Now that U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris’ election represented a milestone for women, black women and Asian-American women alike, let’s call for momentum.
Because if organizations are not focusing on elevating significantly more black women to leadership positions, they are likely failing to do so.
Black women face compounded discrimination in the workplace with intersecting gender and racial identities—so while among the fasting-growing entrepreneurs, at least pre-pandemic, black women still struggle to pierce corporate leadership’s glass ceiling.
For how much longer will a lack of diversity results continue to reflect corporate commitment to holding onto homogeneousness in leadership?
The Conversation Is Finally Happening, But It Can’t Stop There
Former Senator Kamala Harris, a black woman and woman of Asian descent, broke new ground as the first woman to become U.S. Vice President. Though highly visible for all in the spirit of “if you can see it, you can be it”, a real shift will be evidenced when she is not an exception, and black women are prominent in influential leadership.
While the sociocultural conversation of 2020 focused on Black Lives Matter, the C-Suite conversation is arriving to the reality that black leadership matters—inducing financial and reputation-based reverberations for companies that continue to fail to move diversity beyond lip-service to a quantifiable reality.
In a commitment to accelerate efforts towards racial justice and equality, McKinsey Academy launched the Black Leadership Academy, with a Management Accelerator program and a Black Executive Leadership Program, to support progression to both senior leadership and C-Suite roles.
Several companies—such as Amazon, Uber, Microsoft, Salesforce, Facebook, Apple, and Google—vowed to significantly increase investment in black leadership and diversity, as well as made tangible commitments to % increases in representation.
Black Women Face Specific Challenges at Work
When we only talk about “women leaders” or “black leaders”, we are missing the point that black women are often sidelined in either discussion—either white women or black men often become the feature players.
Lean In released a report called “The State of Black Women in Corporate America,” which details the challenges and obstacles that black women specifically face—these, in effect, include underrepresentation, lack of support and access, day-to-day discrimination and unrealized, discouraged ambition.
Underrepresented and Undermined
75% of black women identify as ambitious towards their career, while 40% seek to attain a management position within the next five years. But while 37 women lead Fortune 500 firms, none are black, and while 21% of C-Suite leaders are women, only 1% are black women.
Less than 1% of Fortune 500 CEOs are black, with a total of only 18 Black CEOS across the past two decades—Ursula Burns was the only woman among them.
Whereas black women make up 7.4% of the U.S. population, they hold only 1.6% of VP positions and 1.4% of C-Suite positions. White men, however, make up only 35% of the U.S. population and dominate 57% of VP positions and 68% of C-Suite positions.
For every 100 men hired into manager roles, only 64 black women are. Black women request promotions at the same rate as men, but for every 100 men promoted to manager, only 58 black women are.
“The culture of promotion can also exclude qualified black candidates,” writes Jeanne Sahadi, “who may not be part of the social networks that board members and CEOs often use to vet a candidate.”
Black women are both the most educated and the fastest-growing group of entrepreneurs in the U.S., owning 21% of all women-owned businesses and with above average growth rate.
However, between 2009-2018, less than .0006% of venture capital went towards black women-led startups. And black women still earn 62 cents for every dollar earned by white men, compared to 82 cents on average for women.
Not only are black women underrepresented, but when they overcome obstacles to achieve success, their accomplishments are often attributed to external factors. This undermines recognizing black women for their talent, competency, hard work and hard-earned credit of their successes.
Less Support and Access to Leadership
Lean In points out that in a survey of U.S. law firm employees, “62% of women of color with some level of mentorship said the lack of an influential mentor was a barrier to their advancement; only 30% of white men said the same.”
Only 24% of black women say they have the sponsorship needed to advance their career, compared to 30% of women and 33% of men. Black women are less likely to feel their managers help navigate organizational politics, advocate for opportunities for them, or provide opportunities to showcase their work—with affinity bias likely playing a big role. Also, while 80% of white women and men see themselves as allies, less than half of black women feel they have strong allies behind them.
Meanwhile, employees with steady manager support are both more likely to be promoted and to believe they have the same opportunity to be promoted.
When it comes to leadership access, black women are least like to have a substantive interaction with a senior leader—41% never have, versus 27% for all men and 33% for all women. An even greater gap exists with casual interactions with a senior leader—59% never have, versus 40% for all men and 49% for all women.
Perhaps it’s no surprise that research has shown the attrition rate of black professionals in general is higher, with a third intending to leave their company within two years.
Emotional Tax of Daily Discrimination
Between the regular experience of microaggressions and often being the “only” black women in the room, black women pay a lot of emotional tax in the workplace.
“I learned at an early age to silence myself when it came to race, and it was at the expense of my own well-being,” says Minda Harts, CEO and founder of The Memo LLC, a career development company for women of color—as well as author of The Memo: What Women of Color Need to Know To Secure a Seat at the Table, who now encourages women to speak about these inequalities.
Lean In reports that black women are more likely to have to provide more evidence of their competence (40%, versus 30% of all women). And while one in ten white women have the experience of someone expressing surprise about their language skills or abilities, one in four black women suffer this microaggression. Women who regularly experience microaggressions think about leaving their job three times as much.
54% of black women often experience being the “only” one of their racial gender identity in the room. Black women who have this “only” experience are more likely to feel closely watched than other women in that circumstance (41% vs. 23% of all women, 10% of white women), on guard (40% vs. 25% of all women, 15% of white women) and pressured to perform (49% vs. 32% of all women, 11% of white women).
Not only that, but black women who are the “only” one are way more likely to feel their personal actions reflect on others like them (50% vs. 30% of all women, 9% of white women), aware they are seen as representatives of their race and gender.
“You have an added burden to succeed,” testified Mary Winston, formerly interim CEO of Bed, Bath and Beyond. “If you don’t, you know there won’t be another one like you for many years to come.”
Unrealized, Discouraged Ambition
Black women are earning more degrees than any other group and are as likely as white men (more likely than white women) to be interested in top executive positions, with increased desire to positively influence company culture and be a role model.
This very willingness to lead can work against black women in a double bind of the communal expectations of women, so that they suffer an ambition penalty.
Over the last 40 years, only 13% of black women Harvard MBAs have reached the most senior executive ranks, whereas 40% of non-African-American Harvard MBAs have.
Black professionals of any gender who do reach the C-Suite are rarely given the roles with high advancement potential, such as profit-and-loss positions, and more likely to be placed in marketing, human resources and administration.
The other reality is that those in power are less likely to validate the issue: a Boston Consulting Group survey indicated that while 43% of black colleagues observed obstacles to advance for people of color in their workplace, only 19% of white men above 45 years felt those obstacles existed.
Organizational Action to Support Black Women To Leadership
The Lean In authors suggest three key actions for companies to address obstacles to leadership for black women—in effect, make the advancement of black women a priority, address bias in both hiring and promotions and create an inclusive workspace.
Make Supporting Black Women a Specific Objective
As black women represent both racial and gender diversity amidst the false construct of default white male leadership, they often fall through the gaps, so the commitment to advancing black women in particular must be intentional.
Supporting black women to advance requires specific and measurable targets— in the consideration pool, in hiring and in promotion, in succession and in retention, but also in mentorship and sponsorship.
The progress against these measures should be visible and diversity targets attached to accountability in performance reviews and financial reward.
Reducing Bias in Hiring and Promotions
Diversity needs to begin with having black women (not just one black woman) represented in the pool of candidacy, as research has shown that a woman, or a black woman, has zero statistical chance of being hired if alone in a pool of finalists.
Beyond insidious bias awareness is training and tools to mitigate that bias, objective checks throughout the process (eg anonymous resume review), and use of technologies that provide truth-telling data and remove levels of bias to level the playing field.
Inclusive Workplace
Finally, organizations need to intentionally cultivate more inclusive workplaces, that reduce the emotional tax for black women, while providing the same casual support and access others receive.
This includes real guidelines to inclusive culture as well as training on anti-racism and allyship beyond affinity bias. It also means reducing the “only” experience for black women so it’s no longer the norm, and addressing the casual and nuanced ways that black women still fail to be invited into network and leadership access.
The conversation of black leadership, and particularly black women leadership, is now glaringly open and on the table. The question is which organizations will carry the talk through to character and action, until our leadership actually fully embodies the results of that commitment.
By Aimee Hansen
Thought Leader: Silke Muenster, Chief Diversity Officer, Phillip Morris International
People, Voices of Experience“Diversity is numbers, but inclusion is what makes diverse teams work.” She continues, “It is the culture that makes inclusion work and then innovation can happen. Innovation is fundamental to our vision at PMI of creating a smoke-free future. There are one billion smokers in the world, and our company is undertaking a huge task to make smoking cigarettes a thing of the past. Imagine the diversity that lies within our adult customer base so this is something we want to represent also inside PMI.”
Silke recounts how at university and in a large portion of her career, she was always surrounded by men from school classes to the senior management meetings she attended in Germany. Her career journey started at Coca-Cola where she stayed for twelve years and she joined PMI in 2011 as director, Market and Consumer Research, and then was appointed Vice President, Market Research in 2012.
In March 2020, she became PMI’s first Chief Diversity Officer (CDO) starting on the ‘first day of lockdown’ in Switzerland, in a year that would lead most people to reflect on the role of companies in advancing equity and furthering inclusion and diversity in society, and the future of work. Silke was working on this exact topic of “smart work” when COVID-19 hit, and sees real opportunity for everyone to have flexibility, now that the theory that remote work is not only possible, but possible for the vast majority of employees in many companies, has been truly road tested.
When she took the role of CDO, she felt that it was an excellent time to start. She noticed that it was clear that people wanted to talk about the topic and wanted to reflect on their priorities due to pandemic-induced changes of circumstances and the happenings in the world at large that occurred in 2020 – notably, the extension of the Black Lives Matter movement and the growing awareness that came to the forefront of social justice issues.
Diversity And Inclusion
“There has been a tendency for people to think that Diversity and Inclusion is about everyone being nice to each other, but D&I is about creating room for people to speak up so that everyone’s voice is heard.”
Silke believes that it is crucial for people in the company to have the right discussions but that the organization needed to first create the psychological safety to start these conversations. She believes that not everyone has to be an expert, but rather a willing participant, to engage in the conversation about how they would like to see the world in the future.
“Discussions can be had, and conflict can also occur, but ultimately those discussions can be therefore very productive.”
Silke believes that inclusion has benefits for everyone and on her list of things to ensure she and other senior leaders do, is to find a way to empower every employee to enter into the discussion about how to improve inclusion and advance our diversity –to ultimately better our organization and our business— no matter who they are, where they come from, what they look like, who they love, their ability or any other dimension of their identity.
“Different views need to be heard. I&D is something for everyone to participate in. Everyone has to drive this agenda as everyone will benefit. It starts from the top as it needs total commitment that it is a valued task to undertake.”
When she reveals what she is working on, she mentions that this is where she does delight in the numbers, as she has seen the needle move from 29% of women in management in 2014 go to 37% at the end of 2020—with the number of women on PMI’s Senior Management Team doubling from 8 percent to 16 percent in the space of 12 months (since January 2020 until year-end).
“We make gender diversity a company-wide goal and part of leaders’ efforts, and we make sure internal talent processes align. We also have worked hard to create Employee Resource Groups and have updated policies, such as most recently ensuring that we have a more inclusive minimum global parental leave principles which include men and women, and ensuring everyone is covered regardless of sexual orientation. I am also proud to say we have just signed The Valuable 500 and are committed to bring disability onto our 2021 agenda in a much bigger way.”
The Hard Conversations
“Diversity work is a journey and I personally have done a serious amount of reading to learn what I didn’t know and was interested in growing my understanding in this domain. To do this work, to take the journey, you have to start somewhere and have discussions, perhaps hard conversations that include talking about how the playing field is not level. Senior managers have to show vulnerability, which runs deep of course.”
Silke speaks of her thoughts around mentoring and sponsorship freely, revealing she is a very passionate mentor herself and believes that mentoring is the best way to start a sponsor relationship as the chemistry can truly evolve. She feels strongly that pilot programs are the best way to see if certain programmatic efforts work specifically for PMI so that the success of the program can be evaluated and then implemented widely for optimal success.
“It is not about ‘fixing’ women; rather, it is important to recognize that there are specific barriers that women face when it comes to career advancement and we want to make sure to create the right solution that actually helps.”
Silke reiterates her desire for specificity and not a broad approach and believes that she is now a coaching convert also.
“If you had of asked me twenty years ago about coaching, I would have not been convinced, but I have seen how well this can work, especially when there are specific challenges identified, then coaching can really help women and men alike.”
Hope for the Future
Silke hopes that diversity and inclusion stops being such a hard topic in the future but understands that much like quitting smoking cigarettes, that change comes from new behaviors and habits often underpinned by educational facts, incentives via good policies and shifting of cultural norms for everyone in the society.
“If I was to hope for one thing to happen, it would be that everyone gets fully involved so that they can feel and see the joy of belonging for themselves and others; that they can feel the joy of being seen and heard when the speak up at PMI; and that they find benefits in an inclusive environment no matter who they are.”
by Nicki Gilmour, CEO and Founder, Evolved People (theglasshammer.com)
OP-Ed: Actions Not Ads on International Women’s Day 2021
International Womens Day, News, Op-EdWhat wins are to be had for professional women at this historic juncture? Will this seismic shift ultimately enable structural changes that level the playing field for better diversity and inclusion at work, or are organizations letting disproportionately burdened women slip through the cracks?
Nothing has been brought more sharply into focus than the at-home employee experience, since Covid19 arrived to our cities, towns and places of work about one year ago, creating an almost immediate need to be remote. Just like that, everyone had to figure out how to work, when to work and even, if they could work.
One year on, many smart corporations are reflecting deeply about the employee experience and the future of work. There is a massive opportunity to create the physical and psychological space that people need to thrive and succeed at work, to recognize now what most professional women already knew—that everyone is not in the same boat in this storm. Nuances matter.
In 2020, social issues migrated into work and all the lines blurred. 2021 will only see more of this.
But will corporations finally integrate diversity and inclusion as cultural thriving and treat it with task expectations for all employees? Will they embrace a mindset change with committed actions? It takes courage to tackle the status quo with more than words.
Putting principle into action, Goldman Sachs will only take companies public if they have women on their boards. That is walking your talk and making behavioral and mindset change real.
Actions Are Better Than Words
As we celebrate International Women’s Day 2021 on 8th March, the theme this year is #choosetochallenge—with a hand in the air symbolic gesture—when bias rears its head or when women aren’t heard. While it’s an important message and sentiment, awareness is only the first step in anything, at best, and firms must create real change for all constituents.
Frankly put, work doesn’t work for many people right now.
It is now in plain sight that women, and professional women, are suffering more from the effects of the Covid pandemic, with the US having the biggest amount of women leaving the workforce, followed by Japan. Losses will be hard to recover from. Phrases like shecession may sound glib but the numbers don’t lie, with NPR reporting that women are back to 1988 levels of workforce participation. We want systemic and behavioral change.
Defining your values, really knowing who you are and connecting brand to purpose is the first step. The second step would ideally be walking the talk with actions. Interestingly research shows that sometimes talking the talk is vital to get to finally walk the talk.
Companies who know who they truly are will be able to embody their values better than companies who don’t know where they stand. Nothing became more urgent than to know who you are as when Black Lives Matter entered the workplace last year with employees requesting firms to know who they are.
Acting on your words and connecting meaningful purpose to your employee experience, as part of brand integrity, is what we need now.
If your company was a person, would you want to hang out with them? If they were your friend, would you trust that they would do what they say they believe in?
Seven Suggestions For Acts, Not Ads
So, if your firm wants to actually support you this International Women’s Day, there are simple actions that could show they are serious.
Here are some actions that organizations could take to live their espoused values and step up as leaders:
#1: Give women the option of a paid day off work on International Women’s Day.
Microsoft announced today that employees would get more paid leave due to the pandemic to alleviate having to be everywhere at once, since exhaustion is real and burnout is at an all time high. Working mothers in particular are at their wit’s end.
Several years ago, REI closed its stores on Black Friday and told its employees to live the company slogan “Go Outside” by introducing #Optoutside.
#2: Address the pay gap in your firm for real.
The wage gap, reinforced by static and traditional gender roles, plays a big part for women leaving work. Eve Rodsky, author of Fair Play, and Darcy Lockman, author of All the Rage, both explain the myth of equality between men and women in division of labor at home.
