Kelli King-Jackson, ACC

Coaching for Black women leading in white spaces.

Black at Work

Black at Work: Reset YourSelf

September is doing all the things.  Mercury is in Retrograde.   COVID is still real.  Life is life-ing.  Across my coaching sessions you have said y’all are exhausted, overworked, underappreciated, and refusing to slack off because Black women don’t move like that. 

Y’all have heard me ask: At what cost?

How much longer will you be able to maintain this pace?

What would ‘better’ look like, feel like, smell like, sound like, taste like?

My job as a coach is not to tell you what to do.  It’s to ask questions.  Offer things for your consideration.  Challenge you to consider another viewpoint. 

My coach is doing the same with me.  I, too, managed to allow my schedule to get out of control in August.  I looked up and it was September and I couldn’t even remember my late-July vacation. 

IYKYK

One thing about me is that I’m going to find a way to bounce back.  Here are a few things I’m going to try as I seek to enter this next quarter from an empowered place. I hope they help give you the energy you are to reallocate time in the 4th quarter.

  1. Back to a 30-45 min weekly planning time.  I used to do this session with the Joy Collective and even hosted monthly sessions for my network in 2021.  I miss having this time to prepare for the workweek. You can do the same by hopping on Zoom with friends or doing it as a family activity.
  2. Time Blocking.  I’ve written about time-blocking before.  This tool is essential because meetings aren’t work and virtual land has created the conditions to expect back-to-back-to-back meetings ALL. DAY. LONG. Time blocking allows me to schedule dedicated working times where I can process all the meetings and build relationships.  If you adopt this strategy treat this time as a sacred, non-negotiable meeting with your brain. 
  3. Our labor laws in the U.S. are trash but most jobs allow for a 30-minute lunch break.  Take it!  Step away from your desk and get back into your body.
  4. Before saying yes to another request ask a LOT of questions.  Nitpick the hell out of the request to ensure that your yes is deeply aligned to your job, values, and goals. Am I the best person for this request?  If I wasn’t available who would you ask to serve in this capacity? How much time is expected for me to participate? When will this project/committee/etc. end?

I mean, it’s wild that the rest of us feel like we are letting folks down by prioritizing ourselves in our own lives.  Hopefully, we are learning that the way these Gen Zers are set up – the way they walk into interviews asking about PTO, mental health coverage, and PD budgets – is the new minimum standard.  Holistic growth is non-negotiable for Gen Zers; it’s not something they have to earn by paying unstated, outdated dues.

Yep, just writing that sentence triggered me. 

Here’s the thing.  So many of us have stopped believing in what’s possible because of what we’ve seen firsthand.  Our doubt needs to catch up with these company policies and statements. Until then, let’s leverage the hell out of them before they disappear. Let’s use these resources to reset ourselves!

Resources:

Black at Work: Better Together

This month I thought I would do a short list of ways Black leaders can be better together by showing Pride year-round.  I’ve written before about my journey to unpack the biases I grew up with coming from a deeply religious Black family.  In that post, I wrote about some things I learned on my journey to be a more inclusive leader. As my world expanded, through education and travel, I began to understand the importance of difference.  Being in community with people who are different deepened my leadership.  And, I’m grateful to be in spaces that allow me to continue to learn and unlearn. 

5 Ways to be Better Together

These top tips helped me on my journey and I hope you find them useful as well.

  1. Everything doesn’t have to be a lesson.  LBGTQ folks don’t always feel safe being ‘out at work’ so drawing unnecessary attention to team members can cause harm.  Being kind is being inclusive. 
  2. Model inclusion in your leadership.  Don’t just recruit Black folks who act, think, and have the same background as you. Be intentional about recruiting diverse talent. That means your job description needs to state explicitly how you value diversity. You can clearly state things like how your benefits packages offer coverage for all types of families or highlight certain benefits that LGBTQ candidates might find attractive (i.e. access to IVF for all genders, gender-affirming hormone therapy, etc.)
  3. The best way to keep people safe is to not tokenize them.   If your team has ONE person of a different lived experience, that can be isolating and harmful.  See bullet 2 on how to start to address this.
  4. Stop checking boxes.  I know this can get tricky.  Working toward becoming an inclusive space cannot be a box-checking activity.  It has to be a mindful process that includes recruiting, retaining, and promoting staff LGBTQ staff.  Provide opportunities (many and often) for staff to give input on what would make your team/organization an inclusive place for them.  
  5. Be approachable. One way to do this is by redefining what professionalism means.  As a leader, you can take some of the pressure to perform off of your staff.  In valuing your staff’s lived experiences, you create the psychological safety needed for LGBTQ folks and those of other identities to bring their best energy and ideas to work.

