Leadership is about making others better in your presence and making sure that impact lasts in your absence.
-Harvard Business Review
Leadership is about making others better in your presence and making sure that impact lasts in your absence.
-Harvard Business Review
IT'S ABOUT TIME: SUPPORTING WOMEN AT THE TABLE
Throughout my career I have found myself in powerful places being supported and encouraged to think bigger and do more. I spent ten + years in education policy circles sitting at the tables of governors, think tanks and other policy makers. There were definitely times when I felt dismissed as a young person, as a woman and as a woman of color. But I was at the table. I always felt slightly uncomfortable and I also felt a sense of responsibility to serve those who were not at the table. It was that feeling of insecurity and responsibility that made me work harder, get smarter and think more creatively. I made an effort to go back and forth in my career between “policy and practice” to remind myself of what the voices on the ground needed. Was I truly understanding their perspective? Was I doing more harm than good with my power?
After the murder of George Floyd, I just decided I would show up for the women of color around me in new ways. As I got to know them, I realized that many women were struggling to be seen and heard in the organization. But why? They all had master’s degrees from fancy universities and were experts in their own right. They were certainly smarter and more accomplished than I was at their age. I started to meet weekly with a handful of them and bring them onto projects that I was working on so that I could better support them and understand what was propelling them to do the work and what was blocking them from doing the work in the most powerful way possible.
I saw more clearly that it was not just an imposter syndrome problem that was blocking their ability to step up and catch their stride. It was also an organizational culture and structural challenges in terms of how decisions are made and who makes decisions. What they really needed was help navigating the power structures so that they could do their best work. Navigation and guidance became my real purpose and focus inside my organization while delivering innovation and scale strategies (what I was hired to do) became secondary. These are the shifts that my amazing colleagues-- Brandee, Kysie, Emily, Isa, Titi, Akilah, Jen, Mariana, Michele, Michelle, Alida and others-- taught me matter most. To help women of color navigate and rise we need to move from >>> to:
From recruiting one success profile >>> To acknowledging that teams require different skills and talents to achieve extraordinary results. During the hiring process we have to screen for different leadership and skill profiles to balance out the needs of the team. And when the reorg happens, consider the full set of skills needed across the team before you let that person go!
From onboarding as transactional meetings with too many people whose names you'll forget >>> To thoughtful leadership development that includes conversations about purpose, passion, vision and collaboration; and looks more like coaching in a cohort to set these women up for success.
From investing in manager training and coaching >>> To creating a distributed support model for emerging leaders that might not be led by the manager and includes helping women of color navigate power structures within the organization.
From fake and expensive team building activities at retreats >>> To more inclusive every day table conversations and authentic ways of seeing and knowing each other.
From just giving women of color more work because they have shown they can handle it >>> To creating space for them to put their ideas on the table and the supports they need to succeed.
From Friday downloads of what happened during the week >>> To Monday emails that provoke conversations about values, quotes that make you pause and questions that may you reflect on your work in deeper ways.
From power over >>> To power with Mary Parker Follet said: "Leadership is not defined by the exercise of power but by the capacity to increase the sense of power among those led. The most essential work of a leader is to create more leaders." She coined the term "power with" to differentiate coercive power (power over) from participative decision-making.
PROJECT ODETTE
“The message that Swan Lake can provide to today’s social, professional, and even political climate is that no matter how rigid and unchangeable a situation may seem, or how powerless one may feel there is always room for choice, and there is always agency over the trajectory of our own lives, over our own dancing, over our own decisions.”
Swan Lake is one of my favorite ballets so I named this project after Odette, the main character. I am packaging what I’ve learned about power/strategy/equity/impact into something that expands my engagement with others; deepens my knowledge; opens up new opportunities for me and for the next generation of women of color leaders as they engage. It's all about choices. Stay tuned.
JOIN MY MONDAY EMAIL
For three months I'm sending a Monday email to encourage and inspire young women leaders to reclaim their power at work. They're short quotes, stories, pieces of advice, whatever the universe says to me. If you want to join the Monday email for three months, email me and tell me about yourself.