As an organizational psychologist, my take is how you operate at home, and whatever belief system you operate on, is what you take into the office with you—including impressions for both men and women of their gender role and the expectations and boundaries that come with that.
Consider that in 69% of US households where opposite sex partners live together, men are the highest earners. And, weirdly even female CEOs earn less than male counterparts in similar companies.
#3: Make it mandatory that meetings cannot be scheduled between 5.30pm-7.30pm.
These hours are usually dinner, bath and bedtime for employees with kids. Working dads will thank you also. Boundaries are important. Flex work is the new black with fewer taboos now that we know we can use technology easily from almost anywhere.
#4: Ask everyone if products and programs work for them.
Microsoft has included gamers with disabilities to test their games. Needs are different. Test assumptions by asking your constituents what they think.
#5: Ask people if they want to stay remote.
Tsedal Neeley, Harvard Business School’s Naylor Fitzhugh Professor of Business Administration and author of Remote Work Revolution: Succeeding from Anywhere, believes, “We’re definitely going to see a much bigger population working remotely. All the satisfaction comes when people are given a choice. Choice and autonomy are crucial for people to appreciate remote work and the chance afforded them.”
Equally, some people truly do want to return to the office soon, and the future design of the workplace for safe innovation and community has never been more timely. Innovation literally needs fresh space now.
#6: Walk your talk. Get serious. Grow.
Figure out what your real values are and how to live them as a leader of an already diverse workplace. Diversity management is a strategic capability.
#7: Let leaders be vulnerable.
Cancel culture kills vulnerability and prevents learning. We are all on a journey. Allow for correction, remorse and redemption—as we can’t grow if we aren’t given oxygen. And, context is everything.
Equally, know when you see a systemic flaw that tolerates or even creates incentives for ego-wars, control-dynamics, power-grasping and fear-based motivations to win. Change the system so these norms are not the status operating quo.
Will 2021 finally be the year that companies align internal talent process, and create real and meaningful pathways to inclusion and equity for professional women?
Actions not ads. Finally?
#Actsnotads. #IWD
Check our “Acts not Ads” work here: We deploy behavioral psychology techniques to employer brands to see if they really know who they are (values) and then, how they act (behaviors) so that employees can believe them. Audio and visuals have to match.
by Nicki Gilmour, CEO and Founder, Evolved People (theglasshammer.com)
Julie Gottshall: Partner and Chair, Employment Litigation and Counseling Practice, Katten
People, Voices of ExperienceWhen she was first starting out, Katten’s Julie Gottshall would not have predicted she would spend nearly her entire legal career working for a single large law firm. In a profession with many options, and an era that often rewards job changes, Gottshall believed she would join different employers and maybe even take some time off the career fast track. Instead, Gottshall found a position that enabled her to grow and balance, and decided to stick with it.
Sometimes, says Gottshall, the best opportunity is the one you already have.
Finding Her Niche
Gottshall’s career has been a steady climb. After graduating from George Washington University Law School, she decided that moving to Chicago would be her “great life adventure,” despite the fact that she had no obvious connection to the city. She initially eschewed the largest law firms, choosing to start her legal career at a midsize firm that she hoped would provide a more appealing lifestyle. But when she was a fourth-year associate, two partners with whom she worked closely joined Katten. She moved with them to continue her career focus on employment counseling and litigation, a practice she has solidly established and now leads.
Gottshall felt drawn to employment law for the human element of the practice, and the opportunity to keep her corporate clients out of trouble but defend them if they nonetheless found themselves facing a lawsuit. At Katten, Gottshall handles a broad spectrum of employment issues, including worker mobility (e.g., non-compete implementation and enforcement); employee separations and reductions in force; worker classification and wage/ hour compliance; handbook and policy implementation; workplace investigations; and discrimination and harassment prevention. She has litigated in numerous state and federal courts at both the trial and appellate level, and before all manner of government agencies. She also acts as an impartial third-party arbitrator on the Employment Panel of the American Arbitration Association, where she has decided cases involving breach of contract; discrimination, retaliation and harassment issues; and other workplace matters.
Gottshall likes to quip that one of her most impressive professional achievements is to fly deftly under the radar, since she works hard to keep her clients on track and out of the spotlight. Always one to look for practical solutions, she describes herself as a counselor first, an attorney second, and a litigator last. Still, she knows her way around a courtroom. She is particularly proud of a whistleblower case she argued and won before the Illinois Supreme Court – a victory that was the culmination of 11 years of work. After she prevailed in the lower court only to see the decision overturned on appeal, she sought certiorari, becoming one of seven out of 237 petitions the Illinois Supreme Court agreed to hear that session. The high court ruled unanimously in her client’s favor, marking a noteworthy victory for her client and a favorable precedent for other employers.
Gottshall finds employment law is a particularly exciting space right now, given the current remote work environment during the pandemic that has prompted employers to reimagine the workplace and what it will look like in both the near and distant future, as well as presented challenges regarding workplace safety, sick leave and furloughs and layoffs.
Mastering the Balancing Act
While the legal field continues to evolve in its support for personal life choices, Gottshall finds that women still face a constant challenge in finding the right balance. “We are called upon to take on so many roles— some that we need to do and some that we want to do,” says Gottshall. “It’s up to each person to decide how to allocate her time and navigate how much is spent on family and other pursuits, versus how much is poured into a career.”
Still, Gottshall has found Katten conducive to personal as well as professional growth. As she notes, a long tenure at a single firm allows you to build credibility and good will. Your colleagues know your work ethic and contributions, which better positions you to set boundaries and request flexibility. She encourages the use of maternity and paternity leave and other options such as Katten’s sabbatical program, designed to help promote work-life balance. “I applaud women who lean in, but also take advantage of the programs offered, especially today as companies realize they have to adapt to keep their top performers,” Gottshall said. Like most women, Gottshall tries to multi-task when she can. In fact, she once leveraged her maternity leave to take a mediation course to further her career. “Women should determine the best course for them, their families and careers.”
Gottshall appreciates opportunities like the Katten Women’s Leadership Forum that can support women attorneys’ desire to create bonds with other women and fulfill the responsibility to be a mentor.
Part of her balance also comes from using her skills in her community. For example, she has been a school board member for eight years, which she sees as an important commitment. “It’s a gratifying way to leverage my professional knowledge while giving back,” she says.
With one daughter in college and another in her senior year of high school, Gottshall and her husband are looking forward to determining what it means to be “empty nesters.” For now, they enjoy paddle sports and indulge in their passion for travel, especially visiting national parks.
“You have to be mindful of your priorities,” she said, “and look for the joy in everyday pursuits so you don’t lose sight of perspective in all the things life offers you.”
Courtney Lee: Associate Investment Strategist, Dimensional Fund Advisors
People, Rising StarsLee shares on the value of the learning curve, bridging the gap in socializing at work and taking a scaffolding approach to overcoming networking aversion.
Chasing A Steep Learning Curve
Coming out of Brown University with a business economics degree but no desire to go down the Ph.D. route, Lee found herself moving towards finance and then investment management.
She was not drawn to the idea of sales—or the outgoing, used car salesman kind of personality she associated with it—but she tried it with a friend’s referral.
“I ended up enjoying sales once I discovered how to implement my own approach” reflects Lee. “Essentially you just provide people with information and let them decide how they want to use that.”
When the steep learning curve flattened out, however, Lee grew restless and sought out an MBA from Washington University in St. Louis, so she could develop analytical skills to dive deeper into the data.
“There are a lot of factors at play that affect your investment portfolio—part of my job is to understand and communicate those factors,” says Lee. “My job is to explain complicated things in an uncomplicated manner so that people can understand it.”
Building Up Your Learning Capacity
“I look for steep learning curves,” says Lee. “I do that over and over and over again”—such as enrolling in a rotational program at State Street Global Advisors (SSGA) after business school.
“I begin new opportunities with confidence that although I don’t know much yet, I will. I have to be curious and unashamed about asking questions,” says Lee. “If something is unclear, I do not assume that my questions are dumb or that everyone knows except me. I just ask. By asking those questions early and often, I climb the learning curve.”
If she could, Lee would assure her undergrad self that it’s okay to not know what she doesn’t yet know and that she will learn most things on the job.
“What you’re learning in university is a good foundation,” she notes, “but you’re always going to have a learning curve—the gradient depends on your background and what fundamental knowledge you have.”
As a Division 1 basketball player back at Brown, she used to return pre-Covid to share her experience and perspective with student-athletes.
“I tell them that employers know that you don’t know everything,” she says. “They’re hiring you because they’re confident that you can learn and that they can teach you what you need to know to do the job.”
She recommends building up your learning capacity to lessen the curve each time—“continue building a strong foundation of relevant knowledge and skills that make climbing the learning curve easier and faster.”
Lee values mentorship for gleaning insight and knowledge from those ahead of her on the curve.
“I often use mentorship for perspective,” she says, calling on others to help her think about a situation, to check her thought processes, to ask how they would handle a decision.
“I don’t know what I don’t know,” Lee says, “but there are a lot of people who can guide me.”
Bridging the Gap
Building up camaraderie with mostly male colleagues in the office wasn’t easy in the early days when she began.
Lee noticed she wasn’t getting invited to lunches or to happy hour. Playing basketball during Friday lunch was the bridge she took to finding other common ground.
Once she connected on the basketball court, Lee began to be invited out with colleagues. Other times she simply asked to join them. While socializing has become less of an issue, Lee still feels women at her level are hampered by stuck perceptions and taboos.
“Male colleagues can go out for a drink with a male boss or a male boss’s boss without scrutiny. The same is not always true for young female professionals,” she observes.
Building Up To Enjoying Networking
Lee admits being initially resistant to networking, but the lasting relationships that she’s built at each firm are now what she finds most fulfilling.
“As an undergrad, I thought of networking as superficial and intimidating” says Lee, but her business school experience slowly broke her from this aversion.
“At Washington University in St. Louis, networking was a requirement during orientation. They made it easy and low stakes,” she recalls. “First, you were networking with your classmates. And by networking with your classmates, you’re making friends.”
Lee explains how the school took a scaffolding approach. After classmates, students were then asked to connect with alumni, who could offer valuable insight and advice. Lastly, they applied their networking skills with prospective employers.
“By the time the employers come in, you’re like I’m just connecting with people and having a one-on-one conversations,” Lee reflects. “I’m an introvert, and I felt comfortable with that.”
Even when it comes to event networking, Lee recalls valuable advice such as considering approaching a group of two or three people, rather than a group of four with no obvious space to step into.
“Others are often there for the same reason and it can be awkward, so they’re looking for you to initiate too,” she notes.
Developing Expertise and Contributing
While she loves traversing learning curves, Lee is excited to transition from a generalist to building expertise in her new position.
“I’m really excited to climb this learning curve,” she says. “It’s a new firm. It’s a new role. There’s a new investment philosophy, so all of it is very stimulating. My goals are to learn and contribute.”
During one of her rotations back at SSGA, she specialized briefly in Environmental, Social, and (Corporate) Governance (ESG) investments. She’s excited that much of this approach—such as exclusionary and inclusionary screening—is being increasingly integrated into the broader investment process throughout the industry.
Her personal donor-advised fund, a fund used solely for contributing to non-for-profits, is also invested in sustainable and impact strategies.
Growing In New Surroundings
Lee is settling in after a move from Boston to Austin, Texas for her DFA role, intent on the conscious effort to build community in a pandemic world.
Yet another learning curve Lee has launched herself into is DIY woodworking. With her move, she brought a coffee table, blanket ladder and sit-stand desk she crafted with her own hands.
“With guidance, I think I can learn how to do this,” she says, no matter what it is—and all the evidence shows she can.
By Aimee Hansen
Jamila Houser: Deputy Chief Underwriter – Agency Lending, PGIM Real Estate
People, Voices of ExperienceHouser speaks honestly on qualifying yourself, showing up as you and the challenges of leveling up while finding your balance.
Getting Into The Door
With strong natural abilities in math and science, Houser grew up thinking her job options were becoming a doctor or an engineer.
But while picking up her second undergrad degree at Georgia Tech (in engineering), she realized that designing laptop fans—her final senior test —was not the gateway to her ideal field, as a naturally outgoing people person.
After working in consulting at Accenture, she moved towards a real estate concentration in her MBA at Georgia State, which eventually launched her into 17 years of moving up through the ranks with PGIM Real Estate so far—where she loves the people, culture, challenges and opportunities.
But getting that initial foot in the door was no small feat. Her resume lacked real estate experience and 75% of the job post read like a foreign language. So Houser chose to emphasize from her daily life how she was a bright individual with genuine passion for the space, who could learn and had the energy to come in, figure things out and get stuff done.
“What skills do you think you bring to the space and what is it that interests you most about this opportunity?” Houser advises to ask, emphasizing that as women we too often mistake that we have to tick every box.
“Forget the fact that you have no experience,” she says. “How can you communicate your interest in such a way that you convince them that you are worth the investment?”
She recommends to be aware of the energy you are bringing foremost, come with clarity on what skills you offer and clearly exemplify those skills and how they will add value.
She also attributes her success to managers who had the courage to do something different and invest in knowing and growing her.
“It’s so important that when people are choosing an organization to work with, they are interviewing that manager just as much as they are being interviewed,” notes Houser. “You want to go somewhere where there are people who see value in you and are going to do their part to help ensure your success.”
If You Can’t See It, Can You Still Be It?
Houser admits feeling like an outsider when she initially entered into finance those couple decades ago. The industry appeared to be a conservative, formal and stifled male world where she didn’t belong as a warm and friendly people person.
While there are far more women and women events since she entered the industry, Houser notes that it still takes energy to network in a conference room where she is one of few people of color, let alone senior women of color.
“I think for me personally I have had to get comfortable with being uncomfortable,” she says. Houser has learned to go into new roles as who she is, not measuring her compatibility for the role by the gender, skin color, personality or approach of her predecessor.
“I may not see someone who looks like me, talks like me, sounds like me, but I still see myself in people who are in leadership,” she notes. “You get to realize you’re not that different.”
“I’ve never met a stranger. I just love people,” says Houser. “And I can empathize and understand that the people I’m dealing with are in a large part influenced by the lenses they’ve developed over time. So I can build relationships in a way that allows us to get to know each other.”
Recently, in a Zoom presentation to several heads of business, a simple smile from one gentleman amidst a screen of faces reminded her: “You’re just talking to other regular human beings. You’re here, you have something to say and they’re here to listen to you.”
Leveling Up Your Skills and Brand
“I’ve built my brand on hard work,” says Houser, coming from a line of single mothers. Her own mother completed her Ph.D. across 20 years while also working three jobs.
“Hard work, determination and persistence caused me to rise in the organization very quickly up to a certain point. The earlier promotions happened automatically,” Houser observes. “But there comes a point where those qualities alone are not enough, and moving up through senior management levels requires mastering new skills.”
Houser admits she works to rebuild proficiency and confidence each time she levels up.
“I have to be very intentional about negative speak—especially when I’m going into new positions or new opportunities,” she says of the critical inner voices familiar to many of us. “How quickly can I cut that off?”
Houser is grateful for mentors and sponsors who have witnessed and magnified her strengths as well as been able to point out her subtler blindspots or gaps… and dissolve her false concerns.
With her recent promotion, she’s been facing the common leadership growth pains of moving from the “hardworking” brand she’s confidently built her career on to redefining her value by leading and supporting others to be effective and productive.
“I hold myself to a very high standard, probably unreasonably high,” says Houser, “so when you’re shifting to no longer being the doer but now the manager, you have to tone it down. Moving from colleague, or peer, to manager is a difficult transition that I’m still mastering.”
Rather than assume how her team wants her to support them, her approach has been to get very clear on what support her team needs from her while communicating what she needs and expects from her team.
At first it was difficult not to jump in and put her hand in everything out of habit, but the sheer volume of work has shifted her towards more delegation and trust, so she can focus on where she needs to go now too.
Finding Your Authentic Expression
Houser is an outcomes-driven person who has learned across time to bridge the conversation differently with those who are more process, detail or strategy-oriented, with their own inclinations and gifts.
One of her personal journeys has been finding her authentic expression in a professional setting, and letting that move with her.
“The switch flipped for me with authenticity that I can still be myself but there’s a way to be myself at work,” says Houser, noting her husband pointed out to her that her professional self is as much a part of her wholeness as her Sunday dinner self.
“I have had to wrestle with the idea of authenticity,” says Houser, “and I think I’ve become much more comfortable that I can be who I am and express how I express. I have found the right balance where I bring my authentic self but into the work setting.”
