Case Study10 November 2025

ELFLEIN: Leadership as the Key to Cultural Transformation

ELFLEIN is a leading, family-owned logistics company that has evolved from a traditional transport business into a modern, technology-driven logistics partner. As the company expanded and diversified, structures, expectations, and ways of working began to change – and with them, the role of leadership. The question was clear: How can leadership connect culture, collaboration, and strategic development in a way that creates real impact day to day?

Starting Point

With headquarters in Bamberg and around 1,300 employees across Germany as well as Central and Eastern Europe, ELFLEIN is a family-owned logistics company with deep roots and a strong tradition. Over the decades, the company has evolved from a classic transport operator into a modern logistics provider that combines operational excellence with technological sophistication. Today, ELFLEIN operates a fleet of more than 400 trucks and offers not only transport but also complex logistics solutions — including warehousing, battery logistics, and sustainable supply chain concepts.

This transformation fundamentally changed the company’s business model. What was once a primarily operational transport business became a diversified, innovation-driven logistics partner. Alongside this evolution came new challenges: continuous growth, rising customer expectations, and the accelerating pace of technological change placed increasing demands on the organization and its people.

Over time, it became evident that leadership at ELFLEIN had developed in a highly individual way. Different leadership styles and personal approaches had shaped strong teams and local identities — yet as the company grew, these differences also created uncertainty and diverging expectations. The variety that once fueled entrepreneurial agility now made alignment across sites and functions more difficult.

To successfully deliver on its strategic ambitions, ELFLEIN needed to establish a shared understanding of leadership — a common framework that provides orientation, strengthens collaboration, and ensures that culture and strategy move in the same direction.

Objectives and Intentions

To make the company’s strategic transformation sustainable, ELFLEIN set out to create a shared foundation — one that connects leadership, collaboration, and culture in support of both the company’s values and its long-term strategy. The core idea: the right culture begins with the right leadership culture — and that requires a common understanding of what good leadership means.

The goal was not simply to define culture, but to bring it to life through leadership practice. ELFLEIN therefore pursued three interdependent objectives:

Create clarity.

Develop a shared understanding of leadership that provides guidance and consistency — regardless of site, function, or personal style.

Strengthen culture.

Build and embody a unifying company culture that connects values, attitudes, and behaviors — and supports the company’s strategic evolution.

Empower leadership.

Enable leaders to fully embrace their role, take responsibility, and lead by example — especially in an operational environment where visible leadership makes the difference.

Program-Design: „WIR GEHEN VORAN“

To translate strategic transformation into lived culture, ELFLEIN partnered with GOBRAN^® to develop a multi-stage leadership development process. The approach placed leadership at the center — as the decisive lever for shaping culture and aligning behavior across all levels of the organization. The program combined cultural work, leadership principles, and practical capability-building into one coherent development framework:

Cultural Workshop – Connecting Values to Strategy

The first step was to make the existing culture visible and reflect it against the company’s strategic direction. Together with the leadership team, ELFLEIN explored which values and behaviors currently shaped the organization — and whether they supported or hindered future ambitions. From this process emerged a clear target state: a set of values that authentically reflect and reinforce ELFLEIN’s strategic evolution toward sustainable and professionally scaled logistics.

Defining the Desired Leadership Culture

Building on these shared values, ELFLEIN defined what leadership should look like in the future — particularly in the relationship between leaders and employees. Together, the leadership team articulated the attitudes, communication logic, and decision-making principles that would foster responsibility, clarity, and role-model behavior in daily leadership. The result was a shared understanding of leadership that now serves as a binding orientation framework across all levels, ensuring that culture, strategy, and leadership practice work in the same direction.

Impact 360 Leadership-Trainingsprogram with Live & OnDemand-Trainings

Building on the defined leadership principles, GOBRAN^® designed a program based on the existing Impact360^® Leadership Framework — tailored specifically to the needs and realities of a logistics company like ELFLEIN. The goal was to translate abstract leadership principles into a concrete development journey that fits the rhythm, pace, and operational context of the organization.The result was a structured, multi-layered program that helps leaders apply the agreed principles in their daily work — practical, relevant, and sustainably embedded in the organization.

QuickCards^® - From principle to practice

After each module, participants received QuickCards^® — concise summaries and actionable recommendations translating each leadership principle into everyday situations. Whether it was about self-leadership, team guidance, or employee communication, each card served as a bridge between learning and real-world application.

Mindtrigger

Mindtrigger are short digital impulses sent regularly to ELFLEIN’s leaders. Each one captures a key element of the defined leadership culture and prompts short reflection in the midst of daily operations — helping leadership stay present, not theoretical.

TPLI^® – Self-reflection for lasting impact

The TPLI^® is a compact self-check that enables leaders to reflect on their own impact. By assessing behavior, communication, and effectiveness, it strengthens self-awareness and supports continuous personal growth — turning reflection into a regular leadership practice.

Leadership Workshops – Continuous development

To ensure leadership remains dynamic and evolving, ELFLEIN introduced annual Leadership Workshops alongside the core program. These sessions address current leadership and change topics, helping leaders translate principles into practice while continuously sharpening their effectiveness.

What changed

1. A shared understanding of leadership

Today, leaders across ELFLEIN share a common understanding of their role and responsibility. They know which principles guide their actions and how to shape leadership in line with the ELFLEIN culture. This has created clear alignment across all sites — regardless of function or personal leadership style.

2. Leadership principles anchored in daily practice

The defined leadership principles are increasingly reflected in day-to-day work. They show up in shift handovers, feedback conversations, and operational meetings. Supported by tools such as Mindtrigger, QuickCards^®, and the TPLI^® self-check, leaders continuously reflect on their behavior and strengthen their effectiveness step by step.

3. Cultural impact

The company’s values have become tangible in daily interactions. Collaboration has become clearer, more respectful, and more solution-oriented. Leadership now actively shapes culture instead of merely maintaining it — turning it into a living driver of change.

4. Operational impact

The effects of leadership are visible in everyday operations: communication between shifts and teams has improved, issues are identified earlier, and openly addressed. Processes have become more structured, decisions faster, and collaboration more efficient.

5. Sustainable learning effect

Leadership is now seen as a continuous process of development. By linking training, real-world application, and self-reflection, learning has become an integral part of leadership practice. Development no longer happens in isolated moments, but continuously — enabling a lasting impact across the organization.

The GOBRAN^® leadership programs enable us not only to deliver strong performance for our customers, but also to evolve as an organization and as a team. The foundation for that is a shared understanding of leadership — one that naturally leads to a strong and cohesive company culture.
Rüdiger Elflein, Managing Partner, ELFLEIN Transport & Logistik