We were lucky to catch up with Lasha Murray recently and have shared our conversation below.
Lasha , we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.
Almost four years ago, I was scrolling through Instagram (IG) and came across the IG live of a Black Women Entrepreneur who discussed the premise of finding her purpose. She said “the misconception most have about finding your purpose, is that your purpose has to be overly complicated.” She continued by saying, “often your purpose is what you do easy that comes harder to others.” I thought about that over the night. I couldn’t sleep as I had always assumed to be able to live in your passionate purpose meant it had to be something special, or hard, or molded out for you. As I tossed and turned all night, I thought about the one thing I do naturally that comes easy, that most people always ask me to help them with. At about 4am it finally came to me; Career Development and Speaking.
I thought about how often I helped develop the career of everyone around me in my Corporate role. I was always asked to review resumes and provide feedback, help prepare persons for interviews, elevate Executive presence through Executive Coaching, developing and facilitating Employee and Leadership Diversity, Ethics training and Communication. In my corporate career I was always asked to speak, facilitate or train to several topics surrounding Professional Development and Diversity. Professionally developing careers at all levels is truly my gift. Doing all of these things is truly what made me happy and filled my tank against my other Corporate woes. I decided the next day to create an IG page advertising myself as a Career Coach. My initial idea was to create a master class around the three fundamental principles I’ve used to grow my career. I posted career advice to my IG page and started to build a following of people that appreciated my career tips and advice. I was on to something! My master class went live Dec of 2019 and then Boom, March of 2020 this thing called a Pandemic shifted several professionals careers. People were getting laid off, companies were downsizing, at this point people were just trying to keep their heads above water. I decided to shift my business motto to meet people where they were. I started offering resume writing, career strategy and interview preparation sessions. I absolutely LOVED it. I felt I was truly serving in my passionate purpose.
Since then, I’ve grown my coaching business to include Leadership Development, Executive Coaching, and Organizational training to elevate company’s strategic vision by uncovering unconscious biases preventing retention of the employee of today and the future. It has truly been an honor serving in my passion and finding what comes easy to me; helping those it does not come easy to.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I have served as a double minority in Corporate America for over 22 years. I experienced conscious and unconscious biases throughout my career. I’ve been told often that my beliefs and culture of bright colored clothes, big earrings, a passionate personality and changing of hairstyles would not make me promotable to Exec-level management. I’ve been told who and where I came from is not acceptable at the good ole’ boys table and I would need to conform. Over time, I realized no one ever spoke about my productivity or work product; it was only always about my outer appearance or personality. So,I did what I thought I had to do, I conformed. I wore dark colors, stopped changing my hair, wore smaller earrings and basically, left everything they said I needed to change in my car and walked into work day in and day out as a version of myself I thought I had to be. It was miserable! I lost sight of who I was and was confused about who I was supposed to be.
Time went by, my leadership changed, and my new leader, a woman, pulled me aside.She reminded me that the person who she was told would report to her was passionate, dynamic, and a go-getter. She asked me to come back to work the women I was before receiving my appearance feedback. I did just that, I decided not to leave myself in the car and to show up proud as my true authentic self. From that point on, the Unapologetic Leadership Coach was born. It became my mission to help other women elevate in their career as their authentic selves, providing them the tools necessary to show up as a full package of quality work and themselves to the workforce. The ultimate goal was to be to other women, what that leader who helped me see myself again, was to me. Now, I have a proprietary framework built out for the Leadership & Career Development program. I needed to tackle the stigma in corporate of talent vs appearance, skills vs tenure and an employee culture over an employee experience. I have to help individuals understand how to professionally develop within their career while training leaders how to meet them where they are to elevate the overall culture. My Career Development program teaches individuals new or existing in their career how to apply my proprietary framework of building relationships, growth mindset and an elevated work product. I offer organizations an opportunity through Leadership Development an opportunity to understand where unconscious biases are within their processes, practices and procedures that could prevent them from attracting, inspiring, developing and retaining the talent of today and the future. I am also a keynote speaker available to speak on topics such as; Career and Leadership Development, Diversity Equity and Inclusion, Building Relationships, Being a Double Minority in Corporate, and Ethics Best Practices.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Building relationships, Career and Leadership Development and Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.
One of our goals is to help like-minded folks with similar goals connect and so before we go we want to ask if you are looking to partner or collab with others – and if so, what would make the ideal collaborator or partner?
Organizations who have identified their decline in retention of Gen Z talent and are ready to uncover the unconscious biases preventing them from retaining their talent of the future. Colleges or Universities looking for a Career Development Speakers or a Program sure to help their graduating Seniors or Interns elevate their corporate work experience through Professional Development.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.theunapologeticleadershipcoach.com
- Instagram: www.instagram.com/lasha_murray_tulc
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/beingacorporateunicorn/
- Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/lasha-murray
- Youtube: www.youtube.com/@lashamurray
- Yelp: The Unapologetic Leadership Coach
Image Credits
USAA
