Creating Standards of Leadership and Professionalism Rooted in Blackness

Creating Standards of Leadership and Professionalism Rooted in Blackness

by Jennifer M. Tardy and Brittany Crichlow.

The measurement of Black representation through CEOs in Fortune 500 companies, at the top of organizational hierarchies, has decreased from six CEOs in 2012 to three today.1 According to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) data, among all U.S. companies with about 100 or more employees, Black people hold just about three percent of the executive or senior-level roles.2 But why? We believe part of the answer stems from how hiring leaders perceive leadership and professionalism.

JENNIFER TARDY – is founder and owner of an award-winning, Maryland based, diversity recruiting consulting firm. BRITTANY CRICHLOW – is the Learning and Innovation Specialist with Jennifer Tardy Consulting.

IIT IS KNOWN that systemic issues are preventing increased diversity at the senior executive ranks for Black professionals. To unpack the causes for this underrepresentation, there are three areas we know are not the issue: The problem is not a lack of a business case to increase diversity. Firms that have the most ethnically diverse executive teams are 33 percent more likely to perform better than their peers on profitability, and those with gender diversity in their executive-level worldwide forming 21 percent have a likelihood to outperform their industry competitors.3

The problem is not a lack of desire among Black professionals for career advancement into the executive ranks. For example, Black women are more likely to aspire to hold a powerful position with a prestigious title than white women. Black women’s advancement into leadership roles has been seen to stagnate, even as their number in professional and managerial roles has increased.4 The problem is not a deficit in the workforce supply of Black professionals who are available. According to U.S. Census data, the availability of a talent pool of Black leaders (i.e., manager and higher) is nearly 1.5 million or seven percent of overall leaders in the U.S. See Figure 1.

Figure 1 Workforce Supply of Black leaders among the U.S. Population

American Indian & Alaska Native Asian alone Black or African American alone Hispanic or Latino Native Hawaiian & other Pacific Islander alone Some other race alone Two or more races White alone

Total Count: 21,744,895

490,707 2.3%

1,491,877 6.9%

1,168,941 5.4%

2,177,277 10%

456,619 2.1%

15,815,697 72.7%

So the question remains, why are we not seeing more Black professionals in leadership positions? To answer this question, we need to address the perception of how leadership potential is shaped and measured. In other words, by whose standards are we shaping and measuring leadership potential?

An article by Ready and others suggests that to be perceived as a high potential employee, one must deliver strong results, master new types of expertise, and exhibit behaviors that reflect their companies’ values and culture in an exemplary manner.5 However, we know from the previously mentioned data that this is not true across race. If it were, then the percentage of Black professionals in executive positions would be higher.

For professionals to enter leadership ranks, they must first be seen as high potential leadership candidates. According to Bridgespan, it’s the employees who can put together the total package – ability, aspiration, and engagement. They also have the highest potential to be promoted to organizations’ key leadership roles and succeed in them.

One challenge is that high potential leadership standards are foundationally centered on standards of professionalism rooted in whiteness. The whiteness has become embedded and reflected in companies’ culture and values because of the historically white individuals’ skills, traits, and behaviors at the top. Therefore, the shaping and measurement of leadership potential are rooted in whiteness, creating a leadership obstacle course for Blacks and people of color. The less you assimilate to whiteness, the less likely you will be perceived as professional, leading to a lack of leadership potential and, therefore, less frequently identified as high potential.

Sylvia Ann Hewlett talks about the idea of Executive Presence in her book with the same name,6 She breaks down cracking the code of executive presence to present unique challenges for professionals of color because standards of appropriate behavior, speech, and attire demand they suppress or sacrifice aspects of their cultural identity to conform. They further emphasized that the standard for professionalism and measuring leadership potential is rooted in whiteness. See Figure 2.

Figure 2 Challenges of professionals of color and leadership potential as dictated by whiteness standards

EXECUTIVE PRESENCE AT MY COMPANY IS DEFINED AS CONFORMING TO TRADITIONALLY WHITE MALE STANDARDS I FEEL THE NEED TO COMPROMISE MY AUTHENTICITY TO CONFORM TO EXECUTIVE PRESENCE STANDARDS AT MY COMPANY

73%

50% 48%

37% 37% 45%

37%

30%

African American Asian Hispanic Caucasian

Source: Center for Talent Innovation

African American Asian Hispanic Caucasian

HBR.org

However, this challenge is more deeply pervasive. Because these standards have been preserved and prevalent for so long, no matter the characteristics attributed to executives and leaders, an implicit bias must also be addressed. According to leadership categorization theory, leadership traits are more strongly associated with white people than ethnic minorities in Western societies. Further research also uncovered that those leadership roles are largely associated, automatically, and unconsciously, with white group members instead of people of color.7 Therefore, demonstrating that there is a collective agreement that takes place, demonstrating a pro-white leadership bias.

To see an increase in Black professionals entering senior leadership roles, we must address the implicit bias hidden in the idea of high potential leadership by creating space for standards of professionalism and leadership rooted in Blackness. Standards of Professionalism and Leadership Rooted in Whiteness To understand standards of professionalism and leadership rooted in Blackness, we first need to identify standards rooted in whiteness. According to American grassroots organizer-scholars Tema Okun and Keith Jones, the standards of professionalism are heavily defined by white supremacy culture—or the systemic, institutionalized centering of whiteness. In the workplace, white

supremacy culture explicitly and implicitly privileges whiteness and discriminates against non-Western and non-white professionalism standards related to dress, speech, work style, and timeliness.8 Seemingly race-neutral selection criteria can make whiteness a kind of unstated credential, for instance, in light of historical processes of segregation and discrimination that have helped create racially homogenous workplaces.9

These values, established over time as history and fact, create the narrative of white supremacy that underpins professionalism today, playing out in the hiring, firing, and day-to-day management of workplaces worldwide. The story unfolds many ways. In white and Western standards of dress and hairstyle (straightened hair, suits but not saris, and the burqa and beard bans in some countries); in speech, accent, word choice, and communication (never show emotion, must sound American, and must speak standard white English); in scrutiny (Black employees are monitored more closely and face more penalties as a result); and in attitudes toward timeliness and work style.10 In return, this concept of professionalism directly impacts how we perceive leadership. Impacts of Standards of Professionalism Rooted in Whiteness on the Black Leadership Pipeline Through these standards, three outcomes typically occur: (1) few Black professionals enter leadership immediately, (2) a significant number of promotions of Black leaders are delayed unnecessarily, and (3) the mass majority are rejected. 1. Few Black professionals enter leadership immediately. As previously stated, only three percent of people in executive roles are Black. The cost of being the first or one of the few mixed with the forcing of yourself into these standards create several downstream implications: ■ Assimilation: According to Frank Cooper’s white paper, one’s reputation within the institution, attributed to identity, may be as important to advancement as one’s actual performance.11

The minority employee will attempt to create the impression that the corporation is rewarded by engaging in identity performance

practices, such as sending emails at late hours, to imply they are hardworking. Black men’s problem in the corporation is that they are often subject to stereotypes that negatively affect their attributed identity. This requires them to do extra identity performance work to succeed. ■ Authenticity Tension: As a result of assimilation, we believe it is not uncommon for Black professionals to experience authenticity tension. With relationship being necessary for achievement and advancement, deciding how much of yourself to bring to the workplace creates a sense of authenticity tension. According to Phillips and others’ article, decades’ worth of studies show that similarity attracts—a phenomenon known as homophily.

Being one’s true self, disclosing elements of one’s personal life, and forming social connections are easier within one’s group than they are across a demographic boundary such as the racial background.12 ■ Racial Trauma: A form of race-based stress that affects Blacks and people of color when they experience and witness dangerous events and perceived racial discrimination experiences. For many, racial trauma appears as threats of harm and injury, humiliation, and often witnessing people of color being harmed, which can negatively impact one’s mental health.13 This can look like a top-performing Black employee being let go for the same mistake made by white employees in the workplace. ■ Imposter Syndrome: For people of color, imposter syndrome isn’t just an imaginary voice. Black professionals receive almost daily messages from society that they don’t truly belong. Feeling like an impostor can exacerbate the intensity of discrimination, and discrimination can also exacerbate the impact of impostorism.14 ■ The Glass Cliff: Another scenario that often occurs is that of people of color having their leadership ability tested by being placed in risky initiatives or assignments where they are not expected to succeed.15 This is known as glass cliff assignment.

One that appears as if they are breaking through to glass ceiling only to go off a cliff.

2. Promotions are delayed, often for years. A delay in promotion into leadership or executive ranks comes at the expense of being under-leveled or having more knowledge and skills for a role than necessary to perform its duties, responsibilities, and tasks. By the time many Black professionals are accepted into leadership, they are often overqualified for their current management role.

The most critical challenge with these delays in executive leadership is in the messaging. Black employees are told that they are not yet ready for leadership without clear and concrete reasons or a professional development strategy. Black professionals are not told why they go unperceived as having characteristics of high potential leadership. Rather, employers double-down on the readiness factor stating that Black employees are not ready. Therefore, the employee is left to navigate the path to leadership alone. 3. A larger proportion of Black professionals who are openly rejected are ruled out or not considered. This rejection of candidacy has its downstream implications. ■ Employee Esteem. “Confidence equals security equals positive emotion equals better performance,” says Tony Schwartz, the president and CEO of The Energy Project and the author of Be

Excellent at Anything: The Four Keys to Transforming the Way We

Work and Live. With enough rejection, exclusion, and gaslighting, employees may begin to turn inward and wonder if something is wrong with them, ultimately affecting their self-esteem and, in effect, performance. ■ Psychological harm. This emerges when Black professionals continue to get overlooked for opportunities. The notion of working hard and trying to check all the boxes and be seen as having the leadership potential, only to be met with implicit bias and ultimately rejected, can have a serious impact on a person’s mