Kelli King-Jackson, ACC

Coaching for Black women leading in white spaces.

Black at Work

Black at Work: Over It

Over It. For Black women ‘over it’ is a distinct feeling. It’s an emotion that we know deeply, even when we don’t have the words to adequately explain it. For many, the feeling comes from being asked and tasked to do too much. It’s a reminder that you have let all your boundaries lapse or you feel like you have no control over how you spend your time. I believe this ‘over it’ feeling is a shared experience among Black women leading in America.

✓ You’re dreading getting out of bed in the morning.

✓ You feel yourself rolling your eyes time anyone stops by your office/pings you on IM/sends you an email.

✓ During team meetings, you avoid eye contact so no one asks your opinion or volunteers you for another project.

I know you feel me!

If you chuckled at any of the items above try these five tips to move from over it to about it:

  1. Figure out what ‘freedom’ means to you and lead from that place. Thanks to Attica Locke for the nuggets: https://youtube.com/shorts/DyGCAdHGE88?feature=share!
  2. Remind yourself that meetings ain’t work! Let me say it again. Being in meetings is not (usually) when you get things done. If you don’t have work blocks on your calendar, you’re likely taking work home or seriously behind. Neither is sustainable. HBR put out a piece on overworked teams that is worth a read: https://hbr.org/2022/10/how-to-intervene-when-your-team-has-too-much-work
  3. Get yourself a delegation. Listen. We can’t be at all the places all the time. That’s played all the way out (in my 90s voice). You need to know your team well(direct reports, supervisors, interns, other departments, etc.). Where do they excel? What is their capacity to step into more leadership? Are you leveraging their areas of expertise? Utilize your delegation strategically and work becomes more purposeful for everyone.
  4. Reclaim your power. Make sure you know your team goals, organizational logic models, work plan, etc. like the back of your plan. Use your calendar to track how you spend your time (i.e. color-coded by your big rocks) and document your work (I used to have a spreadsheet of every presentation and major accomplishment/contribution). Doing both of these things ensures you have good data and feedback to share with your supervisor during review time. This allows you to use data to amplify things that don’t align and to advocate for bonuses, promotions, and the like. Also, see tip 1 again. Freedom and power go hand-in-hand.
  5. Free yourself. One of the greatest challenges for Black women leaders is being able to step away from things they have invested so much time and energy into. This commitment ‘see it through’ can be to our detriment. Revisit tip 1 and ask yourself, am I leading from a free space? Has my leadership outgrown or become misaligned with this opportunity? Have an idea of how you’ll get yourself back to a liberated, aligned space when you find things off track.

I hope at least one of these tips is useful. Message me on LinkedIn and let me know!

Black at Work: Energy Audit

You may have seen my post on LinkedIn where I talked about testing out an energy audit of my calendar. The energy audit has also come up in coaching sessions as many of my clients have been experiencing extreme overwhelm. Y’all have consistently talked about being stretched too thin, being exhausted, and lacking excess energy to do the things that you love and are excited about because there is just no reserve.

Why does it matter? You’re human! I know some think it’s a given but so many of y’all are holding on to your superwoman martyr costumes that I needed to type it anyway. The really real is that how you spend your time – what’s on your calendar – tells the story of what you believe is important (personally or because of external pressure). So, despite what you say, your calendar is a values statement.

So what exactly is an energy audit?

The concept of energy audit was actually introduced to me by my colleague, Tracie Jae. The idea is that you can start being more mindful about how your leadership styles, work environment, personality, etc. impact your work. I’ve broken down the energy audit in three components.

Boundaries

The first is that you have a centralized calendar system. It really doesn’t matter what type of calendar but it does matter that you have ONE. Those of y’all still trying to navigate paper and digital calendars at the same time are fascinating. You can argue me down that it works for you even as you keep double booking. Stop it 🙂 ALL of your events and activities need to be in one place. This is the place you go to look to see what you have going on each day, week or month across all of your obligations (work, home, self). A consistently utilized calendar is a boundary, y’all. Things floating around in your head or on random stickies don’t get done. Your eyes are bigger than your stomach. Your yeses exceed your availability.

Alignment

Having everything written down allows you to think about how much energy each item on my calendar costs you. Whether you timeblock or color-code, take a look at the things that make it on your calendar. What do they tell you about what’s important to you? Meetings? Writing time? Strategy? Supervision? Emails? We live complex lives, so to think that our calendars are neutral is naive. Each item on your calendar tells you if you’re spending time on things that aligned to your job, purpose, family, etc. An audit of your calendar tells you how much energy it takes to get each item done. Take a look at what was on your calendar and what type of energy you expended on each item. Did you have a day full of meetings that have nothing to do with your job and just put you further and further behind? How did you feel at the end of that day? If you felt anything less than ‘ok’ is there anything you had control of that would have left you with some energy. Look back at the activities on your calendar to see where and how you spent your time. Where there any energy producing activities? If not, what changes can you make next week to change things up?

Rest

Doing an energy audit allows you to see whether or not how you spend your time is deeply aligned to your purpose/passion/vision/career goals. When you operate outside of our gifts, talents, and roles you are using extra energy. There more you are out of alignment the more time you need to recover and replenish your energy. Rest means in taking pauses and building in breaks to sustaining yourself, especially when your work or team you’re on are misaligned due to circumstances (i.e. Sis has bills to pay). When a new job isn’t a quick solution, you can orcharstrate rest by giving yourself buffer time before or after meetings to prep or to decompress. You can also make sure you are appropriately delegating and using your time with your supervisor to realign your work/role, if at all possible.

Now What?

Energy audits aren’t easy but they provide important information. They help you better understand where and how you’re spending your time so you can prepare. You are worth the 15 minutes between meetings that you need to shake off a toxic team or to nourish your body. Energy audits are especially important when you lead in spaces where you don’t have the position or power to control your calendar. When it’s safe, voice the things you need to bring the greatest value to your work. When it’s not safe, do your best to use your energy in the most strategic and impactful way. Either way, commit to trying something. Test an energy audit and notice what you learn. Are there a ny change in your disposition and mind? What is your energy like after a day of aligning your calendar to your values and purpose? If you do an energy audit, let me know how it goes.

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.