Defining Leadership: Who Am I To Be A Leader?

Leadership can be defined in many different ways, but author Joanne Ciulla said it best when she wrote, “Leadership is not a person or a position. It’s a complex moral relationship between people based on trust, obligation, commitment, emotion, and a shared vision of the good.” There are many leaders among us, and they’re found in various kinds of people, places, and even the most unlikely positions.

Unfortunately, many people – especially women – struggle with leadership, as only 35% currently hold a leadership position out of the 54.3% that make up today’s workforce. What’s more, is that individuals may not even realize that they have the ability to lead or influence, because they believe that to be an effective leader, they must have a title, or they view leadership as something that has to be earned. People don’t need to change who they are to be an effective leader – they simply need to have a passion for what they do and learn how to leverage who they are to make an impact. 

In this episode of “Bring Out The Talent,” we are joined by Ashley Cox. Ashley is the Founder and CEO of SproutHR and author of “Transform Your Stories: Overcome Your Toxic Stories, Become a Courageous and Confident Leader, and Impact the World.”

Tune in as we learn some tips to lead successfully and confidently in the workplace!

Transcript

Speaker 1:

Bring out the talent.

Speaker 2:

Bring out the talent.

David:

Bring out the talent. Welcome to Bring Out the Talent, the podcast learning and development experts discussing innovative approaches and industry insights. Tune in to hear our talent, help develop yours. Now here are your hosts, TTA's CEO and president, Maria Melfa and talent manager, Jocelyn Allen.

Maria Melfa:

Hi everyone, this is Maria.

Jocelyn Allen:

Hey everybody, it's Jocelyn. We're back. I know we better introduce ourselves because it's been a while. People might not remember who we are.

Maria Melfa:

Yes, it's been several months. We've taken a break and I feel a little rusty today. I don't even know what I'm doing here today.

Jocelyn Allen:

It's true. We didn't even know how to press unmute from our microphone. It's been so long. You know what? That just means we got it all out in the beginning and it's going to be rock solid from here on out so...

Maria Melfa:

Exactly. Or if not, bear with us.

Jocelyn Allen:

It'll be fun either way. But I'm very excited to be back with you, Maria. Round three as they say.

Maria Melfa:

I'm very excited too. And I know at the end we do a fun contest, but I think Jocelyn, we should start doing a contest in the beginning on who can dance best to our intro music because Ashley just did some good moves here.

Jocelyn Allen:

She did. She absolutely killed it. I agree.

Ashley Cox:

Thank you. Thank you. I mean, it's such a great tune. How can you not dance to it?

Maria Melfa:

Okay, excellent. So let's get started. Today we are talking about a topic that I think we could never have enough knowledge on and that is leadership. Leadership can be defined in many different ways but author Joanne Ciulla wrote it best when she said, "Leadership is not a person or a position. It is a complex moral relationship between people based on trust, obligation, commitment, emotion, and a shared vision of the good." There are many leaders among us and they're found in various kinds of people, places, and even in the most unlikely positions.

Unfortunately though, many people don't realize their ability to lead or influence because they often fail that to be an effective leader they must have that innate leadership drive or they view leadership as a title that has to be either deserved or earned. While both scenarios may help you truly don't need to change who you are to be an effective leader, you simply just have to learn how to leverage who you are to make an impact. To help us dive in today's important topic, we are joined by Ashley Cox. Ashley is the founder and CEO of SproutHR and author of Transform Your Stories: Overcome Your Toxic Stories, Become a Courageous and Confident Leader and Impact the World. Love that. Welcome, Ashley.

Ashley Cox:

Thank you so much Maria and Jocelyn for having me here. I'm so excited to talk to you both. I love your podcast and it is just an honor to be here and have this important conversation.

Maria Melfa:

We're so glad, Ashley.

Jocelyn Allen:

See, we told you we're rusty. We're going to be... We tell each other all the time, we're going to do the hand signals and let us know. But it's all right. It's part of our charm, Maria.

Ashley Cox:

It's natural.

Maria Melfa:

Yes it is. It is.

Jocelyn Allen:

Ashley, we are very excited to have you here. We love your energy, we love what you bring to the table, how you define leadership and this idea behind embodying what the kind of motives are, what the skills are behind it, as opposed to what a title gives you in that role. And yeah, like I said, we're excited to talk to you about it. So I know when we met you, you shared your remarkable origin story starting in management and then transitioning to recruiting. I don't know anything about that, and then finding yourself in this more of an HR and L&D type role. I think there's a lot about your story that will actually resonate with our listeners because it does with us and we know that we're like we all have a journey that we've taken. So can you tell us a little bit more about how you got into HR, what this journey was and where it brought you to today?

