents
- Me as a person: My values, motives and skills as personal leadership resources.
- Management involves juggling different expectations: Which requirements do I have to meet? How would I like to come across to others? What do I find challenging?
- Archetypal management styles and modern approaches to leadership: What influences my leadership thinking and my management style?
- Attitude and tools for harmonious leadership in complex contexts with employees, students, superiors or colleagues.
- My leadership ideal: What is the management style I aim to achieve?
- Self-management in the leadership context: My first steps for finding success and fulfillment in my role as a manager.
Methodology
- Practical learning projects give participants the chance to assume a leadership role and bring learning alive.
- Feedback and advice from colleagues ensure the course content is of relevance to your situation.
- Input on current topics relating to leadership and self-management increase perception.
- Selected tools guarantee practical implementation.
Coach
“In you must burn what you want to ignite in others.” (Augustinus)
Sabina Schmalz is a specialist in systemic consultation and has a passion for coaching, both nationally and internationally. She creates a setting for her clients that enables them to achieve goals, bring topics to the table and make changes – with the right amount of sensitivity for the team and situation at hand. Her visualizations and flip charts always raise a smile among participants to her sessions.
Her current passion is helping people to make the change to more agility and digitalization.
Link to roots.de website.
Modul P2: Developing your own style of management – Managing yourself and others
- Date: April 22, 2026, 9 am to 5 pm and June 10, 2026, 9 am to 12:30 pm
- Location: in person
- Places: 8
- Registration period: until February 28, 2026
This workshop focuses on the powerful question of what actually makes an outstanding, inspirational manager. The event is deliberately designed as an interactive round table for sharing experiences of management, discussing case studies and working out common management tools to help you in the future.
Before the workshop, we will ask you about any requests or suggestions you may have about leadership and communication and integrate them into the program.
Module contents
- Which management tools do I have in my own personal, modern tool box?
- Discussion of various management styles in practice: How can I lead my team successfully, taking their different tasks and personalities into account? How can I establish a management style that is empathetic and yet goal-oriented?
- Communication and feedback: How can I make the best use of my skills in various discussions and how can I work on polishing my feedback skills?
- How do I react to challenges as a manager in day to day situations? How can I recognize potential conflicts at an early stage, how can I act and react to boost motivation?
- What should I bear in mind in terms of team building and recruitment measures?
Please note: We will cover these and any other topics you raise before the workshop to a greater or lesser extent depending on the topics of most interest to the group a a whole. You are involved in shaping the workshop beforehand and have the opportunity to contribute any topics, experiences and requests that have arisen from your daily experience as a manager.
Coach
Wolfgang Leybold has more than 15 years of professional experience in HR consulting. He has developed numerous recruiting and communication models and has been invited to hold talks or lectures at a number of universities and institutes of higher education. In 2019, he established the company Leybold Strategy Consultants in order to focus more on his activities in the area of strategic consulting.
Wolfgang Leybold is an experienced trainer and coach who works in Germany and abroad, for example in the UK, Ireland, Austria and the USA.