Introducing Adam Melnyk | Leadership Coach
My name is Adam Melnick. I’m a leadership coach with Seeding the Lead, and today I’m going to tell you a little bit about my personal life.
Edmonton Roots and Early Life
Tell us a little bit about your upbringing. Where did you grow up?
I am Edmonton born and raised; this feels like a rare thing these days, because everyone I meet is from out of town—they’re from Ottawa, they’re from BC, and they all migrate to Edmonton. But for me, I am Edmonton born and raised. Growing up, I grew up in a middle-class family. I grew up with a brother and a sister. It was interesting, because for me life has never really come easy; I’ve always had to work for everything that I have right now.
So, oftentimes when I hear people say life was easy, I was like, “Wait a minute, that never happened for me. I had to work for everything I had.” But in that, I built up a lot of resilience and learned how to overcome obstacles and move forward in the face of adversity.
Leadership Coaching Education and Nursing Background
Tell us a little bit about your educational background.
My educational background: I went to school to become a licensed practical nurse for two years—it feels like over a decade ago—and when I left nursing, I ended up working in mental illness and addictions. I got a ton of training in just mental health and leadership, those small, soft skills and communication skills. Then, from there, I went and I got my license for coaching through the International Coaching Federation and my schooling through Ericson’s College.
What Inspired Adam to Become a Leadership Coach
What inspired you to get into coaching?
What inspired me to become a coach was that aspect of helping people. When I worked out in the inner city, I was helping those in need, but the toll on me was great, and the burnout was pretty bad—to be honest, I think the average burnout rate for an inner-city worker is about three years. I loved the work that I was doing; I just couldn’t take all the intense stuff that I was seeing and hearing on a daily basis.
Stories from Inner-City Mental-Health Work
So, when I worked out in the inner city, some of the stuff that I heard was absolutely wild, and sometimes I tell my clients, “You can’t tell me this stuff, don’t tell me this.”
One of the darker ones was a gentleman who came to see me; he had been stabbed by a screwdriver. I was telling him, “Hey man, what happened?” He’s like, “I’m not going to tell you, ’cause you’re going to KN on me to the cops.” I was like, “Okay, fair enough.” He’s like, “Well, as soon as I’m out of here, I’m going to go and I’m going to find him and I’m going to stab him.” I’m like, “Dude, you can’t tell me that.” He’s like, “What are you going to do, call the cops? I’m homeless.” Like, all right, fair enough—they’re never going to find me.
Working in the inner city gave me a lot of interesting stories. I remember working with one gentleman, and he said, “You know, hey, I have a bit of an itch on my scalp; I don’t know what’s going on.” So I took my little comb and I started peering through—his entire head was just covered in head lice. It was intense; it felt like a moving carpet. The amount of work that we had to do to just de-lice him and shave his head took, I think, the better part of three to four hours’ worth of work, and that was just on one client.
First Job at McDonald’s: Foundational Leadership Lessons
What was your first job?
My first job was really working at McDonald’s. I worked in the back flipping burgers with a spatula, doing the fries, working with the hot grease, and then from there I ended up moving up into crew trainer. Then I was the—oh gosh, I think they were like assistant management or team leader kind of aspect there—and that was a lot of fun, just learning to work with people in a much more professional setting. It was something I’d never done before, and it was an experience of value to this day.
Leadership Takeaways from McDonald’s Training
Is there any training that you took in McDonald’s that is valuable enough to use today?
What McDonald’s really taught me was: in leadership I am responsible for my team. If I send them out into the world and they are underprepared, if they don’t know what they’re doing and they do something wrong, that is my responsibility.
I was taught as a crew trainer that, “Hey, you have to teach these people, you have to train them up properly and take care of them so that they can go out there and do their job.” It’s not just “Hey, they screwed up, that’s their fault.” Like, no, no, no, no, no—you were training them, you were the leader, you were their manager, and you failed them. That’s something that I’ve really taken with me to this day.
Helping Clients Grow Through Leadership Coaching
What is the best thing about working with your clients?
I love watching my clients grow, to be honest—just watching them come in usually with problems and struggles; they don’t know how to get from point A to point B, they don’t know how to make their dreams come true or fix the broken relationships within their team.
To sit down with them week after week and do these incremental changes every single week for usually the course of a couple of months—they’re a completely different person. I always take some time to celebrate with my clients, to say, “Hey, give yourself a pat on the back, you’ve gone places, you’ve really grown.” Then I review from where they used to be to where they are now and go, “Wow, I’m a completely different person.” I say, “Yeah, you are, and you’re killing it out there.”
Why Adam Founded Seeding the Lead Leadership Coaching
Why did you start Seeding the Lead?
The reason I ended up getting into leadership coaching and starting Seeding the Lead is because, in nursing, no matter what job I got to or went to, management didn’t know what they were doing. They were often burning their people out; they were using them and tossing them aside. The life expectancy of some managers was only a year to two, because they were being promoted to incompetency.
Essentially, they said, “Hey, you’re really good at working with a doctor, and then let’s promote you to management.” Once they’re in management, they don’t know how to deal with their teammates, they don’t know how to deal with their colleagues, and they piss them off. Then what ends up happening is, the union gets involved, and then they’re out on their butt.
I said, “This isn’t okay,” because at the end of the day managers are responsible for taking care of their people—bad managers destroy people’s lives. So I said, “I can teach you the soft skills, I can teach you the decision-making, I can teach you how to take care of your people so that you can thrive as a manager and really thrive in the workplace.”
Fun Facts: Anime, Video Games & Comic Books
What is something unique about you that most people don’t know?
What’s unique about me is I’m a bit of a closet nerd. I love everything anime, I love video games, I love comic books. I don’t really talk about it too terribly much—most people look at me and they say, “Oh, you’re a jock, you love sports, you love going out and partying.” It’s like, no, no, no, no, no—I love those things in addition to all my anime; it’s how I destress every day.
Future Goals: Public Speaking & Global Travel
What are your goals for the future?
My big goals in the future are to do more public speaking, to get out there in front of a massive crowd and just help individuals build those soft skills—to be able to communicate with people and to build their team. I know one of my big goals is to do a lot more traveling: to see Europe, to see Japan, to see China. That’s a passion of mine, and I know, hopefully in the next few years, I’ll be making those come true.