Ashley Cox:

Yes, I'm happy to. So listeners and the audience, raise your hand if you accidentally fell into HR. That's where my origin story begins. I had never set out on the path to be in talent acquisition or human resources or any of this field. I actually received an opportunity when I was in store management where I staffed a brand new Kroger store with over 350 employees in an eight week time period. And it was my first huge talent acquisition recruiting endeavor. And thankfully I achieved the goal and we had such a successful store opening and it was amazing. And so that was my first foray into talent acquisition and recruiting on large scale projects. So I was invited to apply for an open position in our HR department as a recruiter. And that really just set me off on this career path almost 16 years ago.

So from there I worked in recruiting for a solid year, traveling all over recruiting at different colleges and universities in a five state area. And then I was promoted into a talent development role and I had a much bigger responsibility and over training and development and recruiting. And then from there, moved more into a kind of an all-encompassing generalist type of position. And I spent a few years as a generalist. I have a very broad range of knowledge and experience from recruiting to talent acquisition to compend all the way into employee performance, employee management, risk management, all of the areas of HR. I'm really fortunate to have worked in so many different areas and have a really well-rounded HR background and experience, which adds a lot of value to the work that I do now as an independent consultant working with small businesses and professional women.

Maria Melfa:

So when did you get the idea about writing your book?

Ashley Cox:

I have wanted to write a book since I was five. And I can clearly remember my first show and tell in kindergarten, I brought a book to read and I was an early reader so I read the whole book for the class and it was The Little Engine That Could, and I just remember thinking how cool would it be to write a book one day and you have some idea of what this might look like at five, but not really understanding when you write an actual book that has 50,000 words. But I just got it in my mind. I want to write a book, I don't know what it's going to be about yet. And about a few years into my business ownership journey, I had had several people just commenting on various things, "Oh this topic really resonates with me," or, "That really spoke to me."

And they were generally around the mindset of leadership. Am I a leader? Maybe I'm not cut out for this, I don't know. And then I wrote this series of blog posts that was based on a podcast episode that I had listened to about how we have this bias in our thinking that we are not cut out for something or we get stuck in our mind that this is the story I'm going to tell myself and this is the story I'm going to believe. And unless we challenge ourselves or unless an external force or person challenges us, we kind of just stay there and that's our comfort zone. So I was like, let me write a blog post about this because I feel like this is what our clients really struggle with is I don't know if I'm cut out to be a leader.

So I was like, well let's challenge that. The first blog post I wrote, it was just going to be a one post, got so much positive feedback and people were like, "I want more." So I thought, okay, let's expand this. What are the stories we tell ourselves? What the stories that society tells us? What are the stories that we grew up with in our families or our cultures and how do we overcome these? And so that one blog post turned into four blog posts and then people just kept saying, "I would read a whole book about this." So I was like light bulb moment, there's the book. Let me write what the people want.

But I also think this was a book that I very much wish that I would've had younger in my leadership journey because I often felt like, I don't know if I'm a leader, I don't know if I'm cut out for this. There's a lot of times throughout your career that you question whether or not you're in the right role, you're in the right place, you're the person that's maybe been tapped on the shoulder for this position, but you're still self doubting, you're still second guessing. And I think that we waste so much energy on doubting ourselves and second guessing and pushing aside what could be instead of creating the impact that we could have if we just embraced it and stepped into that role.

Jocelyn Allen:

I love that. I agree with you because you hear so much, there's different buzzwords around the culture and the climate in the workforce in general. And imposter syndrome is a huge thing that people are dealing with right now because I think one, there's been a lot of changes in the professional workforce and a lot of people who are making changes based on their skills and what they could be doing with them versus what they have been doing with them. And that transition alone is a little scary and kind of makes you doubt this is different than anything I've ever done, is this really for me.

And that's what I love about your book, which is titled Transform Your Stories: Overcome Your Toxic Stories, Become A Courageous and Confident Leader and Impact the World. Love that. So much boss energy behind that title. But it really is about exactly what we're talking about, taking away that imposter shield and leveraging who you are, the skills that you come with and I love that position on what you're targeting in the audience that you're trying to talk to. Can you dive into that a little bit more, what it means to transition your thinking and talk about who am I and how do I use this?

