2023 Most Influential Women: Alyea Alldredge

Alyea Alldredge has worn several professional hats – from a pharmaceutical sales representative to TV news anchor and a marketing and sales manager to a gym co-owner with her entrepreneurial husband, Noah.

But she says her current job the past two years as executive director of Mercy Health Foundation Springfield has been perhaps the most challenging and enjoyable.

“I say it’s been the hardest job that I’ve ever loved, and leading this team of incredible individuals has been one of the most rewarding roles I have had in my career yet,” Alldredge says.

She says it took a leap of faith for the job. At the time, she and Noah were running Big Time Results, where she served as a certified health and wellness coach and personal trainer. Alldredge says starting her own wellness practice was quite fulfilling, so when she became aware of the foundation director position opening, she had a tough decision ahead.

“I prayed for weeks before even submitting my application and spoke with many mentors and clients to seek their advice and opinion on if they thought this would be a wise move for me,” she recalls. “I truly think it was. I am using my strengths, experience, connections and skills to their fullest each day.”

Alldredge says as leader of the Mercy foundation team, she strives to be present, empathetic and a listener. To cultivate that in the culture, she schedules weekly one-on-one meetings with team members.

“It’s an opportunity to help with any barriers they are facing and also get to listen to hear about the things they are working on and how they are moving our mission forward.

“Part of my job is to motivate my team to achieve some big goals,” she says, though acknowledging she takes a slightly different approach. “I often talk about how I don’t believe in motivation, but rather, I wholeheartedly believe in momentum.”

In her theory, momentum creates motivation: “Momentum is strength or force gained by motion or by a series of events. I think that motivation usually only occurs through this motion, with our effort and action.”

In short, she says, “Choices lead; feelings follow.” And that’s the way she leads.

In the community, Alldredge serves as a board member for the Foundation for Springfield Public Schools, and she previously led Girls of the Run of Southwest Missouri for 10 years through 2019. The program inspires girls to be joyful, healthy and confident by participating in an experience-based curriculum that creatively integrates running. During that time, she says hundreds of girls learned critical life skills, including resolving conflict, helping others and making intentional decisions, and there was a 40% increase in physical activity among girls who were least active at the program’s start.

Within Mercy, Alldredge is a member of Women with a Mission, which combines resources, vision and passion for helping others to support and improve health care in the community. The group has raised $310,000 for programs and equipment for Mercy Hospital Springfield patients and recently allocated $25,000 for a new mobile mammography bus to provide 3D screenings across the region.