Sebastian MorgnerLeading with Purpose & Structure

Leadership Logbook

Holding course.

Notes on purpose, structure and leading yourself.

Sebastian Morgner, leadership coach and sounding board for executives, in Diessen am Ammersee
Strategy

Twenty-Five Hundred Pages

A leadership team rarely fails for lack of competence. It often fails for lack of purpose and structure.

For a year I sat in a room every week and waited. The management meeting was scheduled for nine. The board member arrived at ten, sometimes eleven. In the meantime we made small talk, checked our mail, followed our own thoughts. Eight people with …

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Deciding

The Right Moment

Waiting for the right moment is usually a shortage of courage, not of timing.

There is a sentence I said often during fifteen years in banking, mostly to myself: once this is behind me, then. Once the integration is complete. …

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Judgment

Suddenly

Anyone without a compass of their own is steered by the spirit of the times.

There is one word that has made me prick up my ears. It shows up in strategy conversations, usually in passing, and the word is: suddenly. Suddenly everyone wanted to be sustainable. A girl sat down in front of a parliament, and a year …

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Sailboat on Lake Ammersee, a band of mist over the far shore
Lake Ammersee in November
Leading yourself

What the Others Never Tell You

Comparing our thoughts with other people's behavior, we can only do one thing: lose.

In confidential conversations, managing directors and board members regularly say the same sentence to me. It comes late, usually after a pause, and it sounds roughly …

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Enterprise value

What For

A life's work gains value the moment its owner remembers what he built it for.

An inn in East Westphalia, November, kale and sausage on the plates. Across from me sat the founder of a software company. He had read my book and wanted to talk, and you could see it wasn't about the book. He had built the company decades …

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Leadership

The Third Category

Only those who are honest about disappointment go on developing.

Friday evening, just before six. I knock on my daughter's door, and from inside comes a “Come in!”. The appointment is in the calendar like any other. …

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Artificial intelligence

Emily

Artificial intelligence is a mirror that exposes your own excuses.

I had hired ten people. Young, bright, eager to learn. They wanted to learn from me, and I told myself I was giving them the environment I once needed. That was true. It just wasn't …

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Sebastian Morgner on a jetty at Lake Ammersee
Diessen am Ammersee
Leading yourself

Two Months in a Convent

Humility makes you more content, because it takes weight off.

At the end of October 2011 I boarded the regional train from Munich toward Salzburg. An hour through the Upper Bavarian hills, get off at Prien …

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Leading yourself

What Resilience Is Not

Resilience is not toughness. It is the willingness to know the price.

Some years ago a job candidate asked me what makes a person emotionally stable. I liked the question and over the following days wrote her seven qualities. Today I would write her one. Resilience is usually …

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Leading yourself

My Sister and the Ironing Board

Even monotonous work can be fulfilling — if you are present in it.

My older sister hated ironing. She did it the way you do unpleasant things: quickly, at half attention, her mind already on the …

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Questions and answers

Frequently asked questions

What does Sebastian Morgner do?

Sebastian Morgner works as a sounding board and leadership advisor with board members, managing directors, founders and family business owners. He is an entrepreneur, an expert in strategy activation and change, and an author. His drive is to bring purpose and structure together in one consistent approach to leadership. His core offering is strategy coaching for leaders, developing the levers of lasting success: a narrative that carries your role — and a leadership system in which it becomes impact. He hosts the podcast “Tiefgang” (formerly the New Leadership Podcast), wrote the book “Expedition Zukunft” and publishes Tiefgang, the magazine for strategy and leadership. He lives with his wife and three children in Diessen am Ammersee.

What is strategy coaching?

Strategy coaching is about positioning and development as a leader. It is confidential work on two questions: what you stand for, and how that becomes impact. It combines personal clarity — drive, values, narrative — with the craft of leadership: levers of success, priorities and a leadership system that carries decisions. Unlike classic consulting, I do not deliver a solution; the content comes from you, the structure, the tools and the observations come from me.

Who is Sebastian Morgner not the right partner for?

For people looking for quick answers to fundamental questions. For anyone with no interest in deep, exploratory conversation. For anyone who does not see leadership as a craft that has to be developed continuously. For those who want to solve complex questions with simple models. For anyone booking a coach as a status symbol. And for those who want change without having to change themselves.

Is this executive coaching?

In part. My clients are executives, and the work is one-on-one. But I am not an executive coach in the classic sense: I don't sell coaching packages, a method or a program. If you are looking for a standardized service, you will find it done better elsewhere.

What is Tiefgang?

A printed magazine on strategy and leadership, published once a year. The first issue, from September 2026, focuses on leadership in the age of artificial intelligence. It goes free of charge to a selected circle, and it is published in German.

How do I get in touch?

By writing to s.morgner@leadership-munich.org, or by booking an introductory call directly in my calendar. There is no form. A few sentences about what is on your mind are enough — I reply personally within two days.