Maria Melfa:

Yes. I'm so glad that we're talking about this because we need to talk about this topic so much more because society would have us believe that a leader looks like A, B, C. And I think a leader uses all the letters in the alphabet, that a leader doesn't have to just be A B or C, or D, E, F, or X, Y, Z. It really is an opportunity for each of us to embrace our natural talents, our natural strengths, our natural skill sets. I remember being a first time leader at 22. I'd just graduated college and I'm co-manager at this huge store where we have over 300 employees and I kept getting dinged for being too nice. They were like, "You're too soft. You're too nice. You're too compassionate and people are going to run you over." And so I spent a lot of time trying to not be myself and it backfired. It didn't work.

And the more I tried to be like them or like what I was being guided to be, for me it was a lot more masculine type of energy, a lot more masculine skill sets, things that just were very unnatural for my personality and who I am in this world, the worse it got. People didn't want to listen to me. They were like, "Oh this is a little offputting. It's a little harsh." And so I finally had a female manager that I could look up to and I could see that she was doing things differently and I was like, "Oh, maybe I can be compassionate. She is. It's working for her. She's doing great things." So it took being able to see someone else leading in a way that felt really natural and more comfortable to me for me to finally have that light bulb moment that said, "Okay, I don't have to be like them. It's different for them. They can lead like this, it works for them, that's great. And I can do something totally different and be successful."

And once I leaned into my own natural skills and strengths and the things that I embodied as a human, as a person, my leadership journey just really took off. I got a lot more opportunities. I was really successful with our team. They listened to me and they reacted and we worked together really, really well. So that's what I wanted to bring into the book was that if you have been told your whole life that you're too soft, you're too quiet, a lot of times we hear this with introverts. I am not an introvert, but I love our introverted leaders because they're so thoughtful and they're so intentional. And so a lot of times they're often told you're not charismatic enough, you're not this enough, you're not that enough and it can be really damaging to their own self belief.

Like you mentioned Jocelyn, that imposter syndrome. I'm not cut out to be a leader, I'm too quiet. No, you're not. You're exactly who we need. And I think there are a lot of leaders out there that we need today that we don't have in the workforce and that's leaders who lead with empathy and compassion and a human to human connection. And I think in the definition that you read at the beginning, Maria, that hit it perfectly, the nail on the head, that this is the human experience, that we are people working with people. And if we forget that then I think that we've lost what is so special about being in a leadership role.

Jocelyn Allen:

Sounds like a part of your journey was finding a mentor of sorts, find somebody that you finally connected with to bridge the gap between what you knew you were capable of and how to actually use the skills that you had without changing yourself. So is that an important part of maybe your book in this journey? Do you talk about mentorship and finding somebody who can support you along the way? Because I love that. I agree with you. I connected with that a lot because I found myself adapting to who I am and what I'm capable of doing with that as soon as I found somebody who recognized that in me and took the time to develop who I was into what I could be.

Ashley Cox:

A hundred percent Jocelyn, a hundred percent. It's so important to have a mentor that you can look up to and who you feel comfortable with. And I talk about mentorship definitely in the book. And the book itself is a mentor experience. It's part written stories. I tell stories from my own personal background. Some of them are really embarrassing so you like embarrassing stories, go read my book. Some of them are client stories, some of them are friend stories. Everybody's anonymous. I didn't use any identifying information but I wanted to tell these real stories of real people who have experienced this. And so you're kind of getting that mentor experience where you're saying, "Hey listen, here's someone that was on the path just like you," or, "I struggled with this and here's how I helped myself through it."

And then the book is part story and part journaling experience. So then you also get the opportunity to walk through some really thought-provoking questions and sit with yourself and sit with your thoughts. And I put plenty of space in the book to actually write those thoughts because if you're like me, I like to write along with what's happening in the book and make sure that I'm absorbing the information and I'm processing it and I'm getting hands on. And so it's an opportunity to create that mentoring experience even if you and I can't sit down and have a coffee together.

Jocelyn Allen:

I love that. I would mark the heck out of that book for sure. Journaling is very much a space that I connect with so that... Very, very smart because I would use that.

Ashley Cox:

Yeah, I'm always fussing because margins and books keep getting smaller and smaller. I'm like where am I supposed to write my notes?

Jocelyn Allen:

They sure do. Along with the print. Not to be that person, but I'm crossing that threshold here in my life.

Maria Melfa:

Well it's funny because I know when we first started talking, when we talked about leadership being for all and not just people in the so-called leadership title, but as we started talking like, oh this would be a great book for us to do in our leadership team. And then two minutes later I'm like, why am I just saying that for the leadership team it would be a great book for everybody in the organization to read.

