What We Expect from our Leaders

• Leaders as role models
• CORE Leadership Values as the basis for our leadership culture

Our leaders and their teams should make a sustainable contribution to BASF’s success. This is why we promote high-quality leadership and measure its impact. 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 positions. Our leadership culture is based on BASF’s corporate values: creative, open, responsible and entrepreneurial – CORE. Our specific expectations of leaders’ conduct are derived from these: the CORE Leadership Values (see box).

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 experts. 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. This is why we implemented the comprehensive FEEDback&forward program for all leaders Group-wide in 2020, in which employees provide regular feedback on their managers’ 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 leaders, and encourages them to reflect on themselves and their own skills. This enables them to drive forward change together with their teams.

To optimally support our leaders – including during the challenging times of the coronavirus pandemic – existing leadership development tools were converted to virtual formats and our internal toolbox was expanded to include new elements such as a CORE leadership podcast or a website with information on how to handle challenges during the pandemic.

CORE Leadership Values

The CORE Leadership Values serve as the guiding principles for all leaders and set out BASF’s expectations of leadership behavior. We have derived specific descriptions of desired leadership skills from each individual CORE corporate value.

Excellent leadership is crucial to our customer focus, growth, value creation, employee performance, sustainable goals and new ways of working. The expectations surrounding specific leadership behaviors are aligned with BASF’s strategic goals and reflect our company’s leadership vision.

Regular training and company-wide dialog on best practices in implementing the CORE Leadership Values in all relevant processes across the company – such as the recruitment and development of talented employees – are important tools to ensure a consistent global leadership culture.