Consultants > Alexis Gladstone
Alexis Gladstone
Speaker, Consultant and Trainer - Developing Current and Next Generation of Leaders
Through consulting, training, coaching and speaking, I work with clients in the areas of leadership, sales, and organizational change to maximize individual and company results.
Our customized solutions help:
• people perform better so the organization can meet current and future business goals
• organizations develop talent for today and for the future
• organizations move through strategic changes effectively
While the leadership problems most businesses face are the same, I believe the solutions are unique to its culture. I use my ability to quickly learn about the business and pull on my experiences to recommend appropriate, custom solutions.
My 25 years of experience spans a wide range of industries and organizations from single location, privately held companies to large multi-internationals. In other words, we are industry neutral. My team and I have the ability to go into a company, quickly learn about the business and its operating model, and draw on our unique experiences from manufacturing to consumer products organizations to recommend appropriate solutions.
I have a passion for helping women succeed. I started my career in STEM and I was often one of the only women in the room. Navigating this motivated me to work with women individually through coaching and mentoring, and to work with organizations and leaders who champion women. To support more women in leadership, I became certified with the Walking on the Glass Floor program.
My services include:
🔶 Leadership Development - Help organizations ensure that there is an integrated plan in place that recognizes and fosters the growth of individuals' skills, strengths, and talent at all levels in order to meet the business needs.
🔶 Change Leadership & Organizational Development - Whether it’s a management transition, company reorganization, or a new business focus, we provide guidance and expertise to help engage the organization and address critical needs throughout the endeavor.
🔶 Executive Coaching - Support that helps you or your leadership team improve performance, increase impact and influence, successfully transition to a new company or role, or address derailing behaviors that stand in the way of advancement.
🔶 Training Development & Delivery - We help develop and deliver customize training programs so learners get the most out of the classroom experience.
🔶 Meeting Design & Facilitation - When the outcomes of a meeting are critical, a well-designed, interactive and properly facilitated meeting by us can make a difference to successfully achieve the objectives of the meeting.
🔶 Competency Development - We help create competency models that align the business strategy with the skills and behaviors needed to be successful in an organization, which are then used for recruiting and selection, development, and succession planning.
How can I help you? Let's chat. Fill out the form below to get started.
Areas of Expertise
- Health Care Equipment & Supplies
- Insurance
- Oil, Gas & Consumable Fuels
- Paper & Forest Products
- Personal Products
- Pharmaceuticals
- Professional Services
Testimonials
"Working alongside Alexis is a remarkable experience. I have watched her coordinate events, facilitate strategy sessions with leadership teams, and build future leaders in training programs. Alexis is a tremendous resource for any company seeking to grow their sales force the right way and build a dynamic culture." - Thomas Johnson-Bean, President, The L.I.F.E. Group
"Alexis is a driven professional that can actively engage and partner with business leaders. Key to her success is the ability to take business goals and use these goals as a driver to the organizational development strategy. Alexis was key in driving a Leadership Development strategy across Smurfit-Stone with an employee base in excess of 38,000." - Wil Lewis, Diversity & Inclusion Executive, Smurfit-Stone
"Alexis displays remarkable talent with a diverse set of skills and knowledge that were crucial to the success of a major strategic program in my organization. Her strategic thinking guided us to creative and timely solutions on both our project and team issues. Her attention to detail and how everything fits with the big picture paid high dividends when working in integrating multiple initiatives enterprise-wide. Her unique energy, optimism, passion and creativity helped promote collaboration and organization efficiency. Her professionalism, dedication and integrity are unmatched and promoted a lot of trust throughout the organization, and high impact results." - Francine Dana, Manager of Corporate Technology & Strategy
My Content
Business and Sales – It’s All About Relationships
If you don’t know it by now, business is all about relationships. This is true not matter what your industry or occupation, and is especially true if you are in sales. According to the Center for Creative Leadership, people who have the ability to build and...
