We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Althea Bates a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Althea, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Let’s start with the story of your mission. What should we know?
Althea is a leader in mental health and social services, working primarily with women of color to enhance their resilience to overcome personal and professional obstacles. The qualities that make Althea a profound leader are shared. She has an innate service- based leadership style that highlights and guides her theoretical leadership model. She believes that she carries influence as a leader and role model and she believes strongly that her leadership approach affects her practice working with minority women and girls, the core mission of Project Resiliency Movement her nonprofit.
Burns (1978) explains that leadership occurs “when one or more persons engage with others in such a way that leaders and followers raise one another to higher levels of motivation and morality” (p. 83.) Dr Athea Bates, whom is highly admired as leader in her community. Althea has a Bachelor of Science in psychology, a Master’s in human services with a concentration in organizational management and leadership. She has worked in social services for over 18 years and functions as an entrepreneur, educator, and non-profit leader. Through her leadership and various platforms, Althea seeks to support and motivate young girls and women of color to find their resilience personally and professionally to overcome obstacles to success.
Dr Bates has not had an easy path to purpose In fact she did not obtain her aspirations of entrepreneurship until her 40’s as she was going through her own personal struggles physically, mentally, and emotionally including two broken limbs in one year as well as failed relationships and businesses. Althea states in her autobiography Brokenness, Baggage and Blessings, “failure was in her DNA”, feeling as though she was born into unfair circumstances that plagued her self-worth and efforts to succeed. Althea now considers herself a survivor and shares her journey of resilience and triumph. She is admired because she leads by example and is transparent about her personal struggles which includes being a victim of sexual abuse, bullying, teen pregnancy, divorce, academic deficits, and career difficulties.
Transformational leaders lead by example (Northouse, 2019). The premise of this leadership approach includes utilizing the relationship between the leader and followers to improve the performance of followers (2019). Leaders are described as visionary or charismatic, having the ability to intrinsically motivate others to follow them (2019). Despite Althea’s failures, she persevered to become the CEO and Founder of A.Bates Consulting, Founder of The Project Resilency Movement, a professor, motivational speaker, author, a doctorate at Capella University and Heart Bible Institute, as well as mother to her two children. Althea strives to help other women do exactly what she did, push to live to their fullest potential despite their circumstances.
Another key component to who Althea is, she was born in Jamaica and is a woman of color. These are shared demographics for the targeted population of women Althea serves. Her identity as a woman of color and immigrant provides an unspoken confirmation that she understands the struggle and has the qualification to give advice. Northouse (2019) identifies how the experiences of black women differ from those of white women and black men. As a woman of color, leadership offers an opportunity to personally address the oppression and inequality among this group. This quality allows followers to perceive Althea as more authentic and influences motivation. The authentic leadership approach entails the interpersonal processes between the leader and follower, their shared life experiences, and developmental process (2019). Althea’s story provides hope. It aligns with the common phrase “if she can do it, I can do it.”
Similar to the sister mentoring sisters project, the philosophy that a village of caring women of color can support one another to foster an environment to teach and learn techniques to address their realities (Cheryl, & Valarie, 2001). Due to variations of racial and gender oppression, women of color have adopted a “self-defeating perspective on life” (Howard-Hamilton, 2003, p. 20). Althea believes that girls and women of color are all interconnected with one another, through these shared life experiences. Her theory is that individuals have internal strengths for healing, growth and resilience which is discovered when women assist each other. Althea provides a safe space and encourages the women she serves, to participate in self-discovery and to invite other women to join. Althea has utilized platforms including hosting community conferences to provide workshops, interactive activities, and testimonials from women of various backgrounds to support one another. Althea and other women inspired by her leadership share their journey of overcoming obstacles in education, employment, unhealthy relationships, trauma, and other physical, mental, and emotional health.
When discussing how Althea determines the effectiveness of her approach to serve the women in her community, she reports the use of research methods, evaluations, surveys and testimonials. Althea reports that two researchers use her work as case studies to research the effects on black women gathering in healing spaces and environmental research. She shared that evaluations from her Project Resilency Movement indicate a positive response of increased self-awareness, established relationships, and supports. Another visible indication that Althea’s leadership has a positive effect on her clients, is the development of her organization’s team. Althea explains that her advisory board and ambassadors are composed of women who were participants of services provided through conferences, forums, resiliency circles and retreats. Following each event women are invited to stay involved or support the movement and organization and women continue to join her team and evolve into leaders. Althea has many qualities of a servant leader. Servant leaders are natural leaders and have great concern for unprivileged populations (Northouse, 2019). Some of the characteristics that Althea shares with the description of a servant leader include, listening, empathy, healing, commitment to the growth of people and community building (2019). Furthermore, the antecedent conditions of Althea’s leadership include shared demographics, experiences, personal and professional goals, and social supports. These factors allow Althea’s clients to feel a part of a team. They are empowered to help one another and see leadership as less of a hierarchy and more reciprocal. In this approach, everyone is learning and evolving including the leader. An essential trait of servant leaders is their effort to prioritize the needs of their followers to support growth and success. Althea’s service to others and openness to share her journey is inspirational to other women who share her identity, culture, struggle, and aspirations and part of the unique experience offered to those that engage with her nonprofit Project Resiliency Movement. .
