Have you ever wondered what it takes to be a transformative leader? Our guest for today, Melissa Joy MBA, a seasoned talent leader and certified master coach, has an inspiring story to share. Her early experiences in the foster care system ignited her passion for empowering others, and that same passion has fueled her rise in the field of human resources.
Melissa speaks about the importance of nurturing the next generation of leaders and inspiring women to reach their full potential. Her insights on reflection, realignment, and personal growth will give you a fresh perspective on transformational leadership.
In the second part of our enlightening conversation with Melissa, we delve deeper into community engagement, overcoming hurdles, and the art of collaboration.
She shares her vision for transformational growth and how she's fostering this through her work. You'll learn about her free workshops, speaking engagements, and how you can join hands with her to make a real difference. She also talks about the value of self-awareness, the power of looking back on one's failures, and how these experiences can pave the way to success.
Whether you're looking to collaborate with Melissa or simply seeking insights on personal growth and leadership, this episode is something you definitely should not miss.
We hope you found the episode to be enlightening and insightful. Our goal is to create content that not only entertains but also helps you grow spiritually and connect with your inner self.
If you enjoyed listening to this episode, we would greatly appreciate it if you could take a moment to like, subscribe, and write a review. Your feedback is incredibly valuable to us and helps us to improve the quality of our content and reach a wider audience.
We believe that by sharing knowledge and insights about spirituality, we can help to inspire positive change and personal growth. So, if you find our podcast to be meaningful and informative, we encourage you to share it with your friends and family.
Have you ever wondered what it takes to be a transformative leader? Our guest for today, Melissa Joy MBA, a seasoned talent leader and certified master coach, has an inspiring story to share. Her early experiences in the foster care system ignited her passion for empowering others, and that same passion has fueled her rise in the field of human resources.
Melissa speaks about the importance of nurturing the next generation of leaders and inspiring women to reach their full potential. Her insights on reflection, realignment, and personal growth will give you a fresh perspective on transformational leadership.
In the second part of our enlightening conversation with Melissa, we delve deeper into community engagement, overcoming hurdles, and the art of collaboration.
She shares her vision for transformational growth and how she's fostering this through her work. You'll learn about her free workshops, speaking engagements, and how you can join hands with her to make a real difference. She also talks about the value of self-awareness, the power of looking back on one's failures, and how these experiences can pave the way to success.
Whether you're looking to collaborate with Melissa or simply seeking insights on personal growth and leadership, this episode is something you definitely should not miss.
We hope you found the episode to be enlightening and insightful. Our goal is to create content that not only entertains but also helps you grow spiritually and connect with your inner self.
If you enjoyed listening to this episode, we would greatly appreciate it if you could take a moment to like, subscribe, and write a review. Your feedback is incredibly valuable to us and helps us to improve the quality of our content and reach a wider audience.
We believe that by sharing knowledge and insights about spirituality, we can help to inspire positive change and personal growth. So, if you find our podcast to be meaningful and informative, we encourage you to share it with your friends and family.
Hello everyone, welcome to our Spiritual Spotlight series. Today I am joined by Melissa Joy MBA, affectionately known as Mel. She's a seasoned talent leader and certified master coach for over 25 years of immersion in the dynamic realm of human resources. Mel, thank you so so much for coming on Spiritual Spotlight series. I'm so happy you're here.
Speaker 2:
Thank you. It's so great to be here. Thank you for having me, so I'm just going to jump right in.
Speaker 1:
So your journey has been marked by a deep passion for people and dedication of transformation. Can you maybe share a pivotal moment or experience that ignited your commitment to empowering others?
Speaker 2:
Yes, and that's almost a tear jerker I aged out of the foster care system, believe it or not. So I went into the system at the age of seven my sister and I and aged out at 18, and I always seemed to be the oldest foster child there and there were so many broken children that I automatically started being that world mom, auntie at a very young age and I just felt like no person should be left behind. Then I went into human resources, of course, love learning and development and I've always worked in male dominant industries. So being able to coach women and help them gain their confidence and have a value added voice at the table, that is my passion.
Speaker 1:
That is amazing. So you just kind of brought up for my next question. So your roots and empathy and connection were nurtured through your experience in the foster care system. How did this early embodiment of compassion shape your approach to leadership and transformation in your career?
Speaker 2:
It made me very easily put myself and someone else's shoes in a very non judgmental way, because I, of all people, understand that there is a back story to everything and, trust me, someone made that decision. They made that choice based off of the information that they had at that time. So I really think that, you know, my upbringing really helped me fine tune that superpower, because I truly can come from a place of empathy and my middle name is Joy and I like to bring joy to people, I like to help them get unstuck and it just happened so naturally for me and I thank my you know past selves and circumstances for the ability to be able to do that, because it brings me and others so much joy and value.
Speaker 1:
That is amazing. So in your work you emphasize preparing the next generation of leaders and empowering women to reach their highest potential. Can you maybe elaborate on how your programs and coaching initiatives foster impactful leadership and personal growth?
Speaker 2:
So I use a combination of psychological assessments as well as really helping a leader understand and tap into their vision. We're so used to having a company vision and we have a tendency, especially as we get in corporate America, to dampen our dreams and just shut them out, just close our eyes we don't really think about. People want to follow a leader, not a manager. So you need to have a vision and you need to be fully connected to it. You need to be very self-aware and you have to practice mindfulness. And when I say practice mindfulness, it's you got to live in the moment and the now. We, as women, like to live in the past and in the future and we don't maximize the now development that our future self needs.
Speaker 2:
And I'm going to be honest with you. My vision is to be able to shatter the ceiling. I want one million women to shatter that glass ceiling so that they can bring others along with them. And my vision gets me so excited that I know it's the right one for me. And I just want other executives and business owners women business owners because so often we're told you can't do this, you can't do that, or why are you in this industry? I was in construction for five years for crying out loud. You know we bring value in so many different ways and we bring creative, empathetic, innovative ideas to the table, and I would like to see, in my mind, no woman should be left behind, none. So all of my programs are built to give them confidence, give them knowledge, to truly allow them to assess and I like to call it R&R reflect, realign. That's not an easy thing to do. However, I can make that pretty darn fun to go through.
Speaker 1:
I have to say that. So I work in a corporate industry. I manage a doctor's office, so it's a huge practice with over 12,000 patients, nine providers, lots of employees. I really like that reflect and realign because I do feel like we have a vision and sometimes an attitude or corporate comes in with a new initiative and I really like how you kind of pivot people to reflect let's readjust and realign.
Speaker 2:
I mean, think about it. We have four generations in the workforce right now. We've never had that before Now. I'm a Gen Xer and I'm raising millennials and Gen Zs, right, and we always say, oh, but they think they know everything. Well, why don't you take the time to show them and give them the ability to make mistakes in a safe place? They haven't gained the wisdom that we have yet. It scares me to think of. These young people are our next presidents, vice presidents? They're our next church leaders.
Speaker 2:
You know government leaders Good leaders yeah, they're the world, and nobody really spends time to say let me help you get, let me get you ready, let me help you get ready. I would like for that next, get ready to include as many females as possible.
Speaker 1:
Yeah, that's super, super important, because I will say that sometimes you do feel like your voice is muted. Being a female, yeah, because you have the. If you speak up, you're labeled this. If you hold firm to your boundaries, you're labeled that Exactly. And you're breaking, you're shattering that.
Speaker 2:
We gotta shatter that. It's so important. Just as you said, to be able you have to understand and know yourself to be able to articulate what it is that you want from others and how you can bring value to them. You have to be able to articulate that and that's not always easy, you know.
