This is an episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, which features candid conversations about how today’s trends are shaping the future of the beauty and wellness industries. More from the series →
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Executive coach Angela Bennett knows a thing or two about the unique needs of beauty and wellness industry leaders. She spent more than two decades working across L’Oréal and Estee Lauder brands like La Roche-Posay, Maybelline and Clinique in roles like vice president, general manager and svp of talent acquisition.
“The subjective nature of [the beauty industry] requires an art of balancing data points, intuition and conviction [while] becoming your own leader to navigate the decisions that need to be made on a daily basis,” Bennett said.
But today, Bennett is part of a growing number of certified professional executive coaches who help individuals and organizations to build stronger teams. She also works one-on-one with executives who need help getting to the next level in their careers.
This often entails a rigorous strategy that includes reflection, learning and planning in an effort to become a better leader with more long-term career direction. Much of this process starts with developing communication skills to suit the workplace environment and culture.
“Communication coaching is really going to be about developing the skills to be clear, concise, convincing and motivating, and to really master the art of what we call ‘influencing for results’,” she said. “[That means] influencing others, influencing management toward making decisions on specific strategies that, as a leader, you are recommending and wanting to push through.”
In today’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, Bennett introduces us to the world of executive coaching and shares her top three universal tips for executives.
But first, hosts Lexy Lebsack and Emily Jensen discuss the biggest beauty news of the week.
First up is wellness investment news from Oura Health Oy, the makers of Oura, the wearable health tracking ring that launched in 2015. The Finnish company is reportedly closing in on a $875 million Series E investment round that will undoubtedly impact the industry. The company could soon be valued at around $11 billion.
The hosts also break down the latest influx of celebrity endorsement deals including Kris Jenner for Estée Lauder-owned MAC, Leighton Meester for indie darling skin-care brand Bubble, singer Ciara as the new face of Thorne’s Creatine products, Miley Cyrus for Maybelline, and Dua Lipa’s new deal with pilates reformer company Frame Fitness.
Lebsack and Jensen also unpack Hailey Bieber’s splashy Rhode launch with Sephora, which brought in $10 million in sales in just two days, according to Yipit, an alternative data provider and analytics firm that utilizes web and in-store receipt data.
Finally, the duo discuss the closure of Kim Kardashian’s 3-year-old skincare line, SKKN by Kim, including Coty’s $71.1 milliones loss from its 2021 investment in the now-shuttered brand.
On the value of executive coaching
Bennett: “Any kind of coaching, and especially executive coaching, is all about partnering together with clients in a thought-provoking and creative process that inspires them to maximize their personal and professional potential. So what does that really mean? Well, in coaching, it means that the answers lie within you as the client, whoever is being coached. And so the coach is a facilitator to draw out those insights, and that’s very important and different than, say, mentoring, because a mentor is typically going to know something or have some experience that the other person doesn’t have, so they’re going to be providing their perspective and their advice down to the person. I get the question a lot: What is the difference with therapy? Because, yes, we’re talking, and we’re talking about you. One of the main differences is that therapy is often rooted in diving into the past and a lot of emotional blocking points, whereas coaching is very focused on action planning forward into the future: Where are you today? Where do you want to go? And how can we create a step-by-step plan to get you where you want to go?”
On the unique needs of beauty executives
Bennett: “The industry itself is just very dynamic. It’s very fast paced. And that, in and of itself, is something that often requires coaching. How do you thrive and survive in a very fast-paced culture? Second, you have a lot of subjectivity in beauty, right? Beauty, by nature, is subjective. It is creative self-expression. I always tell this story: At L’Oréal, if you say, ‘Oh, I think that this should be this particular shade of periwinkle purple,’ or whatever it is, and you get shot down, and they say, ‘Oh, I really think it should be more of an aqua blue tonality,’ and you just say, ‘Yes’, then they’re like: ‘What are you here for?’
You’re there to bring forth your perspective based on your combination of experience, not to comply with layers of management, and this sometimes is even counter to American culture. Maybe an American mechanistic corporate culture is: Here’s the handbook, this is your job, you do everything in your square, you don’t do anything that’s not in your square, and you listen to management and follow orders. Throw that out the window in the beauty industry, because there’s no right, there’s no wrong, there’s just things to try and perspectives to share. The greatest leaders are really those that learn to listen and seek multiple perspectives, and that was what L’Oréal was all about. There was always gaining more perspectives, finding ways to ‘yes’ with facts, but also with conviction and passion to engage in dialog and debate around the various decisions that need to be made to bring a product, a trend to market. … The subjective nature of [the beauty industry] requires an art of balancing data points, intuition and conviction [while] becoming your own leader to navigate the decisions that need to be made on a daily basis.”
