An Interview With Vanessa Ogle
We need to challenge those in power now who are not encouraging women to lead, who are not facilitating leadership growth in women. We need to challenge what currently exists to lay the foundation for the next generation.
Despite strides towards equality, women remain underrepresented in leadership and management roles across various sectors. In this series, we would like to discuss the barriers to female advancement in these areas and explore actionable strategies for change. We are talking with accomplished women leaders, executives, and pioneers who have navigated these challenges successfully, to hear their experiences, tactics, and advice to inspire and guide the next generation of women toward achieving their full potential in leadership and management roles. As part of this series, we had the pleasure of interviewing Emily Walton.
Emily is a former corporate leader turned leadership coach. As a new leader, she found herself failing, knew something had to change, and that something was her. Investing in her development with a leadership coach, she transformed her leadership skills. In under 5 years, she took on greater responsibility, developed and led multiple high-performing domestic and international teams, accepted several promotions, oversaw over $30 million dollars annually, and tripled her income.
Emily has navigated a wide range of business environments gaining a unique perspective and thorough understanding of the diverse challenges and opportunities businesses and their leaders face. She is now the founder and coach of Alo Coaching, a leadership coaching company on a mission to empower the next generation of leaders.
A graduate of The University of Alabama’s business school and certified leadership coach, she currently resides in Asheville, NC with her husband and fur babies.
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?
I didn’t have aspirations of being in leadership. I’d been working as a digital marketer and I really enjoyed the strategy side of things and solving complex problems, but I had, at the time, 2 invested bosses who saw leadership potential in me. When the team had an opening, they put me into a leadership role. I was 23 and I did not know what I was doing. I was struggling and that was impacting me as well as my team and the work we were responsible for. I started working with a coach and I recognized this massive shift where I was able to make much greater strides and be more impactful and help others. I’m a lifelong learner and love developing my skills but I love developing the skills of the managers that worked with me even more and so I knew that I wanted to become a certified leadership coach to empower and help other leaders as my coach had helped me.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you began your career?
I don’t have a particularly interesting singular story that comes to mind but when I think back over my career what stands out to me is the transformation and the changes. As a young woman I was very focused on helping others and making other people happy and trying to be perfect and as a progressed through my career I found so much more fulfillment in knowing what I know and following that, and that transformation has been so empowering.
Can you share a pivotal moment in your career that significantly influenced your path to leadership?
I was put in a leadership position because of what my managers saw in me, but I think one of the biggest pivotal moments in my career was when I’d already been a leader. I had this mentality that because other people were in leadership positions they had it all figured out and I should trust them blindly. The pivotal moment for me was realizing that was simply not true, leaders are just people too and they are flawed and that my job as a leader was to speak truth to power, to challenge the status quo, to drive forward progress, and to make things better than I left them and that was very eye-opening for me.
None of us are able to achieve success without some help along the way. Is there a particular person who you are grateful towards who helped get you to where you are? Can you share a story about that?
There are a couple of leaders who have been influential in my life. The first is Aaron he always saw potential in me and supported me. Second was Chip who saw early leadership potential in me and encouraged me to always learn and grow. He was always investing in developing my skills and knowledge. The third is Jevon. He and I share a passion for leadership, so it was fantastic to be able to learn with him grow with him and sometimes even rumble with him. But we always ended up enhancing our skill sets, learning more, and appreciating and respecting each other even further.
Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?
Oh, that’s an easy one “Dare to Lead: by Brené Brown. If you only ever read one book on leadership, read this book. It is based on research so it’s not just how certain people feel leadership ought to be done. It is so well written and easy to read, and it is actionable and applicable, not just cerebral. I love all of those elements because its objective, insightful, and helps you to grow.
Do you have a favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life or your work?
A life lesson quote at this part in my life is “Awareness has no age.” I find it really challenging when people are close minded because someone who is presenting an idea is too young or too old and out of touch. Good ideas are good ideas, and they can come from anybody so we shouldn’t hold ourselves back from sharing them and when they are shared, hearing them.
How have you used your success to make the world a better place?
My goal is to develop generations of good leaders who have a strong leadership foundation, who are equipped to usher in change and progress, and can value and model healthy leadership for those that they lead. That’s been something that I have tried to do as a leader and that’s something that I encourage through my coaching company.
Ok, thank you for that. Let’s now jump to the primary focus of our interview. According to this report, only about 31.7% of top executive positions across industries are held by women. This reflects great historical progress, but it also shows that more work still has to be done to empower women. In your opinion and experience what is currently holding back women from leadership and management?
In my experience there are a few things currently holding women back from leadership and management. One is industry. Depending on the industry there may not be many women in that space and when there’s not equal representation of one gender to another it can be hard for those individuals who are there to rise in those spaces. Another is women holding themselves back because they’ve been taught their whole lives through overt and subliminal messaging that good girls are quiet, good girls are accepting, good girls don’t make a ruckus. It’s time to redefine what a good girl is and in fact what a great lady is and what she’s capable of. The last piece is that there need to be opportunities made available to women. We need to question the biases, the processes, and the boys’ clubs that have existed for generations and explore how equitable they are to admitting women into them.