Speaker 1:
It's not, and I love that you have this amazing HR background, because I will say that I feel like HR is a very difficult industry and it's hard to have conversations with people that either make you uncomfortable or make the other person uncomfortable Like and I give you so much credit for being in that field.
Speaker 2:
Like I've had to have some conversations that would make anyone else's cringe. They're toes and they just cringe in a ball, I mean. However, I can have those conversations empathetically, I can bring it to the person's attention without diminishing how they got there or making them feel a certain way for getting there, and it's an art.
Speaker 1:
It is an art 100%. So let me ask you this so you mentioned the philosophy of servant leadership. What are the core principles of this philosophy and how do they contribute to creating a more engaged and compassionate workplace culture?
Speaker 2:
So servant leadership. I love the book. If you haven't read it, you have to read Servant Leadership in Action by Ken Blanchard. There's 10 tenets of servant leadership the ones that are most important to me that I, of course, will coach on all 10 of them. It's about getting things done through others and serving others to get the job done. I mean, how fantastic is that? Yes, we are leaders, but what are we doing? How are we communicating with them? How are we getting them to share their ideas? What is it that we're doing? It's more of a sense of community, a sense of belonging.
Speaker 2:
In my humble opinion, if more organizations and businesses created a servant leadership culture when you are there to serve the individuals that are bringing you in the money and the value it you wouldn't have the need for so many DEI programs, because you're teaching leaders how to serve their people, how to make sure that they're demonstrating the value which is gonna give them growth. That's what people want. They want value and growth. There isn't a person out there that'll tell you oh, you gave me value and growth in your culture. No, I don't wanna be there.
Speaker 1:
I'm having a moment that is so true. Right, I am honestly. I have to tell you what you're saying right now. I'm implementing this as of tomorrow at work. Like I'm getting the books, I'm gonna give them for the managers. I have all these ideas in my mind.
Speaker 2:
So now great way to do it is what I did with my team was I did it as a study group for the team. So you read the book a chapter at a time, together and in two week periods, and every two weeks you bag up your lunch for 30 minutes. You talk about what you read and how you can apply it back on the job. Thank you, Goes over very well. Thank you, that's amazing. You're welcome.
Speaker 1:
Honestly, I'm really going to implement this. I'm coming back to you, we're going to have another interview in 2020, whatever year and we're going to talk about this.
Speaker 2:
You'll have demonstrated your servant leadership muscles. I even created an assessment to gauge everybody on the leaders to see how they were flexing their servant leadership muscles. There's a lot of fun that you can have with that book and it'll yield great results because it changes the mindset of the leader teams. You're not trying to get followers, you're trying to influence a change. You're trying to be a beacon for people.
Speaker 1:
Absolutely so. Let me ask you this so your consultancy, your practice offers coaching, engagement, leadership workshops and collaborative partnerships. Can you maybe provide some insights on how individuals and organizations can benefit from these offerings and actually, how can they book them if they're interested?
Speaker 2:
Yes. So I love working with everyone on their development needs and I'm more of a boutique style and it's custom because of my HR and learning and development background. It's not off the shelf so I can work with leaders to create custom programs for them. Now this is the key I help them build it, even if I have something already built on communication or let's use servant leadership. You say I want to roll out servant leadership. I will guide them through and create the program. They will teach and participate where they feel comfortable. We do it collaboratively, as a team, because it's not about me getting in front of your people. It's about you developing the relationship and changing your behaviors to a coaching mindset so that you are offering these things. So I really work with them to make them comfortable with it, to give these teachable moments and not think that they have to be this outstanding presenter to be a teaching leadership coach. So I put together workshops, team building If you have a team meeting or a corporate event and you want to add some team building events to it, I do that as well. Just go to my website, coachingbymelcom, book a clarity call and during the clarity call you will find out what it is that you need.
