Celebrating Women at Agile Leadership Journey

It’s Women’s History Month and I am honored to share the ways in which Agile Leadership Journey has truly demonstrated what it means to be intentional about supporting women. 

Our entire operations team is comprised of incredible women, who I am grateful to work with every day — Jana Zimmerman, co-owner of Agile Leadership Journey; Jolene Sullivan, Organizational Catalyst, and Tracey Wilson, Director of Operations. Not only do I get to collaborate with these wonderful ladies, I consider each of them a friend. 

In 2021, I left a company and a marketing management "job", completely burnt out to the point that I was bed ridden for six weeks. I decided it was time to really lean in to growing my business, thirty9 collective, and finally design the life I wanted to live. Tracey approached me about Agile Leadership Journey's need for a marketing consultant. We'd worked together previously and I was drawn to the opportunity to collaborate with her again, especially for an organization that, as Tracey described, walked their walk. It was important to her that I met the core team before any contracts were signed and that we had an opportunity to get to know each other as humans.

I could tell from the start that this company was a horse of a different color. Having worked primarily as a freelance consultant since 2017, there was always a clear delineation between me and staff. I always felt like an outsider and engaged with clients in a very detached manner, which felt foreign to me. I’d even gotten into it with a handful of business owners, who hired me for my expertise, and then refused to take any of my recommendations. As a natural collaborator and someone who deeply cares about the work I do, I have always wanted to feel like what I have to offer really matters, and to feel like part of the team. 

Jana started my interview with, “so tell us about yourself.” And what came out of my mouth was something that I never would have imagined I would have said in a job interview: “Well, I’m a heart-centered person on a mission to help make the world a better place with the work that I do.” <cue embarrassed face> The words tumbled free before I remembered the context I was in, but I went with it.

At that point in my career, it was really important to me to not only work for a company that cares about the things that matter deeply to me, but to know that I was working with people who were interested in knowing who I am at my core. Instead of obsessing over how ridiculous I must sound, I showed up authentically, ditching the attempt to be someone I’m not just to get a job. I knew that if it was meant to be, it would all be fine. To say that we are all a good fit is an understatement. 

The past two years have been fun, educational, and challenging. We have learned so much from running (sometimes failed) experiments and we are always looking for new ways to integrate what we’re learning into what we do every day. I get to work with such an awesome team, which is comprised primarily of women, and I can finish each day feeling not only proud of the work we are doing, but the fact that we all have a voice at the table. In fact, for the first time in my career, I feel safe in expressing a dissenting opinion or pressing hard for what I believe is best. 

As Tracey reviewed an early draft of this post, she commented that another key differentiator here is that Agile Leadership Journey founder, Pete Behrens, is intentional about engaging the women in this organization and holding space for their perspectives and voices. In doing so, refreshingly, he acknowledges his own position of power and privilege, and is deliberate about seeking balance. I couldn’t agree more — the responsibility for raising women up doesn’t belong to women alone.

Leveraging women-owned service providers

As a marketing professional with a strong background in email marketing, when it was time to decide on a new email platform for the company, I threw out a few of my usual suggestions. I had recently started playing around with a new platform, Flodesk*, which was still in beta. I liked its simplicity and the ability to create beautiful emails with little effort. To be honest, I wasn’t completely sure that it was the right fit, but I made the suggestion. As soon as the team learned that Flodesk is owned by women, it moved to the top of the list. 

We’ve really had fun stepping up our email game since onboarding it; and we’ve even inspired a few of our ALJ Guides to check it out too. 

In the past few years, we also decided to update our iconography, so we engaged Lisa Burford, a graphic artist and illustrator, to help us with the task. Lisa has been an absolute joy to work with and has done everything from updating our certification badges and logo to reimagining some of our more obscure visual concepts. 

Here is how she transformed our signature leadership compass: