Alla Zadneprovska:
“Each of us is the leader of our own life, which we create through our dreams, actions, and faith.”
“You are your actions — and there is no other you.”
— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
Our life is a path made up of countless big and small choices that we make consciously or unconsciously, yet each of them defines the quality, meaning, and content of that life. It was choices that shaped me and gave me the opportunity to enjoy my path and fulfill my true calling — to awaken the inner fire and strength in people so they can walk the path of their truly alive life.
Choice
I have always followed the path of the heart, and once I chose a direction, I never turned away from it. At certain moments, my choices were almost prophetic. I first tried on the role of a coach — which later became my profession — back in the fifth grade. Today, my professional portfolio includes more than 17,000 coaching hours, over 510 top executives and first-level leaders, well-known brands, and the first coaching school in Ukraine.
Together with a friend, we decided to help so-called “troubled” teenagers who were officially registered with the police. I saw rebels in those kids — just like myself. Studying came easily to me (I graduated from school with a gold medal), but my “behavior” was another story. I was a true revolutionary: I disagreed with teachers, argued with them, defended classmates, led them out of lessons, encouraged boycotts and protests.
I could handle studying, stand up for myself, and go straight to the principal’s office. And what do you think — did the principal officially approve our project? No. Moreover, he said: “I’m sure they’ll teach you bad things.” Yet my friend and I were top students and athletes — we professionally played handball and studied in a specialized sports class.
So we weren’t used to backing down from challenges. If we weren’t given a legal opportunity, we chose an alternative path. We made the project extracurricular and still took patronage over the “troubled” teenagers.
We approached them directly and said:
“We are ready to help you with your studies and with whatever you want. We see that the attitude here is that you’re considered ‘abnormal,’ difficult. But we think that’s complete nonsense. You’re not difficult at all — you’re just like us. And we’re ready to support you.”
And believe it or not — every single one of them agreed. One hundred percent of the boys. At that time, there were no girls in that group. They said “yes.” You might say, “Well, it’s obvious — they agreed because you were girls.” I don’t care. It doesn’t matter why they agreed; what matters is that they believed us — and, most importantly, believed in themselves.
The results were incredible. That was my first manifestation of leadership and, as it later turned out, my first coaching experience. We listened to them, asked questions, spent time together. They improved. And later, their lives turned out well. Today, most of them are entrepreneurs, some are top managers.
That’s where my coaching roots come from.
Then came more…
It was the early 2000s. I was 33 — successful and fulfilled, a commercial director, the owner’s right hand, earning good money, owning an apartment, spending vacations abroad. My salary was $2,000 per month, which was a significant amount at that time. The average salary in Ukraine was about 230 hryvnias, with an exchange rate of 5.5 hryvnias per dollar. A one-room apartment could be bought for $10,000. I had 13 years of business experience behind me. I had solid foundations: status, money, respect, understanding of business processes, and deep knowledge of how business works. I was a wife and a mother.
And suddenly, I realized: this is not mine. I don’t like what I do. I am not fulfilling my potential. I am made for something else. I made a radical decision to change the course of my life and became a sales manager at a training company for $50 a month.
Essentially, it was brutal for me — very brutal. I abandoned everything I had built for years and entered the development market, which practically didn’t exist at that time.
I didn’t know about coaching then. But I was interested in working with people, helping them, supporting them, and inspiring them to achieve great things. That’s why I decided to take the risk — to leave status, money, and expertise behind and start learning something from scratch.
But I had the most important thing — intention and direction. I wanted to help people become conscious, mentally, emotionally, and psychologically healthy, successful, and happy. That’s what drove me. Why? Because I want to live among such people.
Then my values — people, authenticity, love, service, and impact — could be fully realized. I understood that if I didn’t start at 33, it would become harder with every passing year. At the same time, I dared to get divorced and remarried. Like Baron Munchausen, I grabbed myself by the hair and pulled myself out. Everything aligned and fell into place in my life.
It was an incredibly challenging and fascinating time. What helped me was faith in myself, a sense of meaning, the knowledge that nothing is impossible, and the belief that we are given only those tasks we are capable of handling. But most importantly — the support of my loved ones: my husband and my son. They helped me get through that period, and about a year and a half later, I already had my own company, Nordic, which I later rebranded as “Zhive Dilo” (“Living Business”).
Another serious test for me and my business came at the beginning of 2009, when companies simply slashed their training budgets. Since training was our core business direction, it was a very difficult time.
Interestingly, in January 2009, our company won a European Union tender to conduct more than ten business trainings in Ukraine. There was panic in the office when we realized that the trainings would start only at the end of February 2010.