Bringing Others Up With You
“Once it clicked that not only do I have a seat at the table, but people also look up to me,” observes Houser, “I began to take the responsibility to lift others to success very seriously.”
While she used to be focused solely on her own contribution, Houser now spends most of her time looking around to see who she can advocate for, make visible and elevate, building the close mentor relationships she herself has valued as a mentee.
“I especially champion the ones who no one is thinking about, nobody is talking about, they’re not raising their hand,” she says. “They’re fine sitting over there and doing their job every day to a very high degree.”
“That gives me so much joy,” says Houser, “using the skills, the talent, the relationships, the knowledge I’ve gained to help someone else be successful.”
Practicing Self-Care to Show Up For Others
As many women share, being passionate about her job in the remote, 24/7 availability work environment and being a mother of ten and eight year old sons who are distant learning beside her at home has made creating balance more challenging.
“I’ve found that if I don’t take care of myself, I can’t show up and be there for my staff, for my kids or my husband,” observes Houser. “So though I may want to put my hand in all these efforts and do all of these things, I need to put my own oxygen mask on first.”
She has found declaring self-care recharge days and moments for herself to be a necessary grace. She plans to cultivate more intentional quality time and movie nights with her boys.
Houser finds meditative rhythm by running in a women’s group each morning come rain or snow, and gardening continues to be a lifelong love of hers, with a future interest in helping to create urban farms.
By Aimee Hansen
Beyond Kamala Harris: Elevating More Black Women to Leadership
Black History MonthBecause if organizations are not focusing on elevating significantly more black women to leadership positions, they are likely failing to do so.
Black women face compounded discrimination in the workplace with intersecting gender and racial identities—so while among the fasting-growing entrepreneurs, at least pre-pandemic, black women still struggle to pierce corporate leadership’s glass ceiling.
For how much longer will a lack of diversity results continue to reflect corporate commitment to holding onto homogeneousness in leadership?
The Conversation Is Finally Happening, But It Can’t Stop There
Former Senator Kamala Harris, a black woman and woman of Asian descent, broke new ground as the first woman to become U.S. Vice President. Though highly visible for all in the spirit of “if you can see it, you can be it”, a real shift will be evidenced when she is not an exception, and black women are prominent in influential leadership.
While the sociocultural conversation of 2020 focused on Black Lives Matter, the C-Suite conversation is arriving to the reality that black leadership matters—inducing financial and reputation-based reverberations for companies that continue to fail to move diversity beyond lip-service to a quantifiable reality.
In a commitment to accelerate efforts towards racial justice and equality, McKinsey Academy launched the Black Leadership Academy, with a Management Accelerator program and a Black Executive Leadership Program, to support progression to both senior leadership and C-Suite roles.
Several companies—such as Amazon, Uber, Microsoft, Salesforce, Facebook, Apple, and Google—vowed to significantly increase investment in black leadership and diversity, as well as made tangible commitments to % increases in representation.
Black Women Face Specific Challenges at Work
When we only talk about “women leaders” or “black leaders”, we are missing the point that black women are often sidelined in either discussion—either white women or black men often become the feature players.
Lean In released a report called “The State of Black Women in Corporate America,” which details the challenges and obstacles that black women specifically face—these, in effect, include underrepresentation, lack of support and access, day-to-day discrimination and unrealized, discouraged ambition.
Underrepresented and Undermined
75% of black women identify as ambitious towards their career, while 40% seek to attain a management position within the next five years. But while 37 women lead Fortune 500 firms, none are black, and while 21% of C-Suite leaders are women, only 1% are black women.
Less than 1% of Fortune 500 CEOs are black, with a total of only 18 Black CEOS across the past two decades—Ursula Burns was the only woman among them.
Whereas black women make up 7.4% of the U.S. population, they hold only 1.6% of VP positions and 1.4% of C-Suite positions. White men, however, make up only 35% of the U.S. population and dominate 57% of VP positions and 68% of C-Suite positions.
For every 100 men hired into manager roles, only 64 black women are. Black women request promotions at the same rate as men, but for every 100 men promoted to manager, only 58 black women are.
“The culture of promotion can also exclude qualified black candidates,” writes Jeanne Sahadi, “who may not be part of the social networks that board members and CEOs often use to vet a candidate.”
Black women are both the most educated and the fastest-growing group of entrepreneurs in the U.S., owning 21% of all women-owned businesses and with above average growth rate.
However, between 2009-2018, less than .0006% of venture capital went towards black women-led startups. And black women still earn 62 cents for every dollar earned by white men, compared to 82 cents on average for women.
Not only are black women underrepresented, but when they overcome obstacles to achieve success, their accomplishments are often attributed to external factors. This undermines recognizing black women for their talent, competency, hard work and hard-earned credit of their successes.
Less Support and Access to Leadership
Lean In points out that in a survey of U.S. law firm employees, “62% of women of color with some level of mentorship said the lack of an influential mentor was a barrier to their advancement; only 30% of white men said the same.”
Only 24% of black women say they have the sponsorship needed to advance their career, compared to 30% of women and 33% of men. Black women are less likely to feel their managers help navigate organizational politics, advocate for opportunities for them, or provide opportunities to showcase their work—with affinity bias likely playing a big role. Also, while 80% of white women and men see themselves as allies, less than half of black women feel they have strong allies behind them.
Meanwhile, employees with steady manager support are both more likely to be promoted and to believe they have the same opportunity to be promoted.
When it comes to leadership access, black women are least like to have a substantive interaction with a senior leader—41% never have, versus 27% for all men and 33% for all women. An even greater gap exists with casual interactions with a senior leader—59% never have, versus 40% for all men and 49% for all women.
Perhaps it’s no surprise that research has shown the attrition rate of black professionals in general is higher, with a third intending to leave their company within two years.
Emotional Tax of Daily Discrimination
Between the regular experience of microaggressions and often being the “only” black women in the room, black women pay a lot of emotional tax in the workplace.
“I learned at an early age to silence myself when it came to race, and it was at the expense of my own well-being,” says Minda Harts, CEO and founder of The Memo LLC, a career development company for women of color—as well as author of The Memo: What Women of Color Need to Know To Secure a Seat at the Table, who now encourages women to speak about these inequalities.
Lean In reports that black women are more likely to have to provide more evidence of their competence (40%, versus 30% of all women). And while one in ten white women have the experience of someone expressing surprise about their language skills or abilities, one in four black women suffer this microaggression. Women who regularly experience microaggressions think about leaving their job three times as much.
54% of black women often experience being the “only” one of their racial gender identity in the room. Black women who have this “only” experience are more likely to feel closely watched than other women in that circumstance (41% vs. 23% of all women, 10% of white women), on guard (40% vs. 25% of all women, 15% of white women) and pressured to perform (49% vs. 32% of all women, 11% of white women).
Not only that, but black women who are the “only” one are way more likely to feel their personal actions reflect on others like them (50% vs. 30% of all women, 9% of white women), aware they are seen as representatives of their race and gender.
“You have an added burden to succeed,” testified Mary Winston, formerly interim CEO of Bed, Bath and Beyond. “If you don’t, you know there won’t be another one like you for many years to come.”
Unrealized, Discouraged Ambition
Black women are earning more degrees than any other group and are as likely as white men (more likely than white women) to be interested in top executive positions, with increased desire to positively influence company culture and be a role model.
This very willingness to lead can work against black women in a double bind of the communal expectations of women, so that they suffer an ambition penalty.
Over the last 40 years, only 13% of black women Harvard MBAs have reached the most senior executive ranks, whereas 40% of non-African-American Harvard MBAs have.
Black professionals of any gender who do reach the C-Suite are rarely given the roles with high advancement potential, such as profit-and-loss positions, and more likely to be placed in marketing, human resources and administration.
The other reality is that those in power are less likely to validate the issue: a Boston Consulting Group survey indicated that while 43% of black colleagues observed obstacles to advance for people of color in their workplace, only 19% of white men above 45 years felt those obstacles existed.
Organizational Action to Support Black Women To Leadership
The Lean In authors suggest three key actions for companies to address obstacles to leadership for black women—in effect, make the advancement of black women a priority, address bias in both hiring and promotions and create an inclusive workspace.
Make Supporting Black Women a Specific Objective
As black women represent both racial and gender diversity amidst the false construct of default white male leadership, they often fall through the gaps, so the commitment to advancing black women in particular must be intentional.
