November 18th, 2012 Michael Groß being interviewed by Rolf van Dick

Michael Groß was born in Frankfurt in 1964 and is one of the most successful German sportsmen. He has won countless German, European and World championship titles in butterfly and freestyle swimming and won the Olympic Games in Los Angeles in 1984 and in Seoul in 1988. He has set 12 world records and although he ended his career as a swimmer in 1991, he still holds the German record for 200 meters butterfly swimming. In 1983 and 1985 he was elected the world’s best swimmer of the year and he was German sportsman of the year, four times. Within the German national team, he had a leading role. Apart from being a sportsman, he also did social justice work, for example as a board member of the German “Sporthilfe” or as an ambassador for the initiative “Respekt! Kein Platz für Rassismus” (Respect! No Space for Racism). He studied at the Goethe-University and did his PhD in philosophy about the aesthetics of the Weimar classics in 1994. For many years he has been working as a consultant and has got his own consulting company (http://gross-cie.com) focusing on change and talent management. In the interview with Rolf van Dick he talks about his personal leadership style, about good and bad leadership, professional expertise, leadership skills and the role of values.