Christina Dahlblom: I want to strengthen Hanken's corporate connections and follow how covid-19 impacts corporate culture

"I would love to see even more discussion about how research at Hanken has been applicable in organizations and daily work. In addition to being involved in research and helping Hanken strengthen its ties to the corporate world, I hope I can use my entrepreneurial and coaching experience to support the start-up companies active within Hanken", says Dahlblom.

"I am very pleased to see Christina join us, with her experience and background also in research, she will be an inspiration to our researchers as well as to our aspiring entrepreneurs and leaders, states Karen Spens, the Rector of Hanken."

Before joining Hanken in this part-time role, Dahlblom has had a long career in leadership development and coaching. According to her, the big leadership topics in most companies currently relate to challenges in human interaction.

"Finnish managers are trustworthy, structured and process-oriented, but often the human dimension poses challenges. The tolerance for poor people leadership, interaction and communication keeps decreasing."

She sees that already before covid-19, organizational culture, which is closely linked to leadership, was rising on the strategic agenda in many companies, even if not all managers see their own role as ‘culture producers’.

"Right now, we are seeing massive changes in ways of working, organizing and leading, a very demanding time for managers and leaders, both in terms of workload and other stressfactors. I hope to be engaged in research on how culture and leadership are impacted by the covid-19 shocks".  

Dahlblom has for long been interested in research within positive psychology and organizational psychology, which are closely linked to e.g. neuroscience.

"In my previous roles as consultant and coach, it has been a calling to help as many Finnish organizations as possible wake up to the possibilities we have, when we tap into the full potential in people. Positive leadership, a research stream of its own, is about aiming for, and reaching above average, above expectations results, by focusing on individual and team flourishing."

For a leader, this can e.g. mean investing time in discussing when people perform, and feel at their best, and making plans on how to enable more of that. This is quite normal practice today in organizations interested in creating positive climate and cultures, and is called job crafting. But many organizations still do traditional performance reviews that are uninspiring tick-the-box exercises for all involved, and focus mainly on what is wrong and trying to fix that. Those kind of cultures will have a hard time competing for the best talent, she explains.

Dahlblom has for long been in close contact to Hanken. She has previously been CEO of Hanken & SSE Executive Education, been involved as an ambassador, and chaired the board of the Hanken Support Foundation until last spring. She says she has felt it is important to support Hanken in any way she can.

"At this point in time, it feels important to give back to society, in different ways. In this new role I hope I can give back to Hanken, and at the same time help young people and future entrepreneurs and leaders develop skills that will help them perform and feel good –flourish – both now and in the future."

Dahlblom gained her PhD at Hanken in 2004 with the dissertation “Understanding customer loyalty and disloyalty - The effect of loyalty-supporting and -repressing factors”, in the department of marketing. She has worked as an entrepreneur, CEO, and leadership coach, been involved on several boards of both stock listed and family companies, and is a key note speaker on leadership and culture topics. She continues working as an entrepreneur and board professional alongside her new role at Hanken.