After nearly two decades in HR, Wanja Kungu has seen leadership evolve from a position of authority into one of continuous learning. The AAR Hospital HR head shares why developing people, sharing knowledge and staying open to new perspectives have become central to how she leads.
Wanja Kungu, head of HR at AAR Hospital, believes mentoring only works properly when it runs in both directions. She argues that senior leaders who are unwilling to learn from younger, more junior staff are the ones who eventually fall behind.
Wanja will tell you, without much hesitation, that there is a large part of her own job she cannot do alone, and it is a small admission from someone who has run HR functions for eighteen years, but it says a great deal about how she leads.
At work, Wanja treats coaching as one of the more deliberate parts of her role, not something left to chance.
“Mentoring and coaching is one of my biggest things, as someone who's been trained in coaching. I believe in coaching and mentoring teams. I've mentored and coached two people that I worked with way back in my career, who are now heads of HR. Can you imagine? We are peers now,” she says.
The habit, she says, is not confined to her own team.
“Generally, I mentor. People approach me a lot. Even in my network, my family, my close friends, I'm the only HR professional, and they get to learn a lot from me. It's not only HR, I mentor across various teams,” she says.
She also makes a point of not being the only person who knows how her own office runs.
“I always tell my team, I want you to learn this. If I'm away for one month, the office will run without me. I've seen people who want to hold information and do everything by themselves. I'm so happy to see people grow into bigger roles,” she says.
Wanja argues that the flow of learning should not run only from senior to junior. Beyond her own gap with spreadsheets, she points to what younger colleagues are teaching the wider organisation.
“I think even the leaders need to be very open, just to see what is happening in the world right now. The Gen Zs are teaching us a lot of things that we didn't think we would. I think it's something that we need to be open about,” she says. “As much as you mentor your team, I believe it's good to be open to reverse mentorship also.”