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
Who Is Dr Bates?
Dr Bates Is A Executive Life Strategist Coach, Health and Wellness Coach, Resiliency Coach, Author, Motivational Speaker, Image Consultant And A Nonprofit Thought Leader in The Areas Of Women Empowerment, Women’s Advocacy, Youth Development and Workforce Development. She Does It All, Not Only Does She Care About The Rights Of Women She Cares About Their Mental Health, Holistic Healing and Wellness As Well As Them Focusing On Their Own Resilience and Self-Care.
MIND Coaching Services
Motivational Speaking
SOUL Health & Wellness Coach/Advocate
BODY Health & Wellness Coach
Immunity Building Strategies
Image Consultant
WHO IS Dr. BATES? SHE DOES IT ALL
MIND
A healthy mind lays the foundation for creating the life that you want. What we tell ourselves in our heads is often shown through our bodies. Our thoughts are driving the vehicle (our body). When we learn how to change our thought process, our bodies soon follow and build resilience.
BODY
Our temple is what keeps us living and breathing here on earth. It gives us signals to guide us so that we can continue thriving. When we learn to listen to what it has to say, we open a pathway for positive change to occur in what we put in our bodies to not only nourish but build our immunity.
SOUL
The deepest part of ourselves comes from our souls. When we choose to openly accept and love ourselves, our hearts are naturally guided to what we desire most in life. Growing this connection leads us to new opportunities and helps us to prioritize what’s most important you and your heath, mental health and holistic wellness.
How’d you build such a strong reputation within your market?
Dr Bates has an authentic passion and drive as a visionary leader that is simply magnetic. She lights up rooms and inspires you to go after your own passions, dreams and goals. She built her empire through transperancy, speaking her authentic truth in her authentic voice and encouraging everyone to take the ride to self- discovery alongside of her to unpack, heal and face those broken, baggage’d and toxic parts of ourselves. She then expanded and evolved her brand to support clients from her nonprofit work that needed life coaching and consulting. Marketing came from the truth serum she gives as doses to the women attending her motivational talks, conferences, forums and webinars.
Can you tell us about a time you’ve had to pivot?
During this pandemic the landscape of her A Bates Consulting Business, a full-service consultancy offering resiliency and wellness coaching, youth development, case management and workforce development services in the Greater Hartford Area as well as nationally was challenged as people shifted their focus from self- development to survival of Covid and Quarantine this also shifted her business model and structure. Althea made the difficult decision to scale down her consulting business and focus on the areas her clients most needed in resiliency and wellness coaching she started doing a weekly podcast series and going live on her social media pages to engage and dialogue with her key audience and demographic around being resilient and taking care of their physical, mental and emotional health during the pandemic. She began sharing natural herbs, spices and remedies she was using to build her own immunity. She started making sea moss for her customers by request to help them build their immunities in the pandemic as well. Dr Bates then discovered that many of her clients were coming to her because they wanted to use the pandemic to leave their 9-5 jobs and start a business. They began to inquire about who is her image consultant for her Photoshoots, branding and marketing materials and she stated she did it herself. . This organically led to a new business venture under her I Am Dr Bates Brand called “Get Fitted By Dr Bates” she started getting referrals for creating images and looks for her clients as well as on set/production and props work for the photoshoots. Pivoting during a time when so many businesses were struggling to stay a float led to new business lines and new streams of income for Dr Bates and her businesses.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: http://www.
Instagram.com/iamdrbates - Facebook: http://Facebook.com/
projectresiliencymovement - Linkedin: Www.LinkedIn.com/
draltheawebberbates - Twitter: http://www.Twitter.
com/projresmovement - Youtube: https://YouTube.com/
channel/ projectresiliencymovement - Other: http://Facebook.com/
IamDrBates http://Facebook. com/DrAltheaWebberBates
Image Credits
George Lee LMG Photography