Kelli King-Jackson, ACC

Coaching for Black women leading in white spaces.

Black at Work

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

Black at Work: D.E.A.R.

If you are a child of the 80’s you remember D.E.A.R. If you were a Ramona Quimby, Age 8 fan you remember D.E.A.R.

Drop

Everything

And

Read.

Read?!

In the olden days, D.E.A.R. didn’t happen by accident. It was a dedicated time in the school schedule. Schedule = priority. Commitment.

Having a regular time to read and learn new information has become increasingly difficult for many busy professionals. Many of them work in cultures that move from meeting to meeting. From Teams to Zoom.

Many clients say that they don’t have time to think, let alone read. Clients want to grow their knowledge but the way their workdays are set up, learning new information does not rank high on their daily to-do list.

How are folks supposed to grow as professionals if they don’t have regular time to learn, vision, think? Especially around subject matters that are new to them — like equity.


Catalyst:ed, a national nonprofit, recently released a report called Supporting Equity-Centered Strategic Learning Practices. I was intrigued by the topic because learning is an organizational cultural norm that varies greatly from place to place. Of course, equity is also something I and my clients care deeply about.

In the strategic learning framework that accompanies the report, one of the recommendations is to allocate a budget and time to support strategic learning. Sort of like a grown-up D.E.A.R. time.

The idea of having a culture of learning that is rooted in equity, that will have designated time and leadership support was refreshing.

LOVE it!

I’ve seen some places working toward equity offer organization-wide trainings or author talks. Others have department-level team learnings. Most of these learning opportunities focus on interpersonal relationships. But very few have a deeply embedded culture of learning that focuses on equity in the subject-matter of the organizations’ expertise, management, HR, Finance, etc.

More, please. 😍

What if every organization had a D.E.A.R. culture that prioritized learning about equity in the subject-matter? Maybe, being Black at Work would get safer and start to fulfill some of the promises listed in the equity statements of the past few years. What if the strategic learning time also had elements that were flexible and employee-directed? Now THAT would be a D.E.A.R. time to remember.

Until the tide changes here are three things you can do to prioritize learning about equity in your profession:

  1. Search LinkedIn, Harvard Business Journal, Standford Social Innovation Review, etc. for articles around equity in your profession;
  2. Schedule short 30 minute reading times at least once a week. Honor the time and don’t book other ‘more important’ meetings over it;
  3. Invite a colleague into the conversation about what equity in your field can look like – and use the article as a starting point.

Remember, change doesn’t have to start with big, audacious steps. Sometimes change is more impactful in the small, subtle modeling.

If your organization has begun to allocate time for strategic learning around equity – or if you’ve taken it upon yourself to initiate learning on your own – I’d love to hear how it’s going.