Supporting black women to advance requires specific and measurable targets— in the consideration pool, in hiring and in promotion, in succession and in retention, but also in mentorship and sponsorship.
The progress against these measures should be visible and diversity targets attached to accountability in performance reviews and financial reward.
Reducing Bias in Hiring and Promotions
Diversity needs to begin with having black women (not just one black woman) represented in the pool of candidacy, as research has shown that a woman, or a black woman, has zero statistical chance of being hired if alone in a pool of finalists.
Beyond insidious bias awareness is training and tools to mitigate that bias, objective checks throughout the process (eg anonymous resume review), and use of technologies that provide truth-telling data and remove levels of bias to level the playing field.
Inclusive Workplace
Finally, organizations need to intentionally cultivate more inclusive workplaces, that reduce the emotional tax for black women, while providing the same casual support and access others receive.
This includes real guidelines to inclusive culture as well as training on anti-racism and allyship beyond affinity bias. It also means reducing the “only” experience for black women so it’s no longer the norm, and addressing the casual and nuanced ways that black women still fail to be invited into network and leadership access.
The conversation of black leadership, and particularly black women leadership, is now glaringly open and on the table. The question is which organizations will carry the talk through to character and action, until our leadership actually fully embodies the results of that commitment.
By Aimee Hansen
Rose-Gaëlle Belinga: Technology Associate, Morgan Stanley
People, Rising StarsBelinga speaks about her unique journey into software engineering and her passion for applying tech acumen to better the world.
The Power of Simple Innovation
Growing up in her family home in Yaoundé, Cameroon, Belinga was inspired towards STEM at an early age by her parents, both family trailblazers who attended university in science fields.
While inclined towards STEM, what piqued her interest in technology was a simple can opener.
When her uncle gifted her book on inventions, she was inspired to learn that the can opener was not invented until 40 years after the can, meaning that people had accepted a harder way to do things.
“Someone said there must be an easier way, and if it doesn’t exist I’m going to go ahead and invent it and everybody is going to benefit from my invention,” says Belinga.
The notion of making a big impact on lives from a simple innovation catalyzed her passion for technological innovation.
Another Kind of Language
After high school, she moved to the U.S. and attained her bachelor and master’s degree in software engineering from Auburn University, alongside a bachelor of arts from Oglethorpe.
But coming from Cameroon, where neither computers nor internet were prevalent at that time, when a professor recommended that she take his Java course, she assumed he was referring to the island in Indonesia.
When that same professor described software through the example of the plane that senses, provides data and course-corrects for the pilot, steering the plane most of the time, she saw that “software was almost the spirit in the machine” and realized tech could complement any field of interest she would have.
As a polyglot, she now counts her programming proficiency among her Bulu, English, French, and German fluency, as well as Latin, Hungarian and Spanish languages she can speak at some level.
“Programming languages also have the grammar and spelling and syntax and all,” she notes.
In 2012, she joined Morgan Stanley after first summer interning there, and loving the company culture, complexity of problems, richness of technology and mobility of opportunities inside the organization.
Leveraging Your Difference
When Belinga moved to an engineering school with 96% caucasian and mainly male student peers, her initial sense of imposter syndrome was offset by being actively supported by her student peers and a Moroccan professor who advised her to leverage her differences.
“My professor told me that when he goes into a classroom, he doesn’t know who the best students are. But when he sees a female student or person of color, they get his attention right away,” she recalls from her junior year. “That’s how my professor challenged me, not to look at being underrepresented as holding me back but as an advantage – and let my work speak for itself.”
Those words stayed with her. When she first began employment, Belinga used her voice to call out those who assumed she was part of the administrative staff rather than the engineering team. But she has never considered her gender nor ethnicity as a barrier to her possibilities.
“Instead, I am showing that the abundance mindset is a thing,” says Belinga. “I’m here for a reason, and everyone I work with knows that. I now get more responsibility than some of my colleagues because I stand out and my team knows I can deliver.”
She mentors to keep your long-term interests in mind when making job decisions – such as advising a friend against moving to a position that was perhaps a diversity quota win for the team but not the best move for him personally, or advising a mentee into a PhD track so she could arrive to her desired focus of tech research.
Technological Philanthropy
“Because I stand out,” she shares, “I try to take advantage of the platform to open the door for others, such as encouraging colleagues to go to under-served high schools to teach computer science or encouraging male colleagues to mentor female students.”
She emphasizes that it can’t just be women helping women or people of color helping people of color, but everyone can step up.
Belinga is animated by technology philanthropy, putting her tech acumen to work for the greater good, not only teaching computer science to students in locally under-served high schools in the New York/New Jersey areas, but also making tech vocations accessible in places where they have been absent.
“One thing that has always made me sad was that I had to leave my support network, my family and everything I knew in order to pursue my studies and seek a better lifestyle,” she reflects. “It would have been nice if those opportunities had been made available locally.”
So Belinga is dedicated to being a part of the change she wants to see. Volunteering in partnership with Global Code and TurnTabl, she has traveled to Ghana with fellow volunteers the last few summers, apart from this past summer.
Partnering with Global Code, they instruct a three to four week crash course which empowers the community students to envision a tech solution project to help the local community – and together they develop the prototype.
For example, due to youth urban migration for education and work, elders did not always have immediate family to call on, let alone an equivalent of 911. The students created a necklace for elderly in the village with an embedded device and three buttons, pre-programmed to make calls or send messages for support in case of falling or emergency.
The best students from the Global Code program can then apply to the Turntabl program to be placed in contract technology jobs (with mentorship) for companies in North America, Europe and Asia from their home country, without having to relocate from their families or support system, as Belinga once did.
Envisioning What is Possible
Catalyzed by her passion for technology philanthropy, one of Belinga’s interests is Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality (AR/VR), which she researches as part of an innovation program that allows employees to dedicate 20% of their time to exploring new solutions or technologies.
“Wouldn’t it be great if with a headset we could allow different people to collaborate in the same virtual room?” she asks, whether an office or in a classroom.
Along with the benefit of collaboration, 3D data visualization animates her. She imagines her nephews being able to explore a village in the rainforest or to hear someone speak her native tongue, Bulu.
She also sees the potential of AR/VR to shift how we think about the issues we need to collectively confront, such as by immersing us in the reality of places most affected by them. Her first contact with the power of AR/VR was standing in middle of Times Square as she experienced it submerged according to sea level rising scenarios.
“AR/VR has the potential to help us see how the actions we take affect other people we don’t see,” she says, “so we can build more emotional intelligence and motivate ourselves to tackle it together.”
Belinga is an active member of the FIRE movement. For her, it represents finding life hacks to make your biggest dreams (if health, wealth and time were no issue) happen in the here and now.
She is currently polishing up Pachelbel’s “Canon in D” on the violin to fulfill her brother’s wish for a public performance (it will be her first) at his wedding this summer.
By Aimee Hansen
Check-In: Let’s Put Self-Love On the Conversation Table.
Career Advice, Career Tip of the Week!Yet self-love is an internal orientation from which to envision and navigate our lives—be it personal or professional, and it is what fosters self-worth, self-respect and self-care.
So as we near Valentine’s Day, let’s invite self-love to join this conversation.
Is Self-Care Enough?
According to Psych Central, “self-care is any activity that we do deliberately in order to take care of our mental, emotional and physical health.”
But we often talk about self-care as a momentary respite from a hectic life in order to restore our energy, or a set practice we do before the day runs away from us.
“Self-care should not be something we resort to because we are so absolutely exhausted that we need some reprieve from our own relentless internal pressure,” writes Brianna West writes in Thought Catalog.
“Self-compassion is regarding yourself compassionately. Self-care, by contrast, is treating yourself compassionately,” writes Charlie Gilkey, “…Self-care without self-compassion discharges a debt, usually with suffering somewhere else.”
Self-care spa dates alone are no proxy for cultivating a state of self-love as your foundation for experiencing yourself and the world. Without self-love, superficial self-care can be the coping mechanism or distraction from living a reality that is painfully out of alignment with your needs, desires, meaning fulfillment or growth.
Self-Love Means Self-Valuation
“Self-love means finding peace within ourselves — resting comfortably within the depths of our being. We might find temporary respite by doing something to nurture ourselves,” writes John Amadeo, Ph.D. in Psychology Today, “But a deeper inner peace requires cultivating a certain way of being with ourselves — a warm and nurturing attitude toward what we experience inside.”
