We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Dr. Adriane Smalls-Owens. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Dr. Adriane below.
Dr. Adriane, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you tell us about a time where you or your team really helped a customer get an amazing result?
I had a client who served in a senior music ministry position and was experiencing micromanagement, bias, and dictatorship while serving. The client lacked support and follow-through from the senior pastor concerning implementing bi-laws and how the music department should operate. Over time, the inconsistency in enforcing the bi-laws became detrimental to the effectiveness of the music department’s choir rehearsals, choir member participation, and accountability, leading to the demise of the worship experience. Not only did this cause a decline in the impact of worship service, but it also caused choir members to sense a progressive division of leadership between the senior pastor and the ministry of music. Over time, the client began to feel the senior leader’s intent to demonstrate superiority, resistance to implementing change, and counterintuitive decision-making to the authentic leadership necessary for growing and developing the music department for an elevated worship experience. This caused the ministry to stagnate in growth, frustrating the client, causing the client to want to leave the organization, uncertain of whether the continuation of employment and the constant fight to implement change would be worth staying with the organization and becoming more bitter and possibly abandoning the spiritual assignment or taking the time to understand if this experience was an indicator that it was time to spiritually and mentally rejuvenate to clearly gain insight if the season of the position had ended and a higher calling/purpose was in store.
I used a strategic approach for crafting coaching questions that would invite a more trusting relationship around the sensitive topic. We established a level of trust based on faith and spiritual belief perspectives and commonalities. Coaching sessions were facilitated using the standards and coaching guidelines, which comprised of coaching questions that offered a framework of five key areas to create an effective coaching session: connection, motivation, presentation, information, and decision. These key areas were identifiably relevant to faith-based coaching, especially regarding the client’s specific request to have focused coaching on steps for holistically and spiritually developing a framework for learning and practicing emotional intelligence. Once the client gained an understanding of emotional intelligence (self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, and relationship management), it became easier for the client to identify the negative impacts the experience had caused, how to work through and manage the emotions of the experience, and how to become a more effective leader by practicing emotional intelligence. The second step was identifying key scriptures that would support the psychological transition of thought perspectives, which help make more meaningful decisions based on the client’s belief in spiritual assignment with the organization and whether the assignment had ended. The client determined that the organization’s purpose was to harness the skills needed to elevate in music ministry while balancing leadership challenges, maintaining and remaining committed to God’s purpose, and ensuring that Christian character and integrity are demonstrated even in the face of adversity. The client was reminded that no level of adversity can be overcome by the sole actions or decisions of man alone but with the supernatural powers of Christ as the foundation of our existence, leading and guiding our thoughts, minds, hearts, and ways for Kingdom Building.
Ultimately, the client refocused on the “”why”” behind the purpose, activating spiritual ears and discernment to understand that this was a season of promotion and realignment. The client reclaimed confidence in purpose, strategically outlined a plan for strengthening spiritual and ministry goals, and determined that it was time to be a part of an organization that matched his level of experience and supported innovative continuous implementation models for sustainable growth in ministry.
Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.
I started my professional journey in healthcare as a Licensed Practical Nurse and Certified Surgical Technologist working in multiple specialties in the for-profit, not for profit, and government sectors. Over the years, I have gained an overwhelming level of experience in creating programs for process improvement, college and career readiness, community engagement, and leadership and professional development using a strategic leadership and systems thinking approach for increasing human capital across multiple industries and generations.
I am a global professional with over 20 years of leadership experience harnessing skills in writing policies and procedures, creating an organizational structure and culture, organizing and managing team projects and leading employees and students to college and career advancement. I have built cohesive teams in community engagement as a faith-based youth director, youth and veteran advocate, in healthcare management, change management, recruitment, retention, patient care, nursing education and employee training.
Global studies, various cultural and educational experiences, professional degrees and certifications have fostered my passion to use holistic thought-provoking frameworks to create unconventional methods to increase human capital. I am most proud of my most recent accomplishment in obtaining a Doctorate of Strategic Leadership, which captures all of my leadership strengths under one umbrella as the CEO and Executive Coach/Consultant of The Pineapple Carriage, LLC.
The Pineapple Carriage delivers hospitality and excellence as the vehicle (royal carriage) of individual leadership, professional development, and intellectual growth from transactional to transformational thought processes. The ultimate goal is to ensure that my clients have an elevated experience during the transformational leadership journey of discovery, using faith-based principles and emotional intelligence as the primary vehicles to implement my 3 core principles:
Be Optimistic, Embrace Your Culture, Nurture Your Gift.
I am a Gullah-Geechee native from the Snowden Community in Mount Pleasant, SC, that values culture and the importance of culture to ensure that confidence in personal identity is at the core of each persons foundation to facilitate transformation.
I am most proud of my manuscript:
A Guide for Spiritual Leadership and Christian Discipleship
Be Optimistic, Embrace Your Culture, Nurture Your Gift: Integrating the Beatitudes, the Fruit of the Spirit, and Emotional Intelligence for Multigenerational Leadership
set to be released early fall of 2025
Can you tell us about what’s worked well for you in terms of growing your clientele?
The most effective strategy for growing my clientele is ensuring that I share compelling success stories about client experiences. Although this is not the only factor, it is important to provide quantitative and qualitative results for gaining more clients and traction with organizations and companies who seek to deploy leaders that will facilitate transformational leadership practices to promote sustainable outcomes. Consistency in observation, active listening, and analyzation of client needs for coaching execution and accuracy is crucial to the effectiveness in identifying the necessary approach for meeting the clients coaching needs. Being engaged and hearing the concerns that are not said, assist in the clients discovery of the hidden potential or challenges that stagnate their progress for enhancing human capital. In this field of work, it is the client’s “Ah-ha” moments that keeps them returning and referring others for executive coaching services. Clients have to do their part in reaching their goals toward their transformational journey. However, in my experience, clients are drawn to the curiosity of the unconventional holistic methods of my coaching style because they are not seeking a blanket answer for their concerns and how to navigate through their challenges. They are looking for the discovery of something hidden within that pushes them to search a seek greater purpose which inspires and motivates them to climb out of a place of stagnation.
What’s a lesson you had to unlearn and what’s the backstory?
One lesson that I have learned is that there is no period, experience, negative situation, or unfortunate circumstance that was not part of God’s plan for my intended purpose. Often we have a tendency to measure ourselves and timetable of success, promotion, and advancement against someone else’s trajectory or time of events. This personal behavior is a distraction which undermines the plans that God has predestined which we may consciously and unconsciously attempt to dictate. It is perfectly okay to write out visions, goals, affirmations, and plans for what we aspire to do. Problems arise when these personal goals are not aligned with God’s purpose, making it more challenging to reach our spiritual, personal, or professional destination. Our pursuit for happiness and success rests in a peaceful mind of spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical balance. My belief is that if we maintain a true, authentic relationship with Christ, we will spend less time to manipulate God into co-signing on our intended purpose, instead of seeking to discover and execute His intended purpose. While I understand we are not all of the same faith, we can operate with the same loving heart of character and integrity, doing more good than damage and seeking to understand our individual purpose that promotes Kingdom Building and togetherness.
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Image Credits
Ketut Bali Portrait
L. Howard Leather