Speaker 2:
I've also helped build succession planning programs, high performing programs for different companies. I just worked with a retail store in the Bahamas and helped them design their entire org structure and build their new management learning program custom for their stores. I also, of course, have a executive woman program. It is a 12 week program for executives and business owners. You get an assessment. You have weekly coaching sessions for one hour. You also get I assess your team and give you coaching reports exactly how you need to coach them. Take the guesswork out of it and I designed two training programs with you and that is a 12 week program.
Speaker 1:
Mell, you do not play around.
Speaker 2:
No, I don't. I'm on this mission and I have this vision, and it is time for us to rise up. And I am ready to help women rise up. I want to see us all over the world in leadership roles.
Speaker 1:
That is so amazing. So you describe your program as a guiding light. Again, we just talked about this. As for a next generation of women leaders, can you maybe share some examples of how your programs have empowered women to thrive in leadership roles?
Speaker 2:
Yeah, so I'm very hands-on. So I've worked with a couple of business owners and franchise owners that were new to business. I helped them structure their one-on-one, set their goals for their and cascade them down, identify their top talent within their businesses, help them refine their recruitment process and stop just hiring people for just their need right now and think about the agility and what they could get people in their business. You know a little bit longer term, so I just get really excited about making sure that I'm bringing value to individuals and making sure that they have everything that they needed their fingertips, be it a new process, a program thinking outside of the box With one leadership team. I actually do five-minute meditation sessions every day before they begin work. We just started piloting this program. For 30 days we're meditating. They're only a week in and already they see a difference in their performance.
Speaker 2:
I've had executives that gone through my program that they were on the cusp from being promoted into a VP position and they were at the director level and they were getting frustrated. In the last three months I've had five of my co-chees tell me that they were promoted into VP positions. This is what gives me joy. Another business woman was really struggling with getting her product out there. I went on the road with her and she wouldn't. I was kept trying to get her to get out there and do what we call first Friday, where there's lots of people. She didn't do it, so I went to her house. I helped her get ready and prepared. We went out there and she did her first vendor event and I was right there by her side the pure look of joy on her face for having done it. I can't even that's amazing.
Speaker 1:
I love this. Let me ask you this collaboration and community engagement are vital aspects of your mission. How can individuals and organizations get involved in your community and contribute to your vision of transformation growth?
Speaker 2:
I am constantly offering free workshops and free ways to collaborate just to enhance what companies are doing. I think that it's really important that we're supporting each other, especially women-owned businesses. I like to collab with different businesses. I retail shopped and did a secret shop for one person. It was just so much fun on the value that when you're thinking outside the box together, helping them think about their businesses in a different way, whatever it is. Speaking engagements I just did a speaking engagement and the Bahamas to small business how are of an elevator speech and how that really is your value proposition. I actually gave them the tools and the steps to create it and then had a little fill in the blank goals at the end, even for speaking engagements. If you're having any type of conference or any type of meetings where you're bringing your people together and you want to add some value into those meetings, please, I collab with businesses all the time.
Speaker 1:
I love that. Before I ask you the last question, if anyone is interested in working with you, where is the best place for them to go to?
Speaker 2:
Go to coachingbymailcom. You'll be able to IM me. You'll be able to send me an email. You can also send me an email at MelissaJoyLLCcom.
Speaker 1:
Amazing. You've had a remarkable journey, overcoming challenges and embracing change. Maybe what are some of the lessons you've learned along the way that you believe can inspire others on their own paths to personal and professional growth?
Speaker 2:
It is absolutely imperative to have a vision or a dream. I mean, you really need to have something to plan for. Through all of my struggles and helping others through struggles, it's that vision and that dream that is that motivator. Also, being self-aware and being able to do those check-ins for that R&R, that reflection and realignment. I cannot tell you how powerful it is to look at your failures if you must say, as those were lessons that you need to learn so that your future self can knock it out of the park. That's what I would say. You must have that vision, you must be self-aware and can check in with yourself so that you can move forward.
Speaker 1:
I love that. Well, Mel, you've been a joy to talk to today and I definitely look forward to talking to you in the future.