Ashley Cox:

Yeah, I've had people tell me, "I don't actually lead a team right now, I'm not sure if I ever will lead a team," but this book isn't just about leading other people, it's about leading yourself. And I thought that's the best testimony of the book. I didn't say that.

Maria Melfa:

I love that. That's fantastic. And I love books where they have a lot of stories where they're speaking to a lot of real life examples and like you're saying, you're sharing some of your embarrassing stories because obviously a lot of us can relate to that. So it may seem like, oh my goodness, I can't believe this happened to me, but it probably happened to many other people.

Ashley Cox:

Probably, right? It's a very vulnerable experience. I also feel like writing this book and putting it out in the world was another part of my leadership journey. Being able to say, "Hey, this is real life. This happened to me." It's easy to show up in that expert role and say, "I'm the expert. I know this thing, just do what I say." But really being able to share genuinely, this is something I struggled with, here's all the challenges I faced during that time. Here's how I helped myself out, or here's the mentor relationship I had that helped me navigate that, or this was a quote or a book that I read that really supported me during that difficult time.

I think that's so important to share behind the scenes of what it looks like to be a leader. And I tell people in the book, and I tell people all the time, I wrote the book on this, but I'm still practicing this every single day of my life. I have stories that still pop up and I have to constantly challenge myself, is this true? Okay. And if I'm not going to be the one who's going to stand up and say this or do this, who is? And what if nobody else does? And this is the exact message that people need to hear. And so I think it's just so important to just keep challenging yourself and a lot of leadership is being really comfortable with being super uncomfortable.

Jocelyn Allen:

Here. Here.

Maria Melfa:

Cheers to that for sure. But being vulnerable is definitely an underrated quality for a leader. So Ashley, do you often see the same challenges that leaders have for both females and male leaders? Are they different?

Ashley Cox:

There're definitely similarities, but very prominent differences. And I think the biggest difference is coming back to that imposter syndrome. And I think something that Jocelyn and I had just touched on a moment ago was having a mentor who looks like you or who has a similar personality or qualities or characteristics. And when we don't see, and this is not new, this is not rocket science, when we don't see someone like us, then we are not sure if we can be in that role. So when we don't see women in leadership roles, we don't know is that for me, could I do that? Do I have to be somebody completely different?

And I think that we talk a lot about, especially at SproutHR, about how representation is incredibly important because when you see it, you can be it. And it takes a lot of courage to go first and to be the first person, whether it's the first woman or the first person of color, or the first immigrant of your family, first generation immigrant, whoever you may be, whoever you might present as in this world, it's important for you to see people who look like you, who sound like you, who believe like you, who have the characteristics that you do.

And that was very, very true for me. I was in a very male-dominated industry and there was a lot of men at the leadership helm and they were great at doing what they were doing, but they weren't necessarily great role models for me because I led in a very different way. So it was important for me to have that mentor, to have that leader, to have that example of someone who used empathy and who used compassion and who used some different skill sets, not better, not worse, just different. And I think that's what we often get too tied up in. And especially you'll see this in lots of different reports and studies and things, you'll see that men are often given this certain set of characteristics as leaders and women often have a different set of characteristics. So where men might be more decisive, women might be more collaborative, where men might be more aggressive, but in a positive context, women might be seen as softer, more compassionate.

And so that's not necessarily a hundred percent true all the time all across the board there are variances and I can have a hard conversation just with the best of them because those are skills that I've had to learn and that I've had to use and we can implement those different skill sets across the board. But I do think that women a lot of times get dinged for some of these, quote-unquote, "softer skill sets" or gentler approaches. And so that can make it seem like you are not cut out for this role when in fact that's exactly what we need for you to be.

Maria Melfa:

It's interesting, and I know we were just talking about a trait that might be more seen and then a woman leader vulnerability. So how often do you see that men are willing to be more vulnerable?

Ashley Cox:

I think that we have a cultural shift that is moving this direction and I've definitely seen more men embracing that vulnerability. I think it's harder for them because as a society we have had the story, just kind of sticking with the transforming stories, the story has been told that real men aren't vulnerable, real men aren't soft, real men aren't nice. You have to be tough and you have to rule with an iron fist and you have to be strong and aggressive. And I think that real men can also be vulnerable and compassionate and empathetic and there are going to have to be those who go first. And we're starting to see more of that. I think Simon Sinek is a great example of someone who really leads with a lot more vulnerability and compassion and empathy. And as other men can see men stepping into leadership roles with some of those softer skills, I think that we'll start seeing much more of that in the workplace.

And also people aren't tolerating it these days. They're just not. We have the great resignation because people are tired of being, lambasted I guess would be maybe the right... I'm going to rule with an iron fist and you're going to be afraid of me. And we're using fear as a tactic instead of collaboration. So I definitely see the cultural shift and it's probably going to take a while to get there. We have a lot of people in the world and so I think just more men being courageous and stepping up and being vulnerable is going to lead the way for others to do the same.

Maria Melfa:

Very good point. Another common misconception as we're talking about it is something that we had also mentioned in the intro is that leadership as a title needs to be deserved or earned. And we're shifting towards it being more of a mindset. Let's dive into that a little bit, but maybe let's talk about what you would say to somebody who comes to you with that concern, this person's on your team and they're like, "That's not me." Let's talk about that a little more.

Ashley Cox:

Toxic story. That's all it is. It's just a story. It's a story that either we have learned culturally or societally or that we have somehow embraced on our journey that you're not what a leader looks like. Let me tell you what, I made a post and I wish that I could have done this more in a visual format, but I had a little mirror, just a little mirror, and I was like, "This is what a leader looks like." Look in the mirror you're exactly what a leader looks like and maybe you don't think that you're a leader because you don't have the title, you don't have the position power, you don't have people reporting to you. But I promise you, you are a leader somewhere, in your family, in your church, in your community, in your volunteer efforts just by the way that you hold the door for someone behind you, by the way that you're kind to the people in the service industry.

You're leading every day by the example that you're studying for others. And those of you who have children, you are the supreme being leaders of the universe because you are leading tiny humans to learn how to be good and kind and lovely and wonderful, productive human beings. If you don't think that you're a leader in that capacity, then you and I need to have conversation because you are. You are. So I think it's redefining what does leadership look like? What does this sound like? Who's involved? And looking for opportunities where you're already leading, and that's one of the suggestions that I give in my book is look for your leadership right now.

You don't have to be deemed a leader. Nobody has to bless you or grant you with this leadership title. You can lead where you are. You can lead on your team as a peer to other people, the way that you show up, the way that you collaborate with other people, the way that you communicate, the way that you show up for people in your work environment, the way that you anticipate needs and fill them the way that you make sure that everybody feels seen and heard and validated on your team. If somebody has an idea, you're advocating for that person. You're saying, "Hey, this person has an idea. Let's listen up." So there's so many different beautiful, incredible ways that we can show up as leaders in everyday life. And I challenge you this week to just go look for those. I bet you'll find them.

Jocelyn Allen:

Such a great insight because I agree with everything you're saying and we've, we talk about it internally too because it is very much an asset that we value here at TTA and lead by is being a human being and connecting with human beings, meeting them where they're at, both personally and professionally because the days of being two different people at home and work are gone. It's not a sustainable thing. But there are ways to, again, cater those skills to be the right person in the right place without forgetting who you are. On a recent podcast I was listening to, they discussed finding joy in your work and how you can use that joy to improve your role and even your culture in the workplace. And like I said, I feel like joy and passion for what you do is the most important thing on the planet and one of the best characteristics for a leader.

I'll brag about Maria, our CEO, she brings joy, humor and passion to everything we do here at TTA. I was home last week working from home and I have a toddler and she brought out this little accordion and while we were having a meeting to make sure that we were both laughing and having a good time because you just happened to be home with me and sometimes you have to balance the scales and she literally got right in there with it. She's like, "oh, you have a kid and we also need to talk business, so here's how we're going to do it." And she's dancing with an accordion.

Ashley Cox:

I love it.

Jocelyn Allen:

It was the best. It was the best because he literally was like, "Maria's so silly." I'm like, "Yes, she is. She is the best."

Maria Melfa:

He wants to come in and play with my toys.

Jocelyn Allen:

He does. He keeps talking about it every day since then we're going to bed and he's ready to wake up going, I want to go to Maria's house and play with toys. I'm like, "We all do but we got to make some plans to do that some other time."

Maria Melfa:

So cute.

Jocelyn Allen:

Just even being able to talk about it like this, creating that culture is so important. And I speak very highly of Maria in this setting, in all settings. And it's one of those things where people can't believe that I work for a person like this because it is still one of those things that's kind of unheard of in a corporate environment even though we are making moves to be that way. And that being said, we've all experienced people who are not like that and what it can do to the work environment and towards our growth.