My new husband then said: “Why are you worried? You have no chance of not surviving!” We understood it as a sign — good news, and therefore a blessing that the business would survive.
In general, I love challenges. They help me become even more conscious and reveal new facets of my personality. That’s why in life I always choose what resonates with my heart, never regret my choices, and approve every decision I make — because at that moment, it is the only and the best possible one.
Perhaps that’s why in 2022, when a shell hit and almost completely burned down my home in Bucha — the house of my dreams, a true family haven of happiness — I accepted it as a challenge and a sign to keep living. Today, I am rebuilding my life in my beloved Barcelona, where my family and I were when we received this terrible news.
In the same way, the very beginning of the full-scale invasion and the shelling of cities forced me to mobilize to the maximum and immediately launch two volunteer movements. One was general — for mutual support and solving urgent issues to save people’s lives. The second was professional — where I united graduates of my coaching school, as well as Ukrainian coaches, psychologists, and psychotherapists, to provide mental, emotional, and psychological support to Ukrainians.
I know that difficulties have existed, still exist, and will continue to exist.
Yet overcoming them is exactly what makes me stronger — what tempers me, develops me, and changes me for the better.
Leadership
A new era. New challenges. New concepts. New qualities. New leaders.
Despite the continuation of a brutal war, life goes on. Business — including Ukrainian business — is finding new opportunities for development, growth, and scaling. For me, 2024 passed under the sign of resilience — a leader’s ability to maintain stability, sound judgment, productivity, and humanity despite any trials. And even under pressure, to quickly find the most effective solutions for business development. Most importantly, to become the true heart of one’s team.
In the spring, I opened a Women’s Leadership Forum with the theme “Quantum Leadership,” where I presented five of my own principles of resilient, inspiring leadership.
Principle One: Inspiration Begins with the Leader
At all times, in order to “ignite” a team, a leader must first be able to ignite themselves. In the past — during peaceful times that now seem relatively comfortable — this could be overlooked. Today, in conditions of war and total uncertainty, a leader’s inspiration, confidence, and inner fire become decisive.
In such critically important times for business, employees observe their leaders through a “magnifying glass.” A leader’s volitional qualities — ambition, perseverance, energy, confidence in the chosen path, courage, and determination — become essential for success. The ability to make risky decisions and take responsibility for outcomes, not only one’s own but also those of subordinates, comes to the forefront, significantly increasing the level of risk.
Today more than ever, a leader must engage employees in the implementation of their ideas and inspire them with their goals. This requires magnetic qualities: the ability to create a Vision, live in alignment with one’s values, demonstrate humanity, sincerity, honesty, faith in oneself, in one’s mission, and in others.
Principle Two: Together with a Coach
A leader lives in constant time pressure. Stress, environmental pressure, and other “joys” of today affect the strength of the inner fire that inspires others. This is where a professional coach can become real support.
A coach is a partner in achieving professional and personal goals, a like-minded ally in the process of change, a trainer of communication and life skills, a mirror, motivation when decisive action is needed, unconditional support when the client has taken a direct hit, a partner in creating outstanding projects, and a lighthouse in the storm. The list goes on.
Although I am a coach, mentor, executive, business owner, and coach educator, I still constantly work with other coaches — and more than one. I am a living person who needs support, a fresh external perspective, and who wants to accomplish more and do big things better.
Principle Three: Relying on the Team
Today, the principle of teamwork and synergy is key. No matter how creative, strong, or energetic a leader is, they cannot single-handedly carry the entire list of urgent tasks that must be solved here and now. Or they might — but not within the timeframe that matters to them.
That is why building a team — one of the most complex yet most promising organizational structures — is crucial today. As I have written before, with synergy, 1 + 1 becomes significantly more than 2 — and sometimes even more than 11. It is precisely the synergistic effect of teamwork that gives companies a competitive edge and leadership today.
This explains the growing interest in coaching within management. Coaching meets the needs of modern business because it enables employees to self-motivate and develop, independently find the best solutions to achieve company goals, and take responsibility for their implementation. Employee consciousness is the key to organizational success today.
Principle Four: Maintaining Balance
War has permanently divided life into “before” and “after.” Yes, Ukrainians — together with the entire progressive world — are moving toward victory, which I firmly believe in. But even after it, life will remain “after the war,” with all the consequences of this greatest trial for each of us, for our beloved Ukraine, and for the progressive world as a whole.
Today, there is a crisis of internal paradigms not only among top executives, but among most of Ukraine’s population. Perception of reality has changed. Business owners, executives, and top managers are seriously reflecting:
- Who am I?
