Kelli King-Jackson, ACC

Coaching for Black women leading in white spaces.

black at work

Black at Work: Quarterly Review

So I recently did my quarterly review for the second quarter.  I always dread the thought of doing quarterly reviews but feel really great at the end.  My experience wasn’t great because my quarter was perfect.  In fact, I had a really challenging quarter personally.  #life was life-ing in all the ways.  My experience with my review was great because it allowed me to step outside of myself and my self-critique and look at data.  I found the data in my calendar, emails, and reports.  The review was a way to put all the disparate pieces together to create a cohesive picture of all the time and energy I put into the quarter. 

I shared my review on LinkedIn and several folks thanked me for reminding them to do theirs.  Y’all, it’s not too late. Any day is a good day to look back to bring forward lessons and reflections.  Before you talk yourself out of trying, here is a list of things you can do to start your review today.  I’ve even created a handout for folks who prefer a template to guide them through the process. 

Top 10

  1. Revisit your annual work plan, vision board, or quarterly goals.  No matter how you structured your goals, annual or quarterly, you can still pause every 90 days to see how things are going. 
  2. Leaders have areas they shine in and areas in which they struggle.  It’s important to spend time reflecting on both.  You don’t want to self-congratulate yourself out of growing.  Nor do you want to criticize yourself so much that you overlook important contributions you’re making.
  3. Those who have gone before us (living and ancestors) have left footprints for us to follow.  Pausing to pay homage each quarter grounds us in our collective leadership journey.  As Black women/femmes and women-identifying folx, we don’t walk alone.  Our culture values a shared experience as inspiration to keep going during tough times.
  4. Just because you set a goal doesn’t mean the goal can’t change.  Life, organization’s, the freakin world, are changing constantly.  We have to be flexible in how we adapt our goals to our lived reality.  Rigidity doesn’t serve leaders in the 21st century. 
  5. A leader’s success isn’t only in work.  It is also in joy and pleasure.  Don’t diminish the importance of prioritizing and experiencing both.  Often.
  6. Leaders have to cultivate the soil where they’ve planted seeds otherwise they will not reap a full harvest. Leaders who don’t tend to the not-fun part of leadership will never fully see the fruit of their labor.
  7. Self-Leadership.  Surround yourself with images, words, and sounds that inspire you to keep working toward what you really want.
  8. Reach back.  As a leader, make sure you create time to invest in others.  Whether it is a direct report or a promising intern.  Prioritize regular time supporting other leaders in their growth.
  9. Tell someone.  Y’all know I believe strongly in accountability.  Let someone know about your quarterly review and find ways to support each other over the next 90 days.
  10. Need a guide? Grab my ‘Not Your Mama’s Quarterly Review‘ to guide you through the process.

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. The first group will be for eight Black women in middle management. It 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. Want to learn more? Subscribe to my newsletter to receive updates on when the next group begins. Let’s build something new together.

Essential SSL