Mylena Sutton
About The Founder
Mylena Sutton
I'm Mylena, and I believe the work I do with leaders is a calling. People who aren’t happy at work aren’t happy at life. We spend so much time at work, thinking about work, commuting to and from work, and even defining ourselves by our work that work isn’t some small thing. Every part of it spills over our work/life boundaries because we carry it in our minds. Thus, I believe leaders have a duty to create cultures where teams can thrive.
With so much riding on work, it’s no wonder that leaders and employees alike often feel stressed and stuck. Constant change, the volume of work, and organizational norms that all but guarantee disingenuous communication can make even the best team player question what really matters.
I’ve been that unhappy employee who cried on the morning commute. I’ve also been that boss who was floored when a brave employee gave hard-to-hear feedback: how could anybody be afraid of me? Sadly, I’ve even been that supervisor who thought she was doing a great job of masking her dislike of an employee only to learn that she wasn’t doing such a great job. These daily realities aren’t good for team members, leaders, customers, or anybody else your organization wants to serve. These realities are what drove me to found this business in 2007.
Over the years, I’ve learned that leaders know leadership theory, but they don’t fully trust it or have time to do it. I understand this gap; it’s where my passion lies and where I help. I partner with leaders to bring to bear the full range of experiences that I have earned from training and working with teams around conflict, compliance, and accountability, and culture issues. Yes, my background informs what I do (Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from the University of Georgia, a Master of Public Administration from the University of Kansas, various certifications, regularly participate in training for my own development, and I hate boring and unrelatable training as much as you do); however, I never forget that I work with real people, on real teams, with real challenges. I come alive when leaders and teams work to trust each other enough so that they can get aligned and fix their people problems.
When leaders realize that my main goal is to make them look good, we are able to do our best work together. I achieve success when they trust our partnership and begin to relax.
Personally, I am a better professional when I make a point to get away from my desk although I spend my time away from work in pure contradiction. On one hand, I am a runner and cyclist and volunteer as a diabetes lifestyle coach. On the other hand, I bake the very things that I rail against.
My professional affiliations include the following organizations:
- NewsWeek’s Experts Forum, Founding Member
- Society for Human Resource Management
- New Jersey Labor and Employment Relations Association
- Pennsylvania Mediators Association
- New Jersey Association of Professional Mediators
- American Association for Diabetes Educators