- Where am I going?
- Why?
- For whom and for what?
- What do I want?
- What do I really want?
They no longer want to do what feels distant or fails to provide the fulfillment they deserve. One might assume that during such turbulence, top managers would cling to their positions, especially given the higher turnover today — but no. Today they are inspired both by achieving success and by the journey toward it. And 90% of the requests top executives bring to me as a coach begin with business objectives and end with life-balance programs.
Principle Five: Be the Heart
Today’s leaders not only create innovative environments, encourage initiative, and unlock opportunities for growth. On the wings of inspiration, they create magnets that attract true talent — not just employees seeking positions.
A leader today is someone who owns the minds and hearts of people. It is no longer enough to be just the brain and the engine — a leader must become the true heart, both for their team and for their wider environment.
As Henry Adams aptly said:
“If your actions inspire others to dream more, learn more, and become better, you are a leader.”
In my view, in the conditions of today’s turbulent world, this topic is one of the most in-demand and ambiguous. Hundreds of thousands of volumes have been written, yet so-called leadership “experts” still cannot agree on one thing: Are leaders born — or made?
I believe both are true. For me, every person is the leader of their own life — especially today. Each individual is the author of the script, the director, and the entire cast of actors, and the quality of the performance called “My Life” depends on one’s leadership qualities. Today, life itself sets conditions that demand precisely these qualities. In this sense, each person chooses whether or not to be the leader of their own life.
Instead of an epilogue
A leader is someone who leads people to a better place. In times of great change, the power of personality becomes decisive.
It is the decisions of those who, at a defining moment, are ready to take responsibility for choosing and committing to a direction of development and movement. And on a global level, our future — the future of our children, grandchildren, and humanity as a whole — depends on those who are ready not only to create change, but also to care, to show the highest responsibility toward our planet Earth.
The world is moving forward. Change is inevitable. Nothing can be preserved or returned. It is critically important for us to strengthen our ability to cope with stress, to pass through the fear of the new, and to respond flexibly to change. By developing emotional and adaptive intelligence and increasing our adaptability, we strengthen our resilience. After all, as is well known, the word “crisis” in Chinese consists of two characters: one meaning danger, and the other — opportunity.
Leadership is responsibility multiplied by service. Some qualities may be more developed, others less, but a true leader is able to face reality and, by recognizing their strengths and weaknesses, strengthen themselves through the qualities of their followers.
My approach is learning through life — using every situation, especially failures, setbacks, stagnation, and crises. My principle is: everything is for me and for my growth.
My inner calling is to scale freedom and happiness on Earth. That is why my goal is to help one million people fall in love with coaching, in order to influence one billion. That is why I have been teaching coaching for more than 10 years and have touched nearly half a million lives through this methodology.
We cannot change the world, but we can learn to be effective even in a world of constant change. The key is to choose with the heart and act with the mind — guided by our values, with faith in what we do and love for what we believe in. I have long been convinced that happiness is not in the result — happiness is on the journey.
P.S.
The SENSE Leadership Model — I created it for a keynote speech at one of the forums last autumn. It helps reveal the qualities and skills a leader needs to move forward.
The SENSE Leadership Model: Strategy, Energy, Reliability, Service
Strategy
If there is no “why” and no “where,” we are not truly living.
A leader needs to develop the following qualities and skills:
- Vision of the future
- Purposefulness
- Systems thinking
- Structured thinking
- Innovation
Energy
The level of energy determines the level of leadership.
A leader needs to develop:
- Resourcefulness
- Self-care
- Calmness of mind
- Inspiration and inner drive
- Mindfulness
- Developed emotional intelligence (EQ)
- Motivation
Reliability
By allowing ourselves to be vulnerable and real, we become reliable.
A leader needs to develop:
- Healthy self-esteem
- Adaptability
- Flexibility
- Continuous growth
- Optimism
- Stress resilience
Service
As we mature, we first take — and then we feel the desire to give.
A leader needs to develop:
- Ethics and integrity
- Honesty
- Responsibility
- Tolerance
- Courtesy
- Humanity
- The ability to build high-quality relationships
- Teamwork
Fire in my heart, love in my soul, the reliable support of close people, and an almost entire army of coaching school graduates help me make possible what initially seems impossible.
If we do not act, we do not live.
Dream. Believe in yourself and in the Universe. Trust people.
Live a truly alive life.
Remember — there are no good or bad people. There are simply different people.
Act. Rise when you fall and keep moving forward.
Always act with love.
And be the leader of your own life.
Spain, Barcelona
