Home Extras Interviews Martina Jung
Martina Jung
Leaders are people made of glass but they don’t realize it
“Even today, leaders still wait until something bad happens either to themselves or to the company before they allow themselves to be coached,” Martina Jung suggests. Nonetheless, daily practice has taught her that preventive coaching can help avoid such catastrophes: “ I myself get thoroughly coached at least once a year. How could I otherwise help people develop, if I don’t develop myself?”Spiritual Intelligence
What Martina Jung’s name lacks in fame among other HR gurus /speakers is more than sufficiently compensated by the long list of top managers she’s coached, with innovative ideas, and… results. Through her own company Universal Intelligence, Jung, former director of Hapag-Lloyd and CEO Ahlers, specialises in coaching top managers and management integration in the context of fusions and takeovers throughout Europe. In doing this, she combines rational, emotional and spiritual leadership in the daily practices of executives.
When it comes to ‘spiritual intelligence,’ Jung is aware of the somewhat iffy, woolly connotation the word carries, but she says “it is actually not much more than looking to what degree someone applies whatever intrinsic values they carry to the work floor.” Jung is convinced that often managers’ words do not correspond with their actions and is not reluctant to put this theory to the test. “I will ask a CEO if he knows what his children’s’ hobbies are and he’ll answer something like his son plays basketball and his daughter goes horse riding and that he spends a lot of quality time with them. If that is the case, he shouldn’t mind if I also talk with his children about these moments, no? When I do speak with the children, it then arises that the son actually stopped playing basketball two years ago and that while the daughter is still riding her horse she’s quiet disappointed in the fact he never comes to support her and feels he’s not interested in her. It’s in a conversation like this that it becomes clear that there is something fundamentally wrong with the life the manager has created for himself and it is at this time that he is likely to be more open minded towards a coaching path.”
Values as roots
The example Jung gives, demonstrates the far-reaching commitment she demands of her coachee. According to her, this is necessary because the change process one needs to go through, has a greater chance of succeeding the deeper it goes: “you have to go in search of the cause of the problem; its roots. Like with a tree, those roots aren’t visible. With people, those roots are hidden values. Because those roots are not immediately visible, people can say whatever they like. How many companies out there claim having an open culture while all those who voice any criticism bite the dust? Or how about a boss who says his door is always open for a talk but is actually never there? What a lot of leaders don’t realize is that they are made of glass: they are transparent, they can claim what they like but co-workers quickly see what is true and what isn’t. One can be al sugar and spice during a meeting but everyone will have heard the shouting in the office.”
For Martina Jung it is clear that whoever lies to themselves, is not fit to manage a company or its people. Importantly, she also applies this rule to herself: “ a couple of times per year, I take time to have myself coached. I also want to know of I am on the right track and it is impossible to work on the development of other people, if you don’t work on your own.”