Ashley Cox:

Yeah, I think that if you don't enjoy what you're doing, find something else to do because life is too short. Life is too short. I have this saying, I'm always running around saying it, I'm like, "If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right. If you're not having fun, you're not doing it right." Fun is the... It's the outward expression of joy. If you truly have joy, you're having fun. If you have passion, you're having fun. Fun doesn't happen because we force it. Fun isn't forced team building activities. Fun isn't forced, hey, we're going to start adding emojis to all of our posts. We can't force the fun to happen. The fun is the natural result of the ingrained joy, the ingrained passion. And I think that that starts first with loving what you do and being really joyful and passionate about it. And if you're not, really finding, well, what would make me joyful? What am I passionate about?

And then if you are in charge of leading a team or hiring a team, it starts with hiring, hiring people that have joy and have passion, making sure that they understand what's the vision that we're working toward, what's the big exciting goals that we're setting for our company, for our team, for each individual, and tapping into that passion that each individual has. And I think that sometimes we forget that that can be part of the interviewing process, that can be part of the recruiting activities. And I think it's honestly the most important part, starting with our values and making sure that the people who are coming to work with us are equally as joyful and passionate. So on my team, I have my director, director of operations, Mara, and, hey Mara. I love her. She's amazing. And she is joy filled and she is passionate and she sees the connection between what she does every single day and how we're changing the world.

The conversations that she and I have behind the scenes about the day to day operations and the fun stuff that she likes to nerd out over with spreadsheets and operational things and I'm like, "Ah, I don't know about that stuff." I'm a people person. I'm not a tech person or a spreadsheet person. And so it's really cool to be able to see that we have completely different skill sets. She's an introvert, I'm an extrovert. She loves numbers and spreadsheets and things like that and I love conversation and community and pulling people in. And we still are both joy filled. We are still both passionate about what we do because we see the big vision and we're going toward that together. And every single thing that we do leads toward that bigger vision. How cool is that? And just like you, Jocelyn, she gets to be home with her kid.

He was sick from school the other day. Yeah, he's running around in his diaper behind her and he was like, "Mommy, I need a snack." "Okay, go get a snack. Actually, I'm going to go get a snack too." And I think it's just embracing that work can look different. You can have a... I don't like the word balance. I like the word harmony, work-life harmony. Sometimes work takes a front seat and then sometimes family takes a front seat, personal things ebb and flow just professional things. And just remembering that those two things can work in harmony. They don't have to work against each other and you don't have to balance them perfectly because to me that's like walking a tight rope.

If you don't have perfect balance, you are going to fall off and perfect balance is impossible to achieve. So we have women who come to our coaching calls and they're breastfeeding their children. I mean obviously you can tip the camera up and you don't have to have everything full force on video. But I love that we've created a space where women feel comfortable coming to work and having important business conversations and breastfeeding. That is so powerful. That's so different. And sometimes I forget that that's very unique until I talk to people who work in corporate jobs or the typical nine-to-five and they're like, "Wait, what? Women do what?" Yeah, they do. And it's so cool.

Maria Melfa:

So haven't talked about your business SproutHR. So we're talking a lot about your book and obviously there's a lot of overlapping between what you do and the stories you shared in your book. Can you explain how you work with organizations?

Ashley Cox:

Yeah. So we work a few different ways. We have a couple of primary focuses. We work with women owned businesses with under 50 employees on hiring and leadership development. But we also work with professional women in organizations in Fortune 500 companies and all over the US and around the world on leadership development. Because regardless of where you are, whether you own a small business or you're working in a corporate environment, chances are you need some leadership development. You might not have a lot of resources or access to opportunities or mentors or people who you can really be in community with. And so community's a big part of the way that we work with women as well.

We think that it's so important for you to be with other women who are like you, who are different from you who have experiences that you can leverage and pull on. And so it really turns into this whole mentorship community. And so we also work with organizations as a speaker and creating customized workshops and various tools like that to help them with their women's leadership development programs or even their new and aspiring leaders. So we do have some folks who have a variety of folks in their programs and we love to work with new leaders because these are all the things that we wish we would've had experience with and exposure to when we were starting out, myself and Mara and some other folks that we work with.

Maria Melfa:

So when you work with organizations or a lot of the programs customized or do you have a standard curriculum that you might teach also?

Ashley Cox:

Both. So we can do a standard curriculum. I have a lot of great training and resources and tools that we can work through. Everything is super fun. It's dynamic, it's engaging. I do not sit and just talk at people for an hour or five hours or whatever it might be. Everything's super interactive so that way you get hands on, you get experience, you get to really be with the learning and not just listening to it and then saying, oh, that's all great concepts. Now I'm going to go back over here and forget it all and not do anything with it. So it's very engaging, it's very interactive. We focus a lot on pre-work and post-work, so that way you get that wraparound learning experience as well. And we do our standard programs and courses and trainings and then we also work with some companies on customized trainings. What do your people need? Where are the gaps? What do you wish they were doing that they're not doing? And how can we help to close that gap with various learning strategies and techniques and topics.

