stars insights

stars Insights
Energizing Organizations: The Leadership Challenge of Creating Collective Energy
11 March 2026

Through our partnership with Developing Leaders Quarterly (DL) you regularly receive a selection of free articles from the most recent issue of this booklet series, which provides multiple perspectives from thought and practice leaders around a critical leadership challenge or theme.

This edition is about Energizing Organizations – about the importance of creating a shared purpose that aligns people and turns collaboration into the capacity to adapt, recover, and move forward. The three pieces we selected for you are:

• Energizing Organizations – What is the Point?
  Andrew Dyckhoff argues that organizational performance ultimately depends on energy—the capacity of people to act with commitment, enthusiasm, and purpose. Drawing on leadership research and a transformation case from an AIM-listed company, he shows how leaders act as catalysts who mobilize, focus, and renew collective human energy. By aligning personal strengths, shared goals, and organizational context, leaders can unlock a “performance sweet spot” where capability, motivation, and purpose reinforce each other. The result is not only stronger collaboration and faster decisions, but organizations that sustain high performance and adaptability in turbulent times.
• Hybrid Teams in the Age of AI – Why Human Energy, Not AI Efficiency, Drives Performance
  Rachel Neaman explores the emerging reality of hybrid teams in which AI systems function as active collaborators. Through the story of a team working alongside an AI assistant, she shows how automation can remove friction and increase efficiency—but also risks optimizing work in ways that erode autonomy, creativity, and connection. The central leadership challenge, she argues, is not deciding which tasks AI should perform, but ensuring that efficiency gains translate into greater human energy rather than hollow productivity. Leaders of hybrid teams must therefore deliberately protect the conditions that sustain engagement—psychological safety, unstructured collaboration, and meaningful work—so that AI expands human potential instead of quietly constraining it.
• Energizing Leadership – Neuroscience at Work
  Martina Muttke explores the biological foundations of organizational energy, showing how leadership behaviors shape the neurochemistry that drives motivation, trust, and collaboration. Drawing on neuroscience, she explains how hormones such as dopamine, oxytocin, and cortisol influence how people experience work—whether they feel energized, stressed, connected, or disengaged. Effective leaders, she argues, act as “energy architects,” creating environments of psychological safety, purpose, and recognition that activate the brain’s reward systems and strengthen trust within teams. By combining scientific insight with practical tools such as energy audits, daily check-ins, and purposeful rituals, the article shows how leaders can deliberately cultivate the emotional and cognitive conditions that allow teams to thrive and perform at their best.

stars Insights
End of Leadership – New Leadership!
20 January 2026

Unknown Unknowns – that is what worries leaders in society and business most. Please, find some food for thought in the following four articles and books:

• Leading Without Control:
  What Hollywood Reveals About Leadership in an Uncertain World, January 2026
  It’s worth to take a close look at the “Hollywood model” of leadership and organization. It offers practical lessons in leading under conditions that many industries face today: uncertainty, a weakening power of hierarchy, and value creation happening across shifting networks.
  
  In such environments, leadership is about creating coherence through a strong vision, trust in expertise, and the ability to integrate diverse contributions. Disruption becomes a modus operandi that encourages recombination and learning. In such contexts, commitment cannot be bought or mandated; it depends on purpose and passion.
  
  As technology, ecosystems, and AI reshape work across sectors, Hollywood’s age-old leadership principles offer valuable lessons in world where we are increasingly forced to act in the context of unknown unknowns.
  
  Roland Deiser is founder and chairman of the Center for the Future of Organizations at the Drucker School of Management, Claremont Graduate University; stars Alumnus, Los Angeles, United States

• Decision-Dominant Logic: A Leadership Playbook for the Algorithmic Age, November 2025
  Roger Moser, Chairman SatSure & Faculty, University of St.Gallen / Macquarie University, stars Alumnus, Sydney, Australia

• Rethinking Leadership in a G-Zero World, Bulletin of the Singapore Institute of Directors (SID) Q1/2026
  In an era defined by disruption and uncertainty, boards can no longer rely on the governance models of a predictable, rules-based world. The emergence of a G-Zero order, characterised by fractured geopolitics, rapid technological shifts, and systemic volatility, demands a new kind of leadership. To navigate the unknown unknowns, leaders must cultivate agility, diversity of thought and a culture that prizes imagination and resilience.
  
  This article has been published in the bulletin Q1/2026 of the Singapore Institute of Directors (SID), Q1/26, wiritten by Toni Schoenenberger, Founder and Executive Chairman of stars, Weinfelden, Switzerland

• The Conversations We Leave Unfinished
  Why Our Tools Fall Short and How AI Can Help, January 2026
  Ralph Schonenbach is a founder, product leader, and author of Relationships Matter, and stars Alumnus, San Francisco, United States

• New Leadership: demanding, rewarding – inevitable
  A challenging journey, January 2026
  Markus Sulzberger: Banker by profession and former president of the Swiss Association of Organization and Management and Lecturer at the Technical University of Munich on Leadership and Selfmanagement, Zurich, Switzerland

• How to Solve Problems in Governance – Theory and Practice of the Governmental Learning Spiral: A Method for Innovation and Learning in Governance, January 2026
  How can everyday political barriers, blockades, and gridlocks be addressed? Drawing on thirty-five years of experience, this book introduces the Governmental Learning Spiral – a structured, interdis-ciplinary method for innovation and learning in governance. Devel-oped through real-world application and grounded in numerous theoretical concepts spanning the social and natural sciences, the method has proven effective in diverse contexts, from constitutional reform and environmental issues to minority rights and public health.
  
  This volume updates the method’s theoretical foundations and offers a practical guide for organizing roundtables, workshops, ­ conferences, and online events. Aimed at both practitioners and scholars, it invites readers to become qualified users of this collabora-tive and transformative tool. Applied by international institutions like the World Bank Group and the Organisation for Economic Co-opera-tion and Development, national and subnational governments, and non-governmental organizations such as the Convivenza Founda-tion, the Governmental Learning Spiral continues to empower those committed to solving problems in governance. Order the book, written by Raoul Blindenbacher an Expert/Consultant in Governance and Public Policy; Managing Director, Blindenbacher Borer Consulting Ltd., Bern, Switzerland

• «Lim Siong Guan – The Best is Yet to Be», October 2025
  This book, a combination of memoirs and deep thinking about leadership, the future, the unknown unknowns, the importance of corporate culture, is a must-read for responsible leaders in politics, business and society. For me, Lim Siong Guan is Mr Singapore who never leaves the job – sometimes on stage, sometimes in the background – to make Singapore a success story.
  Lim Siong Guan is Former Group President, GIC; Former Head of Singapore Civil Service; Senior Advisor, DGA-Albright Stonebridge Group; Member, stars International Board, Singapore
  Link to the book

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are solely those of the author and they do not necessarily represent or reflect the views of the stars Foundation.