Self-love is by definition an ability to meet ourselves where we are, loving and accepting of this moment of “me” right now, right here. It asks us to create expansive change from a place of love and respect, rather than shame or fear.
“Self-love is not simply a state of feeling good. It is a state of appreciation for oneself that grows from actions that support our physical, psychological and spiritual growth,” writes Deborah Khoshaba Psy.D. “Self-love is dynamic; it grows through actions that mature us.
“When we act in ways that expand self-love in us,” Khoshaba continues, “we begin to accept much better our weaknesses as well as our strengths, have less need to explain away our short-comings, have compassion for ourselves as human beings struggling to find personal meaning, are more centered in our life purpose and values, and expect living fulfillment through our own efforts.”
As “actions that mature us,” self-care can include listening within with radical self-honesty. It can mean making the sometimes difficult, heart-aligned, self-discerned choices and changes that create a more integrated life.
“Self-care is often a very unbeautiful thing,” West writes, pointing out that self-care often means doing the thing you least want to do — whether it’s figuring out your accounts or leaving the position or relationship or forgoing the immediacy of a compulsive habit to self-parent yourself into making the choices that nurture your growth.
“Self-love means having a high regard for your own well-being and happiness. Self-love means taking care of your own needs and not sacrificing your well-being to please others,” writes Jeffrey Borenstein, M.D., President & CEO of the Brain & Behavior Research Foundation. “Self-love means not settling for less than you deserve.”
Increasing Heart and Mind Alignment
According to HeartMath Institute, which studies the effect of heart activity on brain function, the mind and the heart (which has its own neural network) are constantly in two-way communication.
The heart actually actually sends more signals to the brain, influencing both emotional processing and higher cognitive faculties, than the brain sends to the heart. Your brain is constantly responding to your heart.
A big part of self-love is coming into that place of acceptance and self-validation where your mind and heart are more aligned more often, and you create from this space.
When you’re out of alignment with the core pulse of your inner being, you may feel life is hard and that you’re stuck. You may feel disconnected with yourself and sense that something is generally off, no matter what you do.
You may often feel foggy and lack energy or animus or vision, like your personal meaning has drained of color. You may feel like you’re living an external reality that does not match, or no longer matches, who you feel you are inside, and your self-care is your attempt to cope.
Sometimes, you can be in a moment in life where your meaning-maker is in cyclical change: where what used to fulfill you no longer nourishes you the same and perhaps your personal evolution calls for something more.
However, when you are deeply honest with yourself, deeply accepting of yourself, and honoring and validating your needs while acting from personal alignment, you begin to feel less stress and more vitality. You do not block any emotion because emotions can provide data and feedback.
You feel a greater sense of wholeness and peace within yourself and connection to yourself, to others and to the world. You are more curious and more creative. You feel mentally and physically more solid and have greater resilience for accepting yourself even in your struggles.
Questions To Check-In With Your Heart:
– How open are you to feeling all of your emotional experience? Do you block, disallow, distract or escape from experiencing certain emotions? Can you accept yourself in both uncertainty and vulnerability? Do you practice bringing awareness to your emotions as information?
– Do you trust in yourself — and at least as much as you trust others? Do you listen to your own voice as the authority in your life? Are there areas in your life where you could gently build up more self-trust and inner accountability? Are you able to forgive yourself?
– Do you create the space to intentionally check-in with your heart? Do you slow down and get still enough to discern the signals of your own truth from the collective noise, or do you keep the wheels spinning so you can’t? What would you hear if you did?
– Do you self-validate your experience and your own needs? Are you compassionately aware of your needs and willing to take responsibility for them and clearly communicate them? Or do you invalidate, dismiss or disown them? Are you willing also to own and validate your inspirations and curiosities and desires for expression?
– Are you willing to listen to and even act upon the wisdom of your gut and heart? Or are you dismissive of internal callings or yearnings if they fall outside of your mental framework of what’s rational or realistic?
– How honest can you be with yourself? Are you attached to any concept or identity of yourself that inhibits your ability to know yourself more deeply and possibly, openly? What questions are you unwilling to ask yourself?
– Are you willing to say “no” from love? Have you created boundaries as a healthy container for honoring your values, your energy and your time? Are you willing to choose yourself?
– Do you know what you value? Are you willing to act in alignment from your values, even when it’s difficult? Do you live with intention and are able to make the choices that nurture your center and further your growth?
– Is what you are committing to, through where your energy and action goes, the same as what you want? Can you bring your habitual commitments into closer alignment with your desires?
– Are you still hustling to earn your sense of worth and value from others or do you claim it for yourself? Are you able to embrace growth opportunities or do you shrink at criticism? What is one area of your life where you might need to claim your worth and value?
We are all on a journey of cultivating self-love, and that journey impacts everything about not only how we show up in the world — in every facet of our lives — but also how we experience ourselves as we do so.
When it comes to enjoying that ride, cultivating self-love is probably the richest, most valuable, rewarding work we will ever do.
By Aimee Hansen
(Our “Heart” Coach)
Sheri Crosby Wheeler: Vice President, Diversity and Inclusion, Fossil Group
Movers and Shakers, PeopleSpeaking of her background, she says, “I feel like it has given me the grit, the resilience, the fight, the get-up-and-go that I have to this day. I won’t see myself as ever being down and out, and I won’t stay in a ‘woe is me’ place, not for very long.”
The determination to seek possibilities beyond her circumstances has been vital to Crosby Wheeler’s career trajectory from law to diversity and inclusion (D&I).
When Mentors Are Absent
Throughout law school and her legal career, mentors were missing, and she didn’t know how to reach out.
“I wish at that time I knew that if you’re gonna go down a path, you should talk to people who have been down that path already so they can steer you clear of the potholes and the explosions,” she says, for example missing out on a judicial courtship. “I was just very much ‘I know how to do it’, because before that, I had done it all on my own.”
In the absence of mentors, “I crashed and burned, stumbled and failed,” Wheeler says, “I didn’t do well at my first law firm. And for someone who was used to doing well up to that point, it was kind of earth-shattering.”
Getting back up, however, taught her to take risks and eventually to leap paths.
Vicarious Mentorship
In lieu of mentors, Crosby Wheeler has “professionally stalked” role models she admires. This once led her to eventually join the law firm of a lawyer she followed for nearly a decade. Today, her “professional crush” is Vernā Meyers, VP, Inclusion Strategy at Netflix, who like her, holds a law background.
“I’m watching them from afar. What did they do? I’m gonna try that,” she says. “I tell people that the mentor you think you want to have may not be accessible to you one-on-one. They may not necessarily have the time in their day and career to mentor you, but that doesn’t mean they can’t be your secret mentor.”
Daring to Reinvent Herself
“Now initially, I will say I was fighting it,” recalls Crosby Wheeler about her desire to leave litigation. “I was like, no. I have chosen law. I’m gonna push, I’m gonna strive.”
But there came a moment as a contract lawyer when the work no longer felt aligned, and she realized “something has got to give.”
“In my mind, I always knew,” reflects Crosby Wheeler. “I didn’t know when, I didn’t know how, and I didn’t know where I would be going.” That willingness to stop pushing uphill and embrace the uncertainty of career change is a defining moment she is proud of.
After resolving to change paths, an opportunity appeared and became the shift that led to subsequent bigger moves, including three entirely new opportunities that landed on her D&I responsibility at Mr. Cooper, before moving to Fossil Group in 2021.
Sponsorship and Networking Are Essential
While lacking early on, sponsorship was ultimately key for Crosby Wheeler in reaching where she is now, particularly those people who looked at her, saw the potential and extended her the chance to expand into entirely new areas.
“If someone hadn’t put their skin in the game, I wouldn’t even be in this role,” says Crosby Wheeler.
Crosby Wheeler is now passionate about mentoring others. “To remember when I’m going forward, to continue to reach back to young attorneys, to other professionals,” she says. “To the extent that I can, I do. I know how important that is because some of that was missing in my journey.”
She also swears by a consistent network of friends and colleagues who can pick up the phone to support each other.
“I tell young professionals to right now start building that network. And don’t look at the network as what they can do for you,” she says. “Look at the network as what you can do for them. What can you give them? How can you help them? That is how you build a stronger network.”