Maria Melfa:

I love that. So do you bring the mentorship aspect to your programs as far as different people you were mentioning from different groups or different companies come together and have a weekly or monthly cocktail party or-

Ashley Cox:

Cocktail parties, yeah. We have not. We have not.

Maria Melfa:

How does that work, yes?

Ashley Cox:

We have not, but I think that is absolutely something that we'd be open to. We do have a group program style where women business owners can come together and then on the other side we have another option where professional women can come together because there are some nuances there. When you have your own business, that's a whole different experience than being a woman in a corporate leadership experience, which has its own unique challenges. And having been on both sides, having worked for companies like Kroger and J.Crew and these really large Fortune 500, Fortune 25 organizations, I have that experience, and I know, and I spent about 10 years in corporate. I know and understand that very well. And then on the small business side, you're dealing with a whole different set of issues and challenges and unique things that happen and come up in business. So I have two different options and that's where the group coaching and the mentorship really comes into play so that way everybody gets the relevant experience and the relevant mentorship that they need.

Maria Melfa:

I love it. We need to talk more after this about your programs.

Ashley Cox:

I would love to. I would love to.

Jocelyn Allen:

Yeah. It's all really good information and I love the energy that you have behind it. This is good vibrations. I feel like people come to the table feeling good about the conversation that they're going to have between your perspective from your book and your leadership styles and honing in on what makes you capable of using those skills in a leadership format but obviously SproutHR and what they're doing for women in leadership and developing their teams, I love all of it. So as we wrap up, because we're coming to the top of our hour and we still have fun things to discuss-

Ashley Cox:

Oh, that's fun.

Jocelyn Allen:

What advice could you give our listeners who want to take those first steps to becoming a leader, honing in on who they are and being that form of a leader and maybe how SproutHR can help?

Ashley Cox:

Yeah, I think the first... And this is going to be the one and only characteristic or quality or trait that I say every leader has to have, okay, so listen up. This is the only one I'm going to tell you, you have to have, self-awareness. You have got to have self-awareness. If you are not willing to look internally and say, "What am I doing well? Where am I missing the mark? And what do I need in order to do what I want to do?" You're not going to make it, I promise. So you have to have self-awareness. Every other skillset, every other quality or characteristic have whatever you have. So think about this from this perspective. Where am I a leader? We've talked about that. Okay, I'm self-aware. Great, awesome. Where am I already leading and what would I like to be doing? And maybe even considering what feels really scary, because I think sometimes the things that scare us the most are exactly where we need to be.

And I think that one of the things that has been so pivotal in our work with our clients is helping people to push past that upper limit that we create for ourselves. Don't create your own glass ceiling, don't create your own glass ceiling. Look for those upper limits. What's scary about it? What are you telling yourself about why you can't or why you shouldn't or why you're not the right person to do that? Maybe they're just stories. Get some outside support, whether that's a mentor like myself, whether that's a friend who can help you break down some of those lies. I know my friends are constantly saying things like, "Ashley, that's not true. That's a hundred percent not true." And I'm like, "Okay, okay, okay." And they're very brutally honest. It's not like, well, I don't know, maybe that's true or not. No, that is not true. Stop telling yourself that. You can do this. This is possible and this is for you. So what is holding you back? Maybe yourself. Maybe yourself.

Jocelyn Allen:

I agree. I agree. I love that insight. We all need good, brutal friends. I mean, that's the requirement is brutal honesty. We all need a couple people who will do that for us in our life. So I love that you have that. I love that you explain that and I love the journey and the conversation. This was really insightful and perspective wise, I'm a hundred percent in on it, Ashley, a hundred percent in.

Ashley Cox:

Thank you, Jocelyn. Thank you, Maria. This has been such a fun conversation and I'm so grateful to have the opportunity to be here with you both today and just open up the doors for anyone who might be listening that being a leader is possible and it's possible for you.

Maria Melfa:

Thoroughly enjoyed it. Great information.

Ashley Cox:

Thank you.

Jocelyn Allen:

And on that note, it's time we find out a little bit more about you, Ashley. So we have once again in season three, our favorite segment, the TTA 10. Woo hoo.

David:

It's the TTA 10. 10 final questions for our guest.