Business and Sales – It’s All About Relationships
If you don’t know it by now, business is all about relationships. This is true not matter what your industry or occupation, and is especially true if you are in sales. According to the Center for Creative Leadership, people who have the ability to build and maintain strong, lasting relationships are more effective and achieve greater success than those who ignore or struggle with this competency. This means that you should spend as much time building and fostering your relationships as you do on the other components of your job or business. Whether you sell projects and your expertise internally, sell for a company, or sell for your own business, make building relationships a part of your regular activities and skill set.
Relationships begin with trust. Trust is the one ingredient that builds strong, long lasting relationships. If you put in the time and work, you will be rewarded. Always remember that people want to work with and do business with those they know, like, and trust.
Whether you’re doing it in person or through your social media and online communications, focus on getting to know people and letting them get to know you to develop trust faster. You want to build relationships before you need them. I’ve had people I met 3-4 years ago come back to me with great introductions to others, or requests for my services.
There are so many things you can do to start building relationships. It’s about being proactive. Here are a few that I share with my clients who are in sales, and they will work for anyone in just about any profession.
First get to know people both professionally and personally. This means asking questions. Open-ended questions are the best. These are the ones that begin with who, what, where, when, how and why. These questions allow people to open up and share information with you, and really have a dialogue.
Be authentically you. This is not just about being your true self; it’s also about accepting others as they are. In these days of social media and virtual meetings, it’s easy for people to create a false persona. The problem is, at some point that facade will fade, which means that any social capital you’ve built with people will also disappear.
Finally be willing to give before you receive. It’s true that if you enter into a relationship without expecting anything in return, it will multiply. Find out what people need outside of your own products or services. This will allow you to be a resource for them by sharing resources, your network, and ideas. People will remember you helping them.
As Lee Iacocca said, “Business after all, is nothing more than a bunch of human relationships.”
What is Your Leadership Legacy?
Do you ever think about the legacy you are leaving as a leader? All leaders leave a legacy whether intentional or not. If you want to have a lasting impact and shape how you are remembered, there are a number of things you can do to create the legacy you...
What is Your Leadership Legacy?
Do you ever think about the legacy you are leaving as a leader? All leaders leave a legacy whether intentional or not. If you want to have a lasting impact and shape how you are remembered, there are a number of things you can do to create the legacy you want.
While results are important, people are even more so. One of my favorite quotes is from Maya Angelou, “I've learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” If you make people on your team feel valued and empowered, you are sure to leave a lasting impression and legacy. How? Read on.
Be a model for others. There are so many ways to be a role model. First, treat people how you want to be treated, and how you want them to treat others. Also, do what you say you will, and follow through on your commitments. While this isn’t always easy, it’s important. There of course times when you can’t see something through the way you promised. In that case be open and transparent as to what and why.
Create other leaders. John Maxwell says that the greatest legacy you can leave is creating other leaders. I agree and have seen a lot of examples of this with my clients. I do a lot of work in the financial services industry. Many agency leaders get all types of awards for things like sales, recruiting, and production improvement. But, the pinnacle of all awards is the one bestowed for developing other leaders. When the leader of an agency promotes someone out of their office to run a new one, it is most coveted award they can receive.
Creating other leaders takes investment in both time and budget. First let’s talk time. Take the time to have conversations with people about their goals and aspirations. Spend time coaching them, reinforcing their strengths, providing constructive feedback, and working through the obstacles and derailers that can hold them back . Devote time to identify opportunities for them to learn new skills, work with others around the organization, and share their own knowledge. Of course I’d be remiss if I didn’t remind you to take time to celebrate their successes.
As for budget, sometimes you need to spend money to help them develop and grow. In some of the companies I worked for, we were all given our own “budget” to spend on development. While any class or conference we attended had to be approved, the signal was that the company was willing to invest in us and most people took advantage of it.
