Complementary Management

Information – Background – Practical Examples

The Model

Anyone who wants to exercise or shape management and leadership in organizations needs a theoretical framework of understanding. The Complementary Management Model provides such a framework. It shows what constitutes effective management and how it can be successfully implemented. With its three model elements and their numerous individual aspects, it takes tried-and-tested aspects of established theoretical approaches and integrates them with additional insights to form a comprehensive new understanding. In this way, it lays the foundation for successful management and leadership in practice.

The name of the model refers to the fact that its three elements each have complementary aspects that supplement each other to form a whole. The element of management roles shows how different management actors work together in a complementary manner. In doing so, the line manager primarily relies on the self-management of employees and intervenes (only) when necessary to compensate; other actor roles add to this. The element of management tasks describes the structural and people-related responsibilities. According to this, management and leadership means exerting influence on the one hand through interaction and intervention and on the other hand through instrumental structures. Finally, the model element of management routines depicts the individual activities that fill the calendar and, taken together, constitute the managerial part of one’s professional activities.

Theory

Overview of the theoretical model elements

Practice

Strategic and operational implementation

Evidence

Operationalization and research questions

Literature

Books, magazine articles, and podcasts

Professional Management

For line managers and other management actors, managing and leading is a professional activity. It is therefore pointless to try to describe and convey it using a few buzzwords, individual principles, or simple diagrams. A profession is too multifaceted and complex for that. The Complementary Management Model therefore offers a multi-layered view of all essential and generalizable elements. Professionals can and must be expected to be willing to familiarize themselves in depth with many different aspects of the job. However, in order to reflect the real complexity of organizational management and leadership, it is not only regularities that are relevant. They depend on their individual and situational implementation, and very different people can manage and lead effectively in very different ways. This requires individual freedoms, which the Complementary Management Model clearly describes as such.

Terminology

All too often, management and leadership are discussed without precisely defining what is meant by the terms. Management literature offers countless and very different definitions. In the context of Complementary Management, managing is understood as a deliberate influence on operations in an organization or an organizational unit with the aim of achieving organizational objectives. People management is part of this and refers to a deliberate steering influence on people in an organization or an organizational unit with the aim of generating work performance and achieving organizational objectives. Leadership may be regarded as a synonym of management (although it is often used for only a subset of the latter, i.e. a mixture of agenda-setting and followership-building characteristic of political influence). To avoid misunderstandings, we often use “management and leadership” to indicate synonymity while capturing the full meaning of both terms.

Practical Relevance

As a manager, the Complementary Management Model helps you to better understand your own role and perform it more successfully. It not only identifies all the management tasks that need to be fulfilled, but also the specific activities that should fill your calendar. Senior managers learn not only to perfect their own management skills, but also to explain and guide others.

For those responsible for whole organizations, e.g. as chief executives or management developers, the Complementary Management Model offers a theoretical basis as well as practical recommendations for developing corporate guidelines or management and leadership. These, in turn, form the basis for a common understanding of management and leadership among the members of the organization and for the systematic selection and training of managers. The key here is to sensibly interlink the roles of managers, employees, and HR specialists.

Management Development in Practice

Corporate Management Models in Practice

Complementary Management: Fundamental Literature

» The book on Amazon

“Complementary Management – A Practice-driven Model of People Management and Leadership in Organizations”; first English edition (translation of the third German edition) by Boris Kaehler; Springer 2022

» The book on Amazon

“Rethinking Management – Theory, Concepts, and Practice”; First edition by Boris Kaehler und Jens Grundei; Springer 2025