Advertising Week Exclusive: SoulCycle Pioneer Shares Lessons in Leadership and Community Marketing

The post-pandemic sense of isolation is changing the conversation at major industry events like Advertising Week. As many professionals grapple with disconnection, spaces like The Female Quotient Lounge are finding a voice. The organization is becoming a prominent force, partnering with major events like Advertising Week and the Miami Grand Prix. In these forums, a collective leadership philosophy is championing mutual support over a zero-sum race to the top. One of its key proponents calls it the “Power of Plus,” a framework for moving beyond competition in the workplace to foster genuine collaboration.

That champion is Janet Fitzgerald, a leader who has been shaping the fitness industry for over 25 years. As SoulCycle's founding Director of Instructor Training, she developed the company's iconic training method and built the department responsible for developing over 400 instructors. Taking her leadership lessons beyond SoulCycle, Fitzgerald also works in motivational speaking, spiritual development, and career coaching. "Mentorship was a common theme at my Advertising Week panel at the FQ Lounge. The panelists all spoke about people who supported them earlier in their career, and they never forgot that. They went on to pay that forward," she says.

But her insights are built on more than just professional experience. They are rooted in a 30-year study of metaphysics, giving her a unique perspective on the connection between purpose and profession. She remains deeply connected to her work, still leading at SoulCycle as a Senior Master Instructor, a role she calls "the most magical part of my day."

• Soul level: Instead of focusing on a competitive, scrap-to-the-top mentality, Fitzgerald elevates an idea of collective success. She believes collaboration is a critical factor in thriving in a post-pandemic world, as shared in the FQ Lounge panel. "If we really open our hearts and elevate each other, everyone wins. On a soul level, there is no competition," she says.

• Keys to the kingdom: Her own career proves the point. Fitzgerald’s big break came when SoulCycle co-founder Julie Rice recognized her knack for mentorship and created a role around it. After initially resisting a move to New York, she was recruited to help a few struggling instructors. That single act of support became the catalyst for the brand’s explosive growth. "I sat down with a group of instructors, and one was having a lot of issues. I looked at her playlist and said, ‘You’ve got great taste in music. Take this out, move this here, and go teach that.’ She came back looking like I'd given her the keys to the kingdom," she says. Fitzgerald's leadership style soon produced superstars for the company, ultimately leading to its purchase by Equinox in 2011.

She credits that success to a leadership style she learned from Rice. It was a philosophy built on trust, not criticism. "She didn't hire someone and then question their work. You weren't hired if she didn't believe in you. She spent her career lifting us up and giving us the tools we needed to be better," Fitzgerald explains. In any industry, an approach based on trust is fundamental to unlocking an employee’s potential. Leaders should focus on providing the support needed to make their team happy and successful. "Yes, we did get feedback, but mostly, we got help. To be happy individuals so that we could go out and inspire more people," she says.

• Soul proprietorship: Putting principles into practice requires leaders to get to know who they’ve hired beyond a job description. Fitzgerald points to one of her coaching clients, an employee at the advertising giant Publicis who is a talented artist, as an example. She believes that recognizing and supporting deeper purpose is a key leadership responsibility. A misalignment between a person's work and their purpose, she suggests, can lead to burnout and disengagement. It's why her own philosophy is built on a powerful sense of internal accountability. “I never worked for SoulCycle. I worked for my soul. That means you show up with the highest integrity, 100% of the time," she says.

• Energetic earnings: She cautions workers against the impulse to phone it in, explaining that employees who hold back are only cheating themselves. The alternative is to treat every job as an investment in your own future. “When you put everything into where you are now, that's going to go into this awesome energetic bank account that will land you an even bigger and better job," Fitzgerald outlines.

• Pay it forward: Among her fellow panelists at the FQ Lounge, the responsibilities of mentorship and leadership echoed Fitzgerald's approach, embodied by The Female Quotient's own leader. "Nobody champions women like Shelley Zalis. I saw her at a dinner with 35 women, and she remembered details about each of their careers. It was so thoughtful, and it makes me want to be a leader like that," she recognizes.

In the end, Fitzgerald boils her leadership style down to a simple, daily practice intended to empower individuals to improve their own workplace interactions, one step at a time. "We can start small," she says. "Commit to not speak negatively about our female colleagues and friends and look for ways that we can lift each other up. It makes a big difference."