“Real Good D&I, Not Feel Good D&I”™
“Now I am seeing that direct impact – the ability to positively impact people, businesses and communities,” Crosby Wheeler says of her D&I experience. “What underlies diversity work, and some legal work, is fairness and justice – and that’s a theme that has been a common thread throughout my life. That is what really speaks to me in this work.”
With racial justice issues at the national forefront, Crosby Wheeler sees this as a moment for companies to advance equity like never before. “More people are focused on it, caring about it, and understanding the importance,” she observes. “More people are willing to have the conversation. That’s what we’ve needed all along.”
“It can feel uncomfortable, but there is growth in discomfort,“ she says. “I don’t know about you, but I like to grow. I like to change. I like to get better. It’s just like people going to the gym. Your muscles are sore because you worked them. There was some discomfort there. Same thing. You’ve gotta work your D&I muscles for you to grow, for you to get better.”
Crosby Wheeler is observing a shift to “Real Good D&I, Not Feel Good D&I”™.
“‘Feel Good D&I’ can also be considered performative,” she says. “‘Oh yea, we just had this potluck and we put up a statement, woo!’ Well, that’s not changing things for people. That’s not changing systems, policies, procedures, laws, so ultimately it’s not changing things.”
An example of “Real Good D&I” is a company being transparent about where they are on the journey, and creating sustained organization-wide accountability to shift it.
“Having accountability that recognizes that it’s everyone’s issue, that it permeates the entire organization. That it’s not ‘that department over there, they’re doing this’.” she says. “No. Everybody is doing this, because this runs throughout the whole company. That’s what it takes – everybody working on it.”
Because “Real Good D&I” is sustained effort and change, it’s hard to gauge by quick metrics.
“It’s not like regular business operations where you’re looking at numbers, where it’s dry and objective,” Crosby Wheeler presses. “This is people, emotions, and feelings involved as well. So you’re trying to change hearts as well as minds. That’s not simple and that’s not easy and that’s not quick.”
Sourcing Growth From Adversity
Crosby Wheeler boldly chooses the experience of being fired from a legal job early on in her career as a key moment in her character development.
“It let me know that I can come back from a mistake, from what I thought was the worst thing ever.” she says. “I remember saying at the time ‘now I’m gonna find out what I’m really made of,’ and I did. I hope that I can exude that for other people to take in, and know they will also be okay too.”
And she does.
By Aimee Hansen
Nhaman Pelphrey: Director, Abbot Downing
Movers and Shakers, PeoplePelphrey speaks about moving from private law practice to wealth management at Abbot Downing, and the valuable insights in personal development she’s gathered.
Be Open to Unexpected Opportunity
“Although it may appear from my bio that my career path was by design,” says Pelphrey, “looking back, each opportunity that was presented at the time felt like a departure from what I was thinking I would do.”
After graduating from The Pennsylvania State University, Dickinson School of Law in 2004, Pelphrey had her eyes set on becoming a real estate lawyer in the booming southern California commercial market. “I wanted to represent developers and be at the forefront of the action.” Minutes into an interview, she realized she had neither the experience nor the know-how.
Though she was quickly told that they needed someone with requisite training to hit the ground running, she remained curious about the firm and built a strong rapport with the managing partners. Although the firm did not have capacity to train a junior attorney in real estate, they took a chance on her and offered her a position in their trusts and estates practice. It was not what she had set out to do, but she gave it a try.
Eleven years later, she had already disrupted her career, two years into it, for the unexpected step of a master of laws degree in taxation from Northwestern University School of Law, and was now sitting in a premier boutique planning firm in Century City, with a client profile of ultra-high-net-worth individuals.
Feeling successful, having served on the executive committees of the Beverly Hills Bar Association and the LA County Bar Association, having cultivated many strong network relationships with the ability to elevate one another, she felt at the peak of her law career—so she ignored the recruiter calls.
Until a colleague and friend, who had herself left private practice for Wells Fargo, urged her to consider going for an informational meeting—emphasizing opportunities at Abbot Downing do not often come around.
“I was accomplishing all the things that defined success to me,” recalls Pelphrey, “so leaving private practice was not a decision I took lightly.”
Six years later, Pelphrey calls the move to Abbot Downing the best career decision she’s made so far, rising from a senior wealth strategist to a director and multi-generational relationship manager for ultra-high-net-worth families.
“When opportunities present themselves, even if unforeseen or not necessarily what you were looking for,” says Pelphrey, “be open to them for they can lead you down paths that you didn’t even know were right for you.”
Rewarding Client and Team Relationships
Pelphrey enjoys the depth of value that she can add through nurturing long-term relationships with her family clients, and feels she works with “the brightest and most personable team.”
Back in the billable hours of her private practice legal days, her journey with clients would often end after counsel and creation of the plan. Now she partners with clients from the inception of formulating the plan to the most important and crucial aspect—implementation.
“We really get to know these individuals and their families very well,” says Pelphrey. “We become a trusted advisor and that’s a very gratifying position to be in.”
One thing she appreciates at Abbot Downing is the collaborative nature of her dynamic team. “We raise each other up and put our client’s best interest at the core of what we do.”
Mentors Who Raise You Up, Higher
One of Pelphrey’s first mentors, a big-time tax attorney, taught her a valuable lesson through a bit of playful testing.
As a young associate, she was asked to research and draft a memo on how to structure a corporate reorganization. In the tax partner’s explanation of the assignment he referenced multiple Internal Revenue Code sections that she had never heard of before. When she got back to her desk, she immediately googled the sections. After combing through multiple legal research databases to educate herself on the code sections, it was clear that the code sections were not applicable or even worse, she might have jotted them down incorrectly. She mustered up the nerve to knock on his door and let him know that the sections he quoted cannot be used as part of a structural reorganization.
He congratulated her with a big smile for saving herself several agonizing hours of spinning her wheels, only to fit a square peg in a round whole.
“From that moment on, I realized its okay to ask clarifying questions,” says Pelphrey. “He taught me that asking questions is the best way to ensure that you understand what you’re being asked and what the other person really needs.”
Later in her career, she had another mentor who was highly skilled and well-respective modeled the ability to express complex, technical strategies in a simple and easy to understand manner with clients, treating them like partners.
But what most impressed upon Pelphrey as a lesson was his approach to mentorship in supporting her to learn, hands-on.
“He said to me, ‘I know that you’re capable and my goal is to help you become a highly technical attorney and to be better than I am,’” she remembers. “I heard the selflessness. He wanted to help me be even better than him, not just good as a reflection of him—and his actions were aligned with that.”
At Abbot Downing, Pelphrey eventually assumed the position of her retiring mentor, who groomed her to take over much of his client book. The mentorship first arose because they appreciated each other’s wit and banter, and could together devise creative client solutions.
Not only did he encourage her to expand roles using more of her talents, but he also taught her that being a generous, genuine resource for others will come back to you ten-fold in opportunities.
Embody Your Place at the Table
Throughout her career, Pelphrey has often been the most junior person at the table.
“One of the lessons I’ve learned is if people are asking you to participate, they see that you have an inherent value,” says Pelphrey. “More so as women, we’re invited to be part of something and it’s often easy to second guess ourselves – ‘Am I too young? What is my role?’”
Cultivating personal confidence has become key to her success.
“If I’m at the table with successful and savvy clients, it’s because they know I have value to add,” she says. “We come in as a team and we’re confident as to what and how we can provide for our clients.”
Supporting Each Other and Being a Mom
Pelphrey enjoys gatherings that merge the wisdom and experience of her colleagues and her clients.
She participates in annual events designed to connect with, inform and inspire the younger generations among her client families—as well as women focused activities – where colleagues and clients support each other.
Having a competitive personality, Pelphrey calls herself the tennis and basketball “Kris Jenner equivalent” of a sports mom to her two sons, six and eight years old.
She enjoys supporting their participation and the valuable life lessons that is organically gained through sports.
Pelphrey feels the same when her sons get the opportunity to witness their normally organized parents navigate unknown territory and unexpected turns during international travels.
“I love the kids to see that we don’t always have it all together,” she laughs. “But we end up on a great adventure even if it wasn’t the plan.”
By Aimee Hansen
Abbot Downing, a Wells Fargo business, provides products and services through Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. and its various affiliates and subsidiaries. Wells Fargo Bank, N.A. is a bank affiliate of Wells Fargo & Company.