Interview with Nina Merrens

Originally from Manchester, Nina Merrens has been working as a trainer and coach since 1995. She specializes in coaching, intercultural management and personal leadership and leads team and management development and intercultural training courses. In her almost twenty-year career as a trainer, she has worked for numerous well-known companies worldwide. For the United Nations, Merrens has coached managers in Bangkok, Dakar and Beirut as part of the "Management and Development" program. She has been holding seminars at the University of Passau since 2001. Since 2020, she has also been offering the English-language seminar “Personal Leadership.” We met her to talk about the challenges and opportunities for young leaders in a globalized, post-pandemic world.

ZKK: Dear Mrs. Merrens,
Thank you for meeting us for this interview. Your seminar focuses on Personal Leadership and new leadership styles. Where does your own interest for the topic stem from?

Nina Merrens: I initially became interested in the topic of Personal Leadership, the idea of leading self before leading others, and completed a course in the facilitation of Personal Leadership sessions in Crestone, Colorado. The topic leadership then kind of chose me.  I was asked to facilitate leadership development sessions worldwide with the United Nations in 2012, based on my intercultural work in the corporate sector, and led sessions for over 10 years in many different locations from Beirut, to Dakar, Bonn to Bangkok. This ignited my interest in “tailoring” leadership concepts for the audience in question, and fitted in well with my passion for working across cultures. I have also been working for the last 8 years at the IMD business school, where we get the chance to work with leaders from all over the world on the “High performance leadership program”. This takes a deeper look at the individuals roots of leadership and leadership journey, we explore how loss and the challenges of our lives help to make us stronger and more empathetic leaders.

ZKK: That sounds like you have a lot of experience with leadership around the world. What role does globalization play in new leading styles? How do leaders need to adapt?

Nina Merrens: There is no “one size fits all.” Leaders have to become more flexible in their styles and develop what is known as “ambidextrous leadership”. We need to adapt leadership models for different cultures and rapidly changing times to be able to engage with ambiguity and develop emotional intelligence. Its ok to say “I don’t know” as a leader and to show vulnerability.

ZKK: Who is your seminar especially suited for?

Nina Merrens: Anyone who is interested in developing themselves with a view to making a difference in the world, cares about people, is interested in working internationally and who has a fairly good command of English.

ZKK: Many students are afraid that they are too young or inexperienced to lead. What is your response to those worries?

Nina Merrens: Don’t worry :-) we need fresh minds and new input and above all, enthusiasm. Its young people who will be responsible for the future, so let’s start right here, right now! I have found many students at Passau to be a source of inspiration for me as they bring energy and a lot of integrity with them.

ZKK: What should participants take away from your seminar? What do you hope they know or keep after the class?

Nina Merrens: That personal leadership starts with self-development. It is a life long journey and it is never too early to start leading ourselves, in order to lead others. They should take away the confidence that they can make a significant difference and that the world needs them!