Name: Julia Bessler

Title: Founder & CEO

Organisation: MamaJu Baby Sleep Consulting- Bessler Family Benefits GmbH

Location: Germany

My name is Julia Bessler - I am the founder and CEO of MamaJu Baby Sleep Consulting, a mother of two and a visionary in the area of ​​compatibility benefits for young parents. My leadership is driven by purpose and passion for humans.

With my company, I support the employee group of parents in companies and solve the pain point of permanent lack of sleep - one of the biggest performance killers.

I am a marketing and communication professional with over 13 years of professional working experience. Most of my professional work I spent in the automotive and machine builder market. I was driven by innovation and technologically sophisticated products.

When I became a mother for the first time in 2020, I realized the challenges that young parents face. The constant lack of sleep is a daily reality for over 85% of all families. So I had the idea to educate myself as a sleep coach for babies and toddlers and to help families with my work.

I still like fancy and high-technology products but until then I never realized how much impact my future work would have on other human beings. In 2023, I expanded my company into the HR B2B market and became part of employee benefit programs in companies. Since then, I have lived my purpose every day.

Thank you to the 2,000 leaders who’ve generously done the 7 Questions on Leadership!

I hope Julia's answers will encourage you in your leadership journey. Enjoy!

Cheers,

Jonno White

1. What have you found most challenging as a leader?

Once I have the right people 'on the bus' - to figure out which position suits each talent best. Where can they grow as a person, use their full potential and at the same time contribute the most to our success? As a leader, my goal is to create the perfect work environment for my team to be as much successful in every kind of way.

2. How did you become a leader? Can you please briefly tell the story?

From an office job to power mom to CEO - when your job becomes your purpose! As a marketing & communications professional with more than 13 years of professional experience, I founded my own HR B2B start-up in 2020 while on parental leave.

Even before I founded the company, I dealt intensively with the facets of leadership. A huge plus was that I always had a very good sense for other human beings and their needs so transforming into a leadership role was not a hard job for me to do.

3. How do you structure your work days from waking up to going to sleep?

I am an early bird! I get up between 4:30 and 5:00 a.m. Most likely my day is structured in 15 min. self-care in the morning (meditation, journaling, reading). Then between 5:30 and 6:30 is family time (morning routines, breakfast and getting everyone ready to leave the house).

Then I start my working day with some organizational work, checking my meeting schedule, and my tasks for the day, processing my emails, check the team shop floor board - here I can see which projects the team is working on, who has which tasks and where my support is needed. I take a productivity break of 10 minutes at least every 3 hours.

Here I go out into the fresh air if possible and drink enough water. This is my solid anchor for maximum performance throughout the day. In the afternoon it is my holy family time. I pick up my kids at kindergarten and spend the afternoon with them.

Every evening when the kids are in bed I prepare myself for the next working day. I check my email and see if there is something urgent that needs to be taken care of right away or just put in the next task for the next day.

4. What's a recent leadership lesson you've learned for the first time or been reminded of?

Great leaders are NOT always the smartest people in the room. This is something I understood at a very early age in my career. Great leaders are NOT the best at everything. They find people who are best at different things and get them all on the same team.

The moment I understood the power behind this, I also understood why I always felt so uncomfortable with people in my previous career trying to overshine everyone and who always have the largest share of speaking in meetings.

If I sit down with my team, my job is to listen, to navigate and to make the final decision. It is NOT my job to tell everyone how to do their job, therefore they are the professionals in their field.

I get reminded so many times when I sit down with my team. They are the absolute professionals when it comes to their jobs. They are super strong in terms of content and expertise and that is how it is supposed to be. Cause it doesn't make sense to hire smart people and then tell them what to do.

5. What's one book that has had a profound impact on your leadership so far? Can you please briefly tell the story of how that book impacted your leadership?

'The Servant' from James C. Hunter.

The Servant leadership is a leadership style and philosophy whereby an individual interacts with others—either in a management or fellow employee capacity—to achieve authority rather than power.

Servant leadership seeks to move management and personnel interaction away from controlling activities and toward a synergistic relationship. The authority figure in servant leadership environments attempts to promote innovation, empower employees, and assure the well-being of those around them. Servant leadership also aims to develop leadership qualities in others.

This leadership style requires an individual to demonstrate characteristics such as empathy, listening, stewardship, and commitment to the personal growth of others.

By establishing this leadership style, MamaJu has already promoted and developed great talent internally. I firmly believe that the fact that I am committed to the personal growth of my employees is the reason for the success of my company.

6. If you could only give one piece of advice to a young leader, what would you say to them?

Believe in yourself and do it!

7. What is one meaningful story that comes to mind from your time as a leader, so far?

A few months ago I offered the job as Vice President at my company to a woman who is currently pregnant with her second child. I was very shocked by this woman's reaction. She was completely perplexed and couldn't believe that I had offered her such a position.

This woman is an absolute genius and there is no better fit for my company. Here I have a 100% match.

My job as a leader is to put the right people in the right jobs in the company. Despite of age, gender, religion, mother or not.

As a leader, I am, above all, clearly speaking out for the equality and visibility of women. Giving birth to a child does not deny a woman all her qualifications and know-how. That's what I stand for as a leader.