Even if you do all of this, you might not know what impact you have had until many years later. In my last company role before branching out on my own, I had a great team of individuals working for me and I’ve kept in touch with many of them over the years. In a recent text exchange with one of them who I was congratulating on his new C-Suite role, he said to me, “Thank you Alexis. Please know you helped lay the foundation!” That’s a legacy I can live with.
Communicating During Times of Change
I’ve been involved in a number of change initiatives over my career, leading some and helping leaders guide their teams through others. No matter what spurred the change, whether a technology implementation, branding change, or global health crisis, the...
Communicating During Times of Change
I’ve been involved in a number of change initiatives over my career, leading some and helping leaders guide their teams through others. No matter what spurred the change, whether a technology implementation, branding change, or global health crisis, the most important element is always communication.
Everyone handles change differently. People move through the process of letting go of the old, and accepting the new (or inevitable) at different rates of speed, and with different emotions. Good communication, and leaders who take this responsibility to heart, tend to build faster acceptance and engagement on the other side, and thus more productivity.
Here are some of the leading practices that I’ve used, and have been sharing with clients and other leaders in my network.
• Share early and often
No one had the luxury during this pandemic to prepare their team or organization for what was coming, through well a thought out change and communication plan. While it hit out of nowhere it doesn’t mean that leaders are off the hook with communication.
As employees went from the office to working from home, or staying at work as essential workers, those leaders who have kept up constant communication have been seeing more engagement and productivity.
You may sometimes feel like you’re a broken record, repeating the same messages over and over. What you might not realize is that because everyone is moving through the change process at different rates of speed, and are also hearing your messages differently. Someone might not have absorbed a message you shared two weeks ago because they weren’t ready to hear it. People need to hear some messages up to seven times for it to really take hold.
So right now communicate more than you think you should. And next time you have the luxury of planning for a change, remember that to start the messaging before you need involvement and engagement for the best results.
• Use a variety of communication channels
Email is good for when you want to ensure the message is clear and consistent. It guarantees that everyone who receives the email sees the same message, though they still might interpret it differently. However, inboxes are probably flooded with emails so if it's critical, find a different way, one that calls attention to the importance of the message.
While working from home limits the ability to have the in-person meetings in the same location, it doesn’t mean you can’t do similar things via the online meeting tool you are using.
Conduct large, virtual meetings or town halls with all employees. If you’re in a variety of time zones or countries, videotape the message so people can watch it at their convenience. Be sure to leave time for questions during the live events, and have a way for people to ask questions after viewing the taped ones.
Even if it’s not your personal favorite medium, use other communication channels that are common for your organization. Slack, IM, newsletters, or anything else that is sure to engage the most team members.
• Be open (and vulnerable)
Many of us have worked in organizations that have gone through some type of change, and had the responsibility to take a leadership role in the process. As mentioned before, the difference this time is that the change is happening to you along with our entire team at the same time.
You probably don’t have a playbook for talking with your team about everything that has taken place, or what will happen as businesses start to return to offices, branches, and plants. It’s okay to not have all of the answers, and it’s definitely okay to admit it.
Saying, “I don’t know,” might be one of the most important leadership phrases to use right now. This is not the time to make something up. Just don’t leave your team hanging. If it is something you can get an answer to, do it and report back. If it’s something that has not been decided on, let your team know that too.
Remember, communication is an ongoing journey, especially during these times. Keep it up and you will be helping your team in more ways than you will ever know.
Project History
Intelead
Thursday July 28, 2022
At Intelead, I have led a wide variety of projects to solve client's problems. Here is a list of the type of projects I've delivered successful results for and could do the same for your organization.
• Create Leadership Development strategies
• Develop competency and performance models
• Create internal Women’s Affinity programs
• Design mentoring programs
• Develop programs to help organizations attract, retain & develop women
• Facilitate off-the-shelf training programs and develop custom leadership/ management workshops, and sales-related curricula