Leading against the wind is no longer an exceptional state for many organisations – it has become a permanent condition. Cost-cutting programmes, reorganisations, AI offensives, new strategic visions, followed by another cost-cutting programme. None of these is a single event. They simply do not stop. And it is precisely where the wind blows constantly that something happens which is far harder to observe than a crisis.
A Beach in Northern Germany and a Reasonable Sentence
Last week I stood on the beach at Sankt Peter-Ording on the North Sea coast. Swimming trunks in my bag, 17 degrees water temperature, 15 degrees air temperature and that wind – not gusting, just blowing. All day. Always from the same direction. Around me, people walked into the water, almost all of them in wetsuits.
I did not go in. For the sake of my health, I told myself. I cannot afford a cold this week – I have appointments in Hamburg.
They had wetsuits. I had a good reason.
Wind-Shaped Trees: What Actually Happens
On the drive back, I noticed something I had seen dozens of times before but never truly registered. The trees along the country roads all lean in the same direction – as if someone had swept a flat hand across them.
They are called wind-shaped trees, or Windflüchter in German. And I always thought I understood how they formed: the wind pushes, the tree yields, it bends away. Adaptability. A pleasing image – one I would have happily sold you as a metaphor for change.
It is simply not true.
The tree does not bend. On the windward side, the buds and young shoots are destroyed – by salt from the spray, by drying out and by the sand that grinds across leaves and buds year after year. The tree does not move out of the way. One side dies. Growth continues only where there is shelter. And the shape remains – even on calm days.
A wind-swept figure on a country road in northern Germany. An AI-generated image based on the author’s description, created with DALL·E by DIKT.
Leading Against the Wind: A Crisis Is an Event, Wind Is a Condition
In my work with leaders, I deal with crises extensively. Crises are events: a cyberattack, a product recall, a video that suddenly circulates. Those can be rehearsed, planned for and responded to within the first hour with a clear statement. That is my craft, and it works.
Most of the organisations I work in at the moment, however, are not in a crisis. They are standing in the wind. For years. And people do not respond to that with adaptation. Instead, they respond like the tree. On the windward side, growth stops.
What is the windward side in an organisation? Disagreement in a meeting. Your own proposal that creates work for yourself. The bad number you report upward before anyone asks for it. The project you stick your neck out for. None of this disappears with a bang. It simply stops growing. And the organisation looks calm – even conspicuously calm.
When did someone last disagree in your leadership circle without it costing them something?
Why Good Reasons Are So Dangerous
My sentence on the beach was: for the sake of my health. That is a reasonable sentence. It is even true. Going into the water at 15 degrees without a wetsuit and sitting sniffling through meetings in Hamburg the following week helps no one.
And yet that was the windward side. I did not go in.
That is exactly how it sounds in many meetings. Nobody says: I am staying quiet right now because it takes too much out of me. Instead, everyone says: This is not the right moment for that. We should not overload the agenda. Let us revisit this after the reorganisation.
Reasonable sentences – some of them even accurate. That is precisely why they are so hard to spot. A bad reason stands out. A good reason does not.
Leading Against the Wind: Wind-Shaped Trees Are Not Sick Trees
To be clear: wind-shaped trees are not unhealthy trees. They have stood for decades, they carry leaves and they often survive storms better than many a straight tree sheltered from the wind. Yielding is not the problem.
The problem is that at some point, nobody notices anymore which side has stopped growing.
What You Can Concretely Do
In your next regular team meeting, do not ask what is going well. Instead, ask what nobody has raised for the past year. And then listen very carefully to how reasonable the explanations sound.
Because where leading against the wind has become the norm, genuine leadership quality does not show itself in crisis management. It shows itself in who still names what has stopped growing on the windward side.
Your Dr. Nikolai A. Behr
Dr. Nikolai A. Behr CSP® ist Keynote Speaker, Kommunikationsexperte und Medientrainer für Führung, Vertrauen und empathische Kommunikation in Zeiten von Wandel und KI.