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September 11, 2025

Cheryle Hays finds success leading through legacy and reinvention

By Diane Sears

When asked what she wanted to be as a child, Cheryle Hays offered a candid and sobering reflection: “I had no dreams.”

Growing up in a home defined by limitation and verbal abuse, Hays was told that her future could only include being a housewife, a nurse, a secretary or a junior high teacher — never a doctor, leader or innovator.

“My dad reminded me often how stupid and ugly I was,” she recalled. “So, it wasn’t a thing I wanted to be — it was a person I wanted to be. I wanted to chart my own course and become the best person I could be.”

Today, Hays is doing just that — and more. She is the founder of InPower Strategists in Fort Worth, a leadership consultancy that bridges the gap between mindset and mission, self-leadership and organizational impact.

“I teach leaders to not just understand themselves, but to strategically apply that understanding with choice to IN-power themselves so they, in turn, can empower others,” she said.

Her work is rooted in helping others unlock their potential and that of their teams through a unique framework she developed: Reflect, Reframe, Respond. She refers to herself as a “visionary” and a “Renaissance woman.”

“I’m not a victim or a survivor or a thriver — those labels had me always looking back, living an ‘in spite of’ life,” she said. “Now I’m a visionary — choosing to live a ‘because of life’, reframing my experiences based on the strengths I discovered and lessons I learned.”

A Life Built on Yes

Hays’ story is unconventional, winding and incredibly impactful. She has been a legal secretary, a belly dancer, a network engineer for the United States Navy and a strategist for tech startups. Each step in her career has been characterized by a “yes, and” mentality that involves saying yes to opportunity — and then learning how to succeed at it.

It began with technology. In the 1990s, after impressing a vendor with her word processing skills, she was hired to implement a local area network, long before networking was a mainstream field.

“Someone saw what I could do and said, ‘We want you to network the City of McKinney,’” she explains. That opportunity snowballed into more advanced work, including installing a gateway communications system for the US Navy. Similar equipment she directly worked on was later gifted to the Smithsonian Institution.

But as her family grew, so did her desire to have more control over her time and legacy. Hays pivoted into leadership education, eventually developing curriculum for Tarrant County College.

Still, it wasn’t until 2019 that she formally launched her own business. By late 2022, she committed to building it full-time. “It wasn’t because I needed more money,” she says. “It was this burning sense that I needed to get this message out to help more people.”

Purpose Over Profit

The consultancy is structured around three pillars: personal growth, leadership empowerment and business results. At its core is Hays’ belief that “we are all leaders — even if we’re only leading ourselves.”

Her work with individuals often involves deep self-exploration, starting with the psychological triggers that influence behavior. “Self-awareness doesn’t work if you’re emotionally triggered,” she explained. “That’s why we start with ‘Reflect.’ You have to understand what you’re carrying with you.”

For businesses, Hays uses her leadership knowledge through consulting and workshops and incorporates the Predictive Index, a data-driven framework that guides leadership decisions and team dynamics. “It’s not about fitting people into boxes,” she said. “It’s about helping leaders guide their teams in the way they should go — not the way you think they should go.”

She also speaks frequently on stages across the country, addressing audiences on everything from leadership and career growth to the evolving impact of AI on workplace psychology. “AI is creating psychological safety issues that many companies are not addressing,” Hays warned. “People are emotionally reactive, and that undermines performance, collaboration and innovation.”

More Than a Business — A Calling

Hays often refers to her work as a calling, a sentiment that was affirmed during a speaker’s camp in 2023. A woman she had never met approached her and shared a piece of scripture, Matthew 7:7-8: Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you. The stranger told her: “God heard you. He knows the message you have. This will be your best season yet.”

Hays, who had been volunteering her time since 2016, took it as divine encouragement to keep going. “That gave me goosebumps,” she said. “It was confirmation I was on the right path.”

Hays measures success not in revenue but in ripple effects. “If I can help you become a better leader, that also makes you a better follower, a better parent, a better neighbor, a better colleague. And someone watching you will be changed by your change,” she said.

She dreams of growing her team so she can make an even bigger impact — but always grounded in humility. “I don’t have all the answers. But I ask good questions. And sometimes, that’s exactly what someone needs to hear.”

For a woman once told she could never be a leader, Cheryle Hays has become a beacon of what’s possible when you lead yourself first — and then turn around to help others do the same.

To Learn more about InPower Strategists, visit cherylehays.com.