Dr. Sylvia Rohde-Liebenau, From Arms Control Negotiations to Executive Coaching

Profiles in Leadership

My exploration of power began with Plato's philosophies in school and deepened through my university studies in political science and law, and a PhD in international relations.

As a young girl, I was attracted to all things martial and loved playing with guns together with the boys in my neighbourhood. In my teens, this changed as I not only started to prefer going out to dance with the boys, but also started less martial activities like Yoga and meditation, and became involved in the peace movement. Like many in my generation, I was concerned by the Cold War and in search of better ways to secure peace than through weapons and “mutual assured destruction” - MAD.

So when choosing my path for university, I decided to study political science, and in particular security studies. I wanted to understand how power operated in the world of politics, and how to make security policy more secure. I had the privilege of studying arms control negotiations while doing an internship at the United Nations in Geneva, and wrote my master’s thesis on the psychological aspects of these negotiations.

I approached my PhD. questioning the “guns and bullets” mainstream approach to security policy. Awarded a scholarship in security studies, I focused on a theme that was the opposite of guns and bullets: how civil society organisations in the East and West worked together to influence intergovernmental relations and played an important role in the peaceful end of the Cold War. During my PhD, a fellowship at Harvard introduced me to visionary leaders, united by their habit to think beyond what seems possible and their desire to make a meaningful difference. A life-shaping experience.

My career started in development cooperation, first as policy expert and programme manager at the European Commission and later as manager in consulting. This work allowed me to see both the power dynamics of large organisations and the challenges of change. I explored why some organisations we were supporting were able to change, while others remained stuck in old, often wasteful patterns. This curiosity lead me to study organisation development and leadership, and finally into coaching, and to my work at the European Investment Bank, where I served for 17 years in a range of roles dealing with personnel and leadership development, coaching, and organisational change.