About Gerald Huesch
Architect of LEAD21, the Leadership Operating System for Human Coordination at Scale. His thesis: systems shape behavior. Executive leadership training, leadership development, transformation and change programs, and executive mentoring for executives in Germany, the Americas, Asia Pacific and the UAE.
At a glance
LEAD21 makes leadership as systematic, measurable and scalable as Salesforce makes sales or SAP makes finance. Operational leadership as a system rather than a collection of isolated initiatives.
Career
His focus is on situations where leadership has to work under maximum pressure: large-scale transformation, post-merger integration and extreme growth. In exactly these phases, strategies rarely fail on the plan – they fail on missing alignment, unclear execution and leadership teams that do not operate as one system. This is where LEAD21 is the missing link between strategy and performance.
Over more than 25 years, Gerald Huesch has trained and accompanied more than 30,000 executives and managers in over 30 countries – board members, CEOs, division heads and high potentials from more than 330 companies, including NASA, Rolls-Royce, Airbus and Omnicom, as well as ambitious start-ups and scale-ups. The leaders he has worked with carry a combined responsibility of more than €570 billion.
In 2018, Dr. Charles Pellerin invited him to serve as Second Chair in NASA’s Mission Success Training Program. For two years, Gerald Huesch trained NASA leaders alongside Pellerin.
His offering comprises executive leadership training, leadership development for leadership teams, transformation and change programs for organizations, and 1:1 executive mentoring – in German and English, Digital and In Person. The foundation is always LEAD21, complemented by a proprietary evidence survey that measures the impact of every program on clarity, alignment, efficiency, collaboration, performance and stress.
The leadership thesis
The task of leadership is not to train behavior – it is to install a system that produces it.
For Human Coordination at Scale, leadership establishes a system of methods, routines and codes that – when applied – automatically produce the ideal behavior of everyone involved. These methods come after values and leadership principles.
Find the right methods, train every leadership level with them – ideally at the same time – and the transformation rests on a system that withstands any pressure. For post-merger integration, this is a must.
The criterion: a method breaks down, to the smallest detail, how something is done – explainable and applicable step by step, without anyone having to attend a workshop.
Appreciation, trust, clarity: LEAD21 automatically delivers the implementation of the conditions for a high-performance organization. Culture emerges as a by-product.
The LEAD21 criteria
Every code, every model and every method in LEAD21 must withstand the highest criteria.
Impact · significant improvement of
Substance · every method is
What LEAD21 is built for
Leadership is decided where the pressure is highest. LEAD21 was developed for exactly these four situations – and is in use there in more than 330 companies.
When an organization changes strategy, structure and culture at the same time, leadership needs a shared operating system. LEAD21 synchronizes leadership teams across all levels and makes execution measurable – in weeks, not years.
Two leadership cultures, two languages, one goal – and often hundreds of leaders at once. Most mergers lose their value in the first 18 months to friction between leadership teams. LEAD21 installs one shared leadership system before friction becomes a cost center – scalable to entire leadership populations.
Scale-ups and hypergrowth companies rarely fail on the market – they fail on leadership that does not scale with them. LEAD21 gives founders and management teams a system that works at 50, 500 and 5,000 employees.
Board, executive team, division heads: when everyone says the same thing but means something different, the organization stalls. LEAD21 creates complete alignment – from vision to weekly routine.
Why 88% of transformations fail
AI is rewriting business models. Competitive advantages that once lasted decades now vanish in months. And yet one number has barely moved in 20 years.
of transformations fail to achieve their goals.
Bain & Company, press release Feb. 2024 (“88% of business transformations fail …”)of transformations miss their targets – essentially unchanged for more than 20 years.
McKinsey, “Losing from day one” (2021), Global Survey; Kotter (1996)of mergers and acquisitions fail to achieve their expected value.
Harvard Business Review, Christensen et al., “The New M&A Playbook” (2011)of M&A leaders cite cultural friction as one of the main reasons integrations fail.
McKinsey, “The culture compass” (2024), survey of ~1,100 M&A leadershigher likelihood of meeting cost and revenue synergy targets when culture is actively managed during integration.