I hope these are helpful to you. I love to see Black leaders grow in their understanding of Black folks who may have a different identity or life experience. We cannot get into positions of power and then perpetuate the same bias and harm. If we can remember that we are better together, we can invest in doing the work necessary to make inclusion a leadership strength.

Black LGBTQ History

Since it is Pride Month I’ll let you with a few resources for those who want to go further in their learning journey.

Marsha P. Johnson, a Black Trans Woman who was living in New York City helped spark a movement at the Stonewall Inn on June 28, 1969.  Marsh may not have been considered a leader but that’s exactly what she was! Pride Month is an opportunity to remember what happened at Stonewall, honor leaders like Marsha and others, and continue the work left to achieve equity for LGBTQ folx.

Commit to learning more about Marsha and being inspired by her leadership.

Black at Work: Overproducer

I have a brown thumb. I cannot grow a plant to save my life. My downfall is that I am an overproducer. I go above and beyond for the plant so that it can be the best. Sure, I do the typical things like making sure the plant is getting the right amount of light or the best soil. But I don’t trust the plant or Mother Nature so I keep working to make sure the plant has everything it needs until one day I look up and the plant has gone to the light.

The plant could not thrive under the pressure.

Truth be told, neither could I. But overproducing is what happens when you overwork. And that’s a scene I know all too well.

This past month multiple clients have joined me in OVERland. They come into their coaching sessions fatigued. Burned all the way out. It’s only the end of April and I am seeing the type of exhaustion that is more common in the fourth quarter of the year. My clients are overproducing – tending to all the needs, real and perceived – and they cannot thrive.

Here’s what my clients are telling me:

  • I can’t push anymore.
  • I’ve been doing two people’s jobs for the past year and have not had an increase in compensation.
  • I know I’m tired but I have to show up for this important work.
  • We used to honor boundaries but now my boss calls me in the evenings and on weekends.
  • After this next meeting/conference/training I will take a break.

And the list goes on.

It doesn’t have to be this way, y’all.

I believe we can stop overproducing and still have an impact and meet our goals.

Imagine this:

You choose to be average at something you don’t need to be excellent at.

You take a break. Decline an invitation to serve on yet another committee. Use all your PTO.

For my readers who can’t even imagine what I’m suggesting, here are four baby steps to slow your pace enough to stop yourself from overproducing:

1️⃣ Check in on your goals/workplan weekly. Doing this will give you regular opportunities to see when you are in a lot of meetings and examine if those time commitments are aligned with your goals.

2️⃣ Organize your task list according to your goals/workplan. Is one goal getting more attention than the others? Does everything on your list have to be done right now or can they wait for a later time?

3️⃣ Audit your calendar. Do you have thinking space? One way to avoid overproducing is to take time away from your to-do list and meetings to strategize.

4️⃣ Delegate. A key way to stop overproducing is by lifting up the leadership of others on your team, especially your direct report(s). Giving others a chance to grow and get visibility is a sign of a good leader.

Overproducing does not have to be your norm. The unlearning of harmful practices doesn’t happen overnight. It comes with a deep longing and listening to Self at the highest level. I hope this list helps you create the space in your schedule and mind to be a leader who saves something for Self. When you have something left for you, growth is possible.

Are you in?

Comment below or message me on LinkedIn to let me know what you’ll willing to do to stop being an overproducer.

Group Coaching as Collective Leadership

Real talk. I have been saying I was going to start group coaching for the past two years. Each time, I have backed out because of fear. It’s taken me a while to unpack the root of the fear and as I’m moving through it, I thought I should share in case you’re wondering if group coaching is for you.

As a coach to Black women, I am always unlearning ways of being I picked up over decades of leading in white spaces. Those ways of being are also biases that I didn’t realize had become part of my unconscious way of leading. Let me know if you can relate.

  1. Leadership is a personal journey and is better when done one-on-one.
  2. Making sure everyone gets attention is a lot of work.
  3. If it ain’t broke don’t fix it. AKA change is hard.
group of Black women in colorful clothes sitting together

Y’all, I was wrong. In this month of celebrating women, here is what I know to be true when I move through my doubt and negative self-talk.

  1. The idea of privileging leadership as solo journey is such limited thinking. Black communities are familiar with collective leadership. Whether it’s the usher board or the sorority chapter. We do groups.
  2. Black women know sisterhood. We know how to take care of each other. There is nothing more dynamic than watching a group of Black women vibing and connecting. IYKYK.
  3. While I LOVE coaching Black women one-on-one, there are some Black women who would benefit from a collective expereince. This change would be an expansion that will welcome more Black women into a community of support and growth.

So…I’m adding groups, y’all. Coming to a virtual space near you. My groups will be a space for folks who are tired of the isolation of climbing the leadership ladder and who are looking for community as they grow. This group will explore how Black women can lead from a place of authenticity and still have an impact, meet their goals, and get the bag. Let’s build something new together.

Group Coaching
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