Leadership Profiles: Malte Neustern

Leadership

1. How would you describe yourself as a leader?

Malte values honesty and sees it as part of the culture and spirit of Etteplan. While working hard and meeting targets is important, first and foremost comes the wellbeing of his team. “When the level of wellbeing is good within my team, we perform better.”

A good team, good customers, good relationships, and trust are core according to Malte. Working towards strong relationships takes time, “I try to be face-to-face with my team and the customers as often as possible. During the pandemic I tried to visit all my teams and my colleagues as much as I was able to. It is important for me to have face-to-face communication and to be available for my team.”

2. How does Etteplan support leadership and growth?

The overall support is great, according to Malte. Having a good supervisor, and support from colleagues from the Netherlands and from Poland is invaluable. Leadership training has helped with evolving his leadership skills and further expanded his network.

“We have had excellent value-based training. In addition, I am also in a fortunate situation in that I can communicate with my colleagues and other leaders, it is a terrific opportunity to network.”

Culture

3. How would you describe the culture at Etteplan?

“I think the culture is really motivating. I say to a lot of people – you cannot find a better culture than Etteplan.” According to Malte, everyone is treated equally, communication is the same between all the teams and with all colleagues regardless of position in the company.

4. In what ways do you feel you have an impact on the company culture?

“I am active in visiting my team, although it is a small gesture to bring your colleagues and your team together to meet them, it is the face-to-face time that I have with my teams that makes the difference.”

Some practices in the team, such as making strategic decisions, are mostly done in a democratic way of working by bringing group managers or team leaders inside this decision-making to understand the process. “I am proud that team leaders, authors, and illustrators bring their own opinions forward. This way we can discuss actions.”

Values

5. Our values are Customer oriented, attractive, and proactive. What do they mean to you?

Malte’s leadership, and success in customer relations, is important because that is what our business is based on as a service provider – bringing communication to the highest level. “Our customers need to experience that communication is something that we are good in.”

Attractiveness to Malte is relevant for customers and for employees.

“Proactive for me is when there are challenges that we could expect or see, and we must bring up all the variables in order to reach the goal in in the best way. This applies to both customers and employees, I must be proactive to understand the right path for the solution.”

6. How are the values seen in practice?

One example of how Etteplan acts in a customer orientated way is by protecting sensitive information and making sure that we protect our customers.

Here is what Malte had to say regarding attractiveness, “I have been working on bringing more benefits for my teams in cooperation with human resources. And on the customers side it is important for me that we are creating the best possible solutions.”

Wildcard: If you could offer one piece of advice about anything, what would it be?

“Work hard and build trust. That is important. And all the other things will follow. “