What I Learned About Leading from the Inside Out
- May 6
- 4 min read
By Aja Chavez, LMFT, LPCC
VP of Adolescent Services at Mission Prep Healthcare
Nobody handed me a roadmap when I started out. I came from upstate New York with a degree in education, a drive to help people, and absolutely no idea that I would one day be overseeing the development of behavioral health programs across a multi-site healthcare organization. The path was not linear. It was full of pivots, discomfort, and decisions that seemed small at the time but turned out to matter enormously. If I have learned anything from moving through the roles of teacher, higher education administrator, therapist, private practice owner, and now executive leader, it is that the climb is less about ambition and more about intentionality.
What Strategies Accelerate Leadership Advancement?
The most important thing I can tell you is this: do not wait to be ready. I did not feel ready when I transitioned from working as a residential and outpatient provider to opening my own private practice. I did not feel fully ready when I stepped into an executive role overseeing large teams, budgets, and regulatory compliance. But readiness, I have come to believe, is something you build in motion, not something you arrive at before you move.
What actually accelerates growth is a willingness to take on work that stretches you beyond your current title. When I was earlier in my career, I raised my hand for projects that had nothing to do with my job description. I got involved in operations conversations, sat in on planning sessions, asked questions in rooms where I was the least senior person. That visibility mattered. Decision-makers cannot advocate for you if they do not know what you are capable of.
Equally important is developing fluency outside your core discipline. As a therapist and clinician by training, I had to learn the language of business development, admissions, utilization review, and finance to be effective in my current role. I did not become an expert in all of those areas overnight, but I became curious, and I stayed curious.
Leaders who can communicate across departments and translate between clinical and operational priorities are rare, and organizations notice that.
Finally, find a mentor and be a mentor. I have benefited enormously from people who were generous with their time and honest about what leadership actually requires. That kind of guidance accelerates your development in ways no training program can replicate.
How Can Women Build Influential Networks?
I want to be honest here because I think a lot of advice about networking for women is either overly polished or completely out of touch with reality. Building a real network is not about collecting business cards or showing up to industry events with a pitch. It is about relationships built over time, grounded in genuine investment in other people's success.
When I moved from higher education in New York to graduate school in California and then into the clinical world, I had to rebuild my network almost from scratch more than once. What I found is that the connections that lasted were the ones where I was not thinking about what I could get out of them. I was thinking about what I could contribute. I showed up for colleagues when it was not convenient. I shared information, made introductions, and stayed in touch even when there was nothing immediate to discuss.
For women specifically, I think it is important to resist the instinct to only network upward. Some of the most influential relationships I have are with peers, colleagues at other organizations, and people I mentored early in their careers who are now doing remarkable things. Community flows in every direction, and the women who build the most durable influence are often the ones who invest in lifting others as they rise.
Seek out spaces where women in leadership gather authentically. Join boards, committees, and professional associations. Show up consistently. Over time, consistent presence builds a kind of trust that no single impressive interaction can.
What Decisions Most Impact Long-Term Career Success?
Looking back, the decisions that shaped my trajectory most profoundly were not the dramatic ones. They were quieter choices I made about what I was willing to tolerate, what I was willing to invest in, and how I defined success for myself.
Choosing to pursue my Master's in Counseling after already having an established career in education was one of those decisions. It was not the pragmatic move in the short term. It required sacrifice, a geographic relocation, and starting over in many respects. But it aligned who I was professionally with what I actually cared most deeply about, which is the wellbeing of young people and families navigating crises. That alignment has driven every good professional decision I have made since.
I also think the decision of where to invest your time outside of work matters more than people acknowledge. Becoming a trained therapist, staying current in clinical best practices even as I moved into administrative leadership, has made me a better executive. It keeps me grounded in why our work exists. Leaders who stay connected to the mission at a real, human level make different decisions than those who do not.
And perhaps most importantly, the decision of how you treat people on the way up will define your legacy more than any promotion or title. Healthcare is a small world. Behavioral health is an even smaller one. The reputation you build through how you show up in difficult conversations, how you advocate for your team, how you handle yourself under pressure, that is what follows you.
Leadership is not a destination. It is something you practice every single day, in the choices you make about who you are going to be and what you are going to stand for. I am still figuring it out. But I am grateful for every step of the path that brought me here.
Connect With Aja
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