What We Expect from our Leaders

• Leaders as role models

Our leaders and their teams should make a sustainable contribution to BASF’s success and to safeguarding its future. This is why we want to strengthen the impact of our leadership. We understand impactful leadership as leaders that serve as role models by having a positive influence on the engagement and development of their employees and developing and implementing business strategies in line with our corporate values. These expectations are part of the standard global nomination criteria for leadership candidates. Our leadership culture is founded on a global Competency Model, which sets out specific behavioral standards based on our corporate values. We offer our leaders a wide variety of learning and development opportunities for each phase of their career, as well as various formats that enable them to learn from one another and external trainers. Global, regional and local offerings are optimally coordinated. We aim to develop leaders who lead their teams with optimism, empathy and trust, and in this way, create a competitive advantage for BASF. Regular feedback plays an important role in the development of leaders. That is why in 2019, we developed and implemented FEEDback&forward, a comprehensive feedback program for all senior executives.¹ FEEDback&forward will be rolled out Group-wide from 2020 as an annual tool for leaders to reflect on their own leadership skills.

Dialog and self-reflection with FEEDback&forward

Our new corporate strategy proactively addresses the challenges of tomorrow. How effectively we develop our resources and continually scrutinize existing practices is crucial to our success. This includes our leadership culture. FEEDback&forward gives all of our senior executives¹ direct, regular feedback from their employees on their leadership skills. The questionnaire focuses on behaviors like empathy or the ability to make difficult decisions and approach change positively. Employees can also report back to their leaders which leadership behaviors they want in the future. In this way, FEEDback&forward promotes regular and open dialog between employees and their leaders, and encourages leaders to reflect on themselves and their own leadership skills and drive forward change together with their employees. This fosters a culture of continual self-reflection and personal development.