Lead the People #107: A Cheerleader's Guide to Modern Leadership with Stefanie Adams
Stefanie Adams is a keynote speaker, training facilitator, adjunct university instructor, former elected official, wife, and mother; for those who know her best, she is "Cheerleader Stef", which personifies her personality and leadership style. She has over 20 years experience leading and training in corporate, non-profit, and government settings. In 2024, she added author to the resume, publishing her first book, CheerLEADERship: Strategies to Build and Support Human-Centric Workplaces for the Future. She earned an M.Ed. in Multicultural Education in 2008.
Stefanie has worked as an organizational consultant for Johns Hopkins University School of Education (Baltimore, MD), served as Director of Customized Training for Cape Fear Community College (Wilmington, NC), and more recently, she led the corporate training function for CastleBranch (Wilmington, NC).
In early 2020, Stefanie founded WNY People Development. In her role as Chief Empowerment Officer, she provides leadership training, coaching, and keynote presentations to grow the next generation of leaders. Her main areas of expertise are building high impact teams, first time/front line manager development, women in leadership, and engaging multigenerational workforces with a focus on millennial and Gen Z employees. Since company launch, she has developed and facilitated leadership solutions for clients in various industries including construction, healthcare, higher education, hospitality, human resources, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, public service, real estate, and non-profit management. Her professional affiliations include SHRM and the Lower Cape Fear Human Resource Association. She serves on the Board of Directors for the Boys and Girls Clubs of Southeastern NC, and she was nominated as a YWCA Woman of Achievement in 2022 for her service as School Board Chair during the Covid pandemic.
Top 3 Takeaways
- Mix it up. Successful teams require diverse working styles that complement each other, just as cheerleading squads need different positions to function effectively.
- Trust counts. Building trust through genuine connection and understanding team members' personal motivations is essential for creating high-performing teams in today's workplace.
- Dial it in. Leaders must calibrate challenges based on individual team members' goals and current circumstances, similar to how cheer coaches adjust practice intensity based on their team's situation.
From Our Sponsor
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From the Source
"In cheerleading you only can succeed together because it is the only sport where you physically build on each other. And that's what work is today. It is all team-based."
"You cannot build trust on a team until you know somebody. And if we don't know somebody, I'm not gonna want to work with you. I'm not gonna feel safe to ask you for feedback or to give you feedback."
"If you're challenging someone and providing them with information that's going to help them be better at their job and you're doing it by keeping their integrity at the heart of your message...you've done your job."
"If we celebrate the small, small wins, if we highlight those small wins, that is going to remind us, let's keep doing this...Happy people are engaged workers."
"Cheerleadership is not about toxic positivity. It's about recognizing what we're capable of and working towards it as a team."
Connect with Stefanie
CheerLEADERship (book): https://a.co/d/eTYuKPy
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stefaniezadams
Website: https://wnypeopledevelopment.com