McKinsey, “Why managing culture is critical for value creation in M&A” (2025)more likely to succeed: transformations in which top management visibly role-models the new behavior itself.
McKinsey, “How to beat the transformation odds” (2015)Everyone knows these numbers. Nobody had a system for them. Until now.
Sales has Salesforce. Finance has SAP. Leadership has LEAD21.
LEAD21 addresses every cause at once instead of treating symptoms one by one: alignment instead of missed targets, one shared leadership language instead of cultural friction, fixed routines through which top management role-models the new behavior itself, and measurable execution instead of hope – in transformation, post-merger integration and extreme growth. One system, not twenty separate initiatives.
In LEAD21, culture is not a program – it is a by-product. Run leadership as an operating system – 21 methods, fixed routines, one shared language on every level – and alignment and culture arrive as the result. Not as a workshop.
LEAD21 is a unique leadership system for Human Coordination at Scale – built for the moment when two leadership teams, two cultures and thousands of behaviors have to become one enterprise.
What executives report after LEAD21
Participant-reported assessments after the program, not a guarantee. Full details and the impact calculation are on the Evidence page.
That LEAD21 works on an evidence basis is documented by a one-year study with 567 leaders (78% response rate): improvement in 8 of 9 climate dimensions. Study leads: Prof. Beate Hanson & Prof. Mohit Bhandari (McMaster University).
See the evidence →Formats
From joining the community to a program for the entire organization. All conditions at a glance on the offer page →
Executive leadership training in 7 weeks, live online. Includes one year of Global Leadership Society Premium.
€777 founding price, then €1,554 3 days · in person · max. 21Three intensive days on site. The complete LEAD21 system, directly with Gerald Huesch. Date & venue decided together by the participants.
€1,554 · Secure your seat → In-house · worldwideLEAD21 for entire leadership teams and organizations – in transformation, post-merger integration and growth.
On request 1:1 · confidentialPrivate mentoring for board members, CEOs and entrepreneurs – confidential, direct, evidence-based.
On request Community · free & PremiumThe community built around LEAD21, with mentoring, exchange and direct access to Gerald Huesch. Join free, go Premium for the whole year.
Free · Premium €77 / year CertificationCertification for trainers and internal leadership developers who want to deliver LEAD21 in their own organization.
€7,777 · Grand MasterClass (€777) is creditedFrequently asked questions
Still have a question? 20 minutes for you →
Gerald Huesch is the architect of LEAD21, the Leadership Operating System for Human Coordination at Scale – “unique in the world” in the words of Dr. Charles Pellerin (NASA). His thesis: systems shape behavior. He has trained more than 30,000 executives in over 30 countries, including at NASA, Rolls-Royce, Airbus and Omnicom, directs the Center of Behavioral Leadership at St. Gallen Business School and is a TEDx speaker. He lives in Dubai and works worldwide from Dubai and Berlin.
A Leadership OS (Leadership Operating System) is an operational system for leadership: fixed methods, routines and codes that produce behavior at every level – the way an ERP system runs finance or a CRM runs sales. LEAD21 by Gerald Huesch is the Leadership OS: 21 evidence-based methods, one shared leadership language, measurable execution. It is used in complete transformations, post-merger integration and extreme growth.
Gerald Huesch. With LEAD21 he developed the Leadership OS and delivers it as executive leadership training, corporate programs and executive mentoring for executives in Germany, the Americas, Asia Pacific and the UAE – in German and English, Digital and In Person. Bases: Berlin and Dubai.
LEAD21 is the Leadership OS – a Leadership Operating System made of 21 evidence-based methods. It turns leadership into an operational system – the way Salesforce runs sales or SAP runs finance as a system. LEAD21 is used in transformations, post-merger integration and phases of extreme growth to make alignment, execution and performance measurable.
Gerald Huesch offers executive leadership training based on LEAD21 – for executives in Germany, the Americas, Asia Pacific and the UAE. Programs run in German and English, Digital (7 weeks) or In Person (3 days), and as in-house programs for companies. Global Leadership Consultancy is based in Dubai, the Global Leadership School in Berlin.
Classic training transfers knowledge; coaching accompanies individuals. LEAD21 installs a system: 21 methods translated into routines that synchronize the whole leadership team. The impact of every program is measured – on clarity, alignment, efficiency, collaboration, performance and negative stress.
According to Bain (2024), 88% of transformations fail to achieve their goals; McKinsey has reported roughly 70% for 20 years. In M&A, 70–90% of deals miss their expected value, and 44% of M&A leaders cite cultural friction as a main reason. The cause is almost never the strategy – it is leadership without a system: no alignment, no shared language, no routines. LEAD21 closes exactly this gap – as an operating system of 21 methods that synchronizes leadership teams and makes execution measurable. Culture emerges as a by-product, not as a separate program.
The four situations in which leadership creates or destroys the most value: complete transformations, post-merger integration, extreme growth and leadership team alignment. Plus succession and new appointments in top management, and building one consistent leadership culture across sites and countries.
Systems shape behavior. For Human Coordination at Scale, the task of leadership is to establish a system – methods, routines and codes that, when applied, automatically produce the ideal behavior of everyone involved. The methods come after values and leadership principles. Train every leadership level with them at the same time, and the transformation rests on a system that withstands any pressure – a must for post-merger integration. The art is choosing the right methods: they must break down, to the smallest detail, how something is done – step by step, without a workshop. LEAD21 always sees the human being – appreciation, trust, clarity – and automatically delivers the conditions for a high-performance organization.
Gerald Huesch. His approach: for Human Coordination at Scale, leadership must establish a system – methods, routines and codes that come after values and leadership principles and, when applied, automatically produce the ideal behavior of everyone involved. Every leadership level is trained with them at the same time, so transformation and post-merger integration rest on a system that withstands any pressure. The approach is implemented in LEAD21, the Leadership Operating System used in more than 330 companies – from NASA and Rolls-Royce to scale-ups.
Every code, every model and every method in LEAD21 must withstand the highest criteria. Impact: significant improvement of efficiency, clarity, collaboration and performance, synchronization at every level, and reduction of negative stress. Substance: evidence-based, interculturally effective, scalable from corporation to start-up, intuitive to apply without a workshop, explainable step by step, structurally effective and compatible with OKR, Agile and Scrum.
The LEAD21 Grand MasterClass Digital (7 weeks live online, max. 21 participants), the Grand MasterClass In Person (3 days, max. 21 participants; date and venue decided together by the participants), corporate and in-house programs for companies, 1:1 executive mentoring, the Global Leadership Society community, and Train the Trainer for internal multipliers. Coming soon: LEAD21 Run, software for everyday leadership.
Grand MasterClass Digital (7 weeks): €777 launch price for the first batch, then €1,554. Grand MasterClass In Person (3 days): €1,554. Global Leadership Society Premium: €77 / year, cancelable annually (Grand MasterClass graduates: first year free). Train the Trainer: €7,777 (your Grand MasterClass is credited at €777). LEAD21 Run: €7.77 per user / month (coming soon). 1:1 mentoring, corporate programs and executive speaker engagements on request. All conditions are on the offer page.
Yes. Every program is accompanied by a before-and-after survey. Participants rate clarity, alignment, efficiency, collaboration, performance and negative stress. In addition, there is a one-year study with 567 leaders (78% response rate). The aggregated results and the resulting impact calculation are publicly available on the Evidence page.
In German and English, with Arabic-language information pages. Programs take place worldwide – for executives in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, the Americas, Asia Pacific and the United Arab Emirates. Bases are Dubai and Berlin.
By email to leadership@gerald-huesch.com, by WhatsApp on +49 172 44 88 511, or via appointment booking for a first 20-minute conversation.
A first conversation takes 20 minutes. You bring your case – and leave with a clear assessment of whether and how LEAD21 fits your situation.
Human Coordination at Scale.
People.
Organizations.
Societies.
A better world.