We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Alison Browne-ellis a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Alison , thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today One of the toughest things about progressing in your career is that there are almost always unexpected problems that come up – problems that you often can’t read about in advance, can’t prepare for, etc. Have you had such and experience and if so, can you tell us the story of one of those unexpected problems you’ve encountered?
As a woman leader, my personal experiences have taught me that garnering the respect of both leaders and peers is paramount to your success. The level of competence in my subject area is not the only leadership attribute that I need to consistently display as a woman leader. My level of success is collectively defined by my confidence, assertiveness yet display of humility while commanding the spaces I occupy, while leveraging my voice to influence people and desirable outcomes.
Interestingly, one of the greatest challenges experienced in my career has been the lack of support and reactions by other women. In hindsight, this maybe why my career mentors and sponsors have all been men to date. As an advocate with a passion for seeing other women win at life, the lack of support received from other women has been quite daunting. In light of these experiences, my greatest challenge has been remaining true to who I am in the face of adversity and not allowing myself to become distracted by any attempts to undermine my role, decisions, influence or authority. And ultimately, my character or even cause me to waver in the level of authenticity I bring to my leadership.
Based on past experiences, I have made it my personal mission to demystify and redefine the view that women cannot collaborate to the betterment of the businesses we serve or personal ventures. Showing up as a strong women in business who focuses on my own personal development, while being intentional in bringing other women along has been my only response in the face of these unwarranted and unfounded circumstances.
Alison , love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
As a career professional with over 25 years in the financial services and 20 years in leadership, I have acquired a wealth of experience and life lessons which have shaped my style of leadership. I view myself as a transformational leader and change agent who is passionate about people development and coaching. Commencing my career in banking, my curiosity has been one of the secret ingredients that propelled the advancement of my career. I love knowledge and I love learning new things; fast forward to my present capacity as Chief Executive Officer for a well recognized financial services company in Barbados, I am now equally passionate in sharing my knowledge.
Given the challenges faced on my climb to leadership, I have developed a passion for redefining how we as women show up in leadership, our leadership styles, the kind of workplace cultures we create or contribute to and how confident we are in owning the light that we carry to positively shape the spaces we occupy and the collective results we achieve.
In my corporate role, I lead with purpose and passion to develop my people and produce profits. Meanwhile, I get to leverage my position as a key woman of influence by using the gifts God has imparted in me to shape, mold and redefine the narrative of how we as women show up individually in our own right and collectively to shape our company, boards, communities and our wider society as a whole.
As Founder of Boss Ladies United, a professional development and networking association, our vision is to bring out personal transformation in our women in business by redefining how we connect, collaborate, encourage, inspire and support each other. One of our mantras is that there is enough space for all of us to coexist so the work we do in this organization seeks to create safe spaces for women to develop themselves, while learning from and sharing with each other. A greater level of self awareness is paramount to our success as women and I get to share my personal experiences through storytelling to help women unveil and become consciously aware of natural biases we may have or blindspots that maybe hampering their career progress.
It is important to me that I remain true to myself and to others on this journey. My climb to leadership has not been easy and I think my authenticity is what keeps me real and relatable. Women need to understand that we can’t just talk about breaking glass ceilings, we must be intentional to display our ambition, but do so gracefully while keeping the door open for others and shifting around to create space at the table for other women that have earned a right to be there.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
Given the challenges faced in my career, I have been intentional at producing excellence in all that I do. There are many responses that one can adopt in the face of adversity or setbacks and even imposter syndrome, I chose to be so good at what I do that my work would speak for itself. Every role I assumed, I was intentional to strive to become a subject matter expert. Over time and by showing up and producing consistently favorable results, my ability and capacity to lead preceded me.
Coming from very humble beginnings has also influenced the way I view life and my constant posture of gratitude. I know what it is to have a little and what it is to have “a lot”, obviously a lot being relative. I do however think this has shaped my humility and approach, while strengthening my ability to connect with others. I show up authentically and my love for people and sharing with people is ever present in all that I do.
My professionalism and ability to work or even influence others has also been another core asset. One of the core beliefs and messages shared with my audience is that what I have achieved is “proven not promised”. People must be willing to put in the work and I highlight this publicly and confidently in an attempt to inspire the younger professionals coming behind me.
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
We cannot grow in the dark and it takes light not darkness to take away the darkness. Yet, we all know that stepping into the light attracts both the good and the bad. How we overcome the obstacles that life throws at us, especially the ones that we never see coming has a lot to do with our beliefs system, our attitude and our resilience. For me having a positive attitude is everything! I have stayed positive in the face of personal illness, grief, professional setbacks and even personal attacks on my character.
In 2022 I was reading the book “Life is Messy” and I found the author’s story so intriguing but I could never have anticipated that I would be living out the context of the book in my own personal story. Many persons have heard the saying “being at the top is lonely” but until you are there, you will never quite understand what it truly means.
In August of that same year, I encountered my first real taste of the ugly hand of jealousy at the hands of a woman perpetrating to be a friend to my family. She made it her personal mission to come after me and sought to destroy my relationship with my family and my credibility. It was such a personal attack that she even extended her reach to try to taint my professional environment. In the face of personal trauma which disrupted my life as I knew it considerably, I was also leading significant change in my professional capacity, coupled with a health scare. At my weakest personally, I was required to be my strongest professionally. Leading a team that depends on you for direction, good counsel and encouragement daily, means that I am always expected to show up strong for others. My personal life was falling apart and my only response was to be stronger than I’d ever been in my life. Thankfully, as a firm believer in God, I knew who to turn to for the grace to carry me. I was in a season professionally that called for a greater degree of self-love, vulnerability and patience. I felt like I was failing at the thing that mattered the most to me, family. The resilience to get up, get dressed and show up daily came from my core belief system and strong faith that God didn’t bring me this far to leave me. Furthermore, my public presence as a result of the work I do to empower and inspire others reminded me daily of how many people were depending on me. Keeping it together was a mammoth task daily; the board meetings didn’t stop, the targets didn’t go away, the demands on my leadership were my ever present reality.
I went into to survival mode because the alternative was quite scary. Keeping my eyes fixated on my responsibilities and obligations as a mother and leader in the lowest season of my life caused me to dig really deep but it ultimately caused me to find an even better version of me. My faith was renewed, my patience with self and others was transformed and I ultimately passed the truest form of character building; we show the world who we are in how we show up in the face of trials and adversity.
So today when I encourage others to “never allow our trials and challenges to define us, but more so let them refine us,” I speak from a place of what was once deep pain while being comforted by the fact that God still causes us to be fruitful in the land of affliction.
The truth is our most powerful stories of triumph come after showing remarkable resilience.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.lifelessonsbyabe.com
- Instagram: Alibrowne.jpg
- Linkedin: Alisonbrowneellis
Image Credits
Photo credits: Kurt Linton, Whapaxx Photographer