Jennifer T. Long

Jennifer T. Long is a Certified Master Coach and the President of Own Up! Accountability at Work, a leadership development company providing training and coaching for leaders, managers and teams across various disciplines. For nearly four decades, she has worked with leaders of every stripe, from newly-minted managers to the seasoned vets of the C-suite, small companies to Fortune 500 enterprises.

Safe to say there’s no leader who Jen won’t shoot straight, and won’t let them off the hook. Simply put, leaders must lead. Jen helps them get out of their own way so that they can get stuff done and focus on what they do best.

Her notions of personal accountability were ingrained at a young age. Jen’s mother was a life-long teacher who created her own training enterprise. Jen, her father, and her brother spent ten years helping fine-tune this management training in interpersonal communications. Their innovative approach created a program rooted in the promise of measurably improved skills and altering behaviors on a fundamental level. “We were able to innovate highly impactful skills training and performance development techniques that I am still using, and improving, today—some 30+ years later,” Jen says.

As a Certified Master Coach and Master Trainer, Jen has helped countless leaders master essential skills, earn the respect of their employees, and perform at a higher level. The methodology behind Own Up! elevates the idea that conversation and relationships are the prime movers of impact and culture. When Jen says that your conversations are your relationships, she means it. Those who are only content with or capable of surface-level feedback, who avoid drama like the plague, and who are unwilling to maintain real and honest relationships with their team will fail, and the organization should be glad to see them go. If you are willing to rise above—and have meaningful, honest, accountable conversations, you will meet your ambitions head-on.

On the side, Jen hosts the Organizational Transformation Kung Fu podcast with Sandi Verrecchia. You can listen to OT Kung Fu at otkungfu.com or wherever you find your podcasts.

Beyond her coaching and training experience, Jennifer spent ten years as a theater director. The unique skills acquired in this time proved invaluable in gaining niche insights into how people work. “The lessons of the theater are the lessons of working with people, of engaging in convincing dialogue, of creating desired emotional responses, and outcomes,” she notes.

Jen has two children and works all across the country but calls Denver home.