Jocelyn Allen:

Okay, Ashley. So we talked about the TTA 10 before we started the recording. It's 10 rapid fire questions, very playful to get to know you a little bit better, bring some extra layers of personality into our conversation. And the target is to answer it in 90... to answer them in 90 seconds or less. There's no right or wrong answers, but we find that there are better answers than others so quickly as you can, answer the questions but it's all in good fun. If you are able to do it in 90 seconds or less. David, our genius producer, will have a wonderful celebration for you. And if you do not, he will also have a terrible non-celebration for you. So either way, you want to spin it, you get something at the end. So let's hope it's a winner, Ashley. Are you ready?

Ashley Cox:

I am ready. I am pumped for this. Fantastic. Let's do it.

Jocelyn Allen:

David, give me the clock and whenever you're ready.

David:

As usual. 90 seconds on the clock beginning now.

Jocelyn Allen:

All right, Ashley, which Disney character would you say you most relate to?

Ashley Cox:

Oh gosh, this is a hard question. Okay. I'm going to say that I definitely relate to Belle because I could totally be trapped in a castle with a monster as long as I had books and tea parties.

Jocelyn Allen:

Speaking of books, which was the last book that you finished?

Ashley Cox:

The last book that I finished was, oh, I'm reading the Harry Potter series for the first time ever. And it was book number five.

Jocelyn Allen:

Fantastic.

Ashley Cox:

They've been great.

Jocelyn Allen:

What was the first movie that ever made you cry?

Ashley Cox:

All of them. I cry at everything. I'm a very emotional person, oh my gosh, but probably something when I was very young. I definitely remember sobbing to Titanic in the movie theater and being horribly embarrassed.

Jocelyn Allen:

She let go. What is your favorite season of the year?

Ashley Cox:

Oh, fall. We're getting ready to come into it. Best!

Jocelyn Allen:

Pick one place that you've never traveled to that you would like to as a bucket list.

Ashley Cox:

Italy, for sure.

Jocelyn Allen:

What is three times three?

Ashley Cox:

Oh my god, that's terrible. Nine.

Jocelyn Allen:

What is the name of Winnie the Pooh's best friend.

Ashley Cox:

Piglet.

Jocelyn Allen:

What is your astrological sign?

Ashley Cox:

Pisces.

Jocelyn Allen:

What would be the one thing you would bring with you on a deserted island?

Ashley Cox:

Oh, chapstick.

Jocelyn Allen:

And a night on the town or a night on the couch?

Ashley Cox:

A night on the town. I love to party.

Jocelyn Allen:

All right. There's our 10-

Ashley Cox:

Did I do it?

Jocelyn Allen:

Well, I don't know. He's going to tell us. What is the verdict?

David:

The verdict is with a time of one minute and 22 seconds, she comes in under the threshold and she is in fact a TTA winner. Yes.

Ashley Cox:

All right.

David:

And in honor of Ashley's home of Tennessee, I have a little Tennessee music queued up as we start this celebration. Yes, Ashley, I should report that the weather in Johnson City, Tennessee is a beautiful 74 degrees with a 100% chance of victory for Ashley because she is a TTA 10 champion. You Ashley may shout this news up and down the Appalachian Trail and across the Blue Ridge Parkway. Now that you have achieved this coveted honor, you will be respected and loved by captains of industry, heads of state and all of your odd but lovable brothers and sisters in human relations. Grab an RC Cola and a MoonPie to celebrate, Ashley, because you are a TTA 10 champion.

Ashley Cox:

The most fun I've ever had on a podcast. That was good, right?

Jocelyn Allen:

I knew you weren't going to get it.

Maria Melfa:

I did too. I had these for you before I even knew you were a bookworm so the segue from Belle into the book that you read, I was like, I nailed this.

Ashley Cox:

You did.

Maria Melfa:

We win, Ashley.

Ashley Cox:

We do. Everybody gets a MoonPie and an RC Cola.

Maria Melfa:

Sounds good to me.

Jocelyn Allen:

Ashley, thank you again so much. This was a wonderful conversation. You are a ton of fun, and I appreciate your perspective on everything. So before we go, what's your book one more time? Let's talk about it and where people can get it.

Ashley Cox:

Yes. Thank you so much, Jocelyn, Maria, and David for having me here today. This has been so much fun, an amazing conversation. My book is Transform Your Stories. You can purchase it on Amazon. It's also on our website, sprouthr.co, and if you're looking for us, we're sprouthr.co everywhere you go.

Jocelyn Allen:

For more information on SproutHR, visit their website sprouthr.co. For more information on our guest, Ashley Cox and her book Transform Your Stories, please visit us at thetrainingassociates.com. We'll see you later.