Maureen Metcalf is a fierce leader and founder who understands the changing aspects of the workplace within organizations. She helps others pinpoint their needs and improve upon their already successful foundation. She is a woman of faith and a mom who balances it all with grace. Let’s meet her.
Tell our readers where you are based, where you grew up and what led you to being a business consultant/executive coach.
I live in Wyoming. I was born and raised for half of my youth in New York/Pennsylvania. When my parents divorced my mom wanted a safe place to raise six girls. We moved from the East to the West and all still live here.
I have always been fascinated with leadership, but not just being a boss. I have not cared much about titles but am fascinated by excellent leaders and businesses. I love empowering women and seem to have a niche for business.
I had an unexpected pregnancy at age 20 and that put a hold on my initial idea of becoming a corporate psychologist. After years in leadership and as a quality assurance director I opened a nonprofit in 2009 and another in 2011.
In this time with three children, I also completed my master’s degree in industrial and organizational psychology. I determined that when I hit my 50 decades, I would still help other people grow their businesses, but I would start my own consulting practice specifically geared toward helping lady leaders leap.
I wanted to start a business that entirely rose or fell completely on me. I am 51 and have started the wheels rolling in that direction in preparation to accept new lady clients in 2024.
What services does MCM Consulting offer and who is your ideal client?
MCM consulting offers consultation services for businesses to improve employee engagement and effectiveness in the workplace.
The ideal client is a lady leader ready to leap into leadership/business, a burnt-out lady leader that needs support and finding joy and balance in her work and life, and ladies that struggle with confidence and taking those next leaps.
You recently had a post about toxic leaders, which is something I have dealt with firsthand in the workplace which trickle down and tarnish the entire workplace environment. How can employees encourage leaders to be effective leaders while also having empathy for others?
I am passionate about leaders leading well. I am currently authoring a book “Leap Lady Leader” and there are a couple chapters devoted to toxic leadership. I hope to help shift the culture where leaders feel the responsibility of ensuring the work culture, their temperament, and the support offered to their team is top priority.
I believe leaders do not realize the impact they have not only on the employee but the employee’s family when the environment is toxic. I understand that leadership can be hard and lonely, but I have also overseen upward 50 women in two nonprofits for over a decade and know firsthand it is possible for women and working moms to be present at work and at home and have a gossip free, joy filled environment, but it takes an intentional leader with a consistent vision and temperament to not only create it but sustain it.
Being kind and having empathy has never caused work production or quality to go down. If anything, the results are even better.
Tell us about your other non-profits and solutions they provide to the demographic they serve?
One nonprofit serves women and families facing unexpected pregnancies, a program that was not available when I had an unexpected pregnancy. The other a NAEYC accredited Early Education Center that supported women that came through the pregnancy center to have high quality low to no cost childcare while they went to college or worked. Childcare/PreK was offered to our community as well.
I intentionally closed this nonprofit after a decade to pursue this new consulting business. My hope is that communities and businesses will partner more in supporting high quality childcare.
It is hard enough for working moms or dads to leave their children, but even harder to do excellent work when there is limited high quality care at affordable cost. I no longer wanted to oversee the center, but I do offer consultation support in this area.
Tell us about your contribution to Dandelion Sisters. What is the purpose, mission, and goals?
I have five sisters, four of us decided to broaden our sisterhood community. For 16 years we have committed one weekend a month for an intentional sister weekend. We would hear over the years how other women wished they could join us.
We combined our love of writing with the grander vision of starting an annual sister weekend, here in Wyoming for other ladies to join. In the late 90s early 2000s five of us sisters sang together locally and produced some demos in Nashville. We did some songwriting and have always done something creative together in some capacity since we were children.
Our sisterhood is unique, and we work hard to protect our relationships and have this hope for others. Sisterhood need not be only biological. The ultimate goal of Dandelions, Potholes, & Wrinkles is to offer hope as we find purpose in life’s imperfections, boldly living out our stories and supporting one another in our sisterhood community.
I know that faith plays a big part in your life. When you recall a time in your past where you first leaned on him, what was going on and how did you overcome that situation?
I emerged the leader and passionate advocate for women at 11 years old when I was faced with a tough call to make as a child. In sharing my concerns, I knew at this early age it would be the end of my parents’ marriage. I leaned into faith with a childlike innocence at the time.
Years later when I was 37 and although I still had my faith, my identity was wrapped up in the job I was at for 16 years. My moral compass was off with the sale of the company and new leaders.
I leaned into my faith and quit this job in February 2009, three months after my husband had, (the same workplace he had been there for 14 years). This was in the time of the housing recession, we had three children in school, and went from a six-figure income, house and car benefit, medical insurance, and six weeks of vacation plus a program we had both helped build up to being unemployed with three months to find a new home.
There are many miracles in this story and what led me to opening the nonprofits. I felt God tell me to leap into complete uncertainty and I did. It was one of the hardest times in her life with the most joy filled moments that I would never change.
How did you discover your own “passion, purpose and potential” and leap into the life that you have now?
When I catch a vision and believe it in my core to be the right thing to do I persevere until I do, but not by sacrificing my time with family, and doing things that I need to refresh and renew.
As I have watched lady leaders leap that I’ve developed and have worked for me, plus ensure they never feel they have to sacrifice themselves, their family to work for me, I think I continued to see my passion grow to be a louder voice in this arena and to demonstrate for other leaders that it is possible and the right thing to do.
I do not ask those that work for me to do what I would not do myself, and the flexibility and freedom I have worked toward, I want for them as well.
I am a lifelong learner. I have always read leadership and business books. I am fascinated by excellent leaders and businesses that get it. I will read one biography a summer because I love reading other people’s stories and how they have overcome.
I think I have always been a visionary and passionate gal with a tender spirit for lady leaders. I was already successful in my leadership role before I ever went back to college, but I went back as a working mom to simply get the piece of paper to validate what I already believed to be true for those that would ask me… So, what is your degree? I always said that once I got the degree, I would lead with who I am as a person first and if the credentials are required then I would share.
Family is also important. Tell us about your family life.
Family is my priority. The father of the baby that I had at age 20 and I married and have been married for 31 years. We have a daughter that is 31 and she and her husband have been married 10 years with two children and one on the way. Our other daughter is 27, married two years and has a baby girl. Our youngest is a senior in high school, born nine years after the girls.
One of the reasons why I am accepting new clients in 2024 and not 2023 is to soak up as much of this year with him. I have always loved being a leader, business owner as well as being a mom, and now a Nana.
At one point you were balancing career, home, and school. How did you balance it all?
How I balance it all could be its own book, but I learned early on that since I did not have freedom yet in my career I would need to aim for flexibility. To drop my children off at school, pick them up, and be at their events I had to be sure to complete six hours of work in what would take most people ten. This also meant I did not linger around and gossip, I do not do drama, create it, or get pulled into it so setting solid boundaries. I also said no too many things to protect my time. I cared more about being excellent in my work and present with my family plus being in tune with what I needed for balance and that made it easy for me to say no.
Tell us who Maureen is at her core?
How I have been described at my core is that I care deeply about others. I am a passionate leader in the workplace, yet also in family life. I set strong boundaries and at the same time give with abundance. I am driven and handle life’s complexities with grace and poise. Faith is foundational for me, and I believe we all have unique gifting even if we have not tapped into them yet.
Excellence is in the details not meaning perfection, but when you find out what details matter to the people you employ, and you value them too it shifts your whole organization. I hope I am making a difference for decades to come and leave a legacy of love.
Do you have any upcoming projects to promote?
I recently started my social media pages on Instagram and Facebook. Currently I am working on the details for the services I will offer in 2024 and will start promoting that in early 2024.
Where can our readers find out more information and support your endeavors?
You can find me on Facebook at MCM Consulting Group and Instagram at
mcmconsult. My website is in progress, coming in early 2024.
Anything to add?
We are all leaders in some capacity whether we have leaned or leaped into it. But most importantly lead yourself well first and the rest will follow! Thank you for this opportunity to share!