This might be intuitive to you but I think it will be helpful to spell this out. Can you share a few reasons why more women should become leaders and managers?
I don’t think that based on the merits of gender someone should become a leader. Leaders need to have what it takes to lead and the right motivation and that is not reserved for a specific gender. That being said more women in leadership roles does align with the research that shows that having more diversity in a group drives better outcomes and better performance. It would also allow for more consideration of different points of view which would allow for better decisions that drive better solutions.
Can you please share “5 Things We Need To Increase Women’s Engagement in Leadership and Management?”
- We need to be intentional and conscientious about the messages that we send to children about women’s capabilities, not just young girls, but to all children. There are ad campaigns going around now saying that by the age of seven girls think that they are less smart than boys, less capable. Seven years old is much too young to doubt your abilities.
- We need to teach soft skills as true skills to everyone in school. Believing that soft skills are only skills for women dates is an outdated Victorian Era belief. Soft skills are the new currency of leadership, and everybody needs them. This shifts the view from soft skills being in a woman’s nature to being true skills and therefore when someone leads with soft skills it’s not considered a weakness.
- We need to explore our biases towards women in leadership, strip them down, and form new ones.
- We need to invite women to the table and when they’re there, we need to afford them equal opportunity to share their views and not to have them struck down simply because they are different. We need to have women’s voices heard and considered for the merit of what they say.
- We need to challenge those in power now who are not encouraging women to lead, who are not facilitating leadership growth in women. We need to challenge what currently exists to lay the foundation for the next generation.
In your opinion, what systemic changes are needed to facilitate more equitable access for women to leadership roles?
For me that goes back to the beginning. We need to explore what beliefs are deeply held around women and their specific skills as it pertains to leadership, and we need to reevaluate how as a community and a culture we are signaling what women are and are not capable of.
What strategies have you found most effective in mentoring and supporting other women to pursue leadership positions?
When mentoring other women in leadership, the first step is building your skills. That goes for anyone, that’s not just for woman in leadership. Every leader needs to develop their skills. They need to be introspective, and they need to do the work to grow. Specifically, as women they need to work on boundaries and determine what they will and will not allow to upset them, what they will and will not accept, and how they will handle those situations when they come up. Finally, they need to believe in themselves, in their own agency to own their lives, their decisions, their paths, and to take the actions that are best for them.
How would you advise a woman leader about how to navigate the challenges of being a woman in a leadership role within a male-dominated industry?
I’ve been in that space myself, first in the trucking industry, then in tech. The first thing is to reject the idea that you are not a man’s equal. That’s not founded on any fact. The second is assert yourself professionally, clearly, kindly, and effectively but hold your boundaries and let them know what is and is not acceptable.
How do you balance the demand for authoritative leadership with the stereotypical expectations of female behavior in professional settings?
I don’t accept the stereotype in the first place. Why is it that anyone else should decide how I should conduct myself? Only I get to make that decision. I define the relationship with my direct reports and my peers, we set expectations around how we will work together, adhere to that, and drive forward progress. For me, it’s about mutual respect, not a one-sided perception.
You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good for the greatest number of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger.
I would teach soft skills to children through their school years. If everybody had more interpersonal skills, more empathy, and improved communication we’d know how to show up for each other and support each other and our world would be a very different place.
How can our readers further follow your work online?
They can learn more about me on alocoaching.com or connect with me on LinkedIn.
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We greatly appreciate the time you spent on this.
About The Interviewer: Vanessa Ogle is a mom, entrepreneur, inventor, writer, and singer/songwriter. Vanessa’s talent in building world-class leadership teams focused on diversity, a culture of service, and innovation through inclusion allowed her to be one of the most acclaimed Latina CEO’s in the last 30 years. She collaborated with the world’s leading technology and content companies such as Netflix, Amazon, HBO, and Broadcom to bring innovative solutions to travelers and hotels around the world. Vanessa is the lead inventor on 120+ U.S. Patents. Accolades include: FAST 100, Entrepreneur 360 Best Companies, Inc. 500 and then another six times on the Inc. 5000. Vanessa was personally honored with Inc. 100 Female Founder’s Award, Ernst and Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year Award, and Enterprising Women of the Year among others. Vanessa now spends her time sharing stories to inspire and give hope through articles, speaking engagements and music. In her spare time she writes and plays music in the Amazon best selling new band HigherHill, teaches surfing clinics, trains dogs, and cheers on her children.
Please connect with Vanessa here on linkedin and subscribe to her newsletter Unplugged as well as follow her on Substack, Instagram, Facebook, and X and of course on her website VanessaOgle.
Emily Walton of Alo Coaching On How We Can Increase Women’s Engagement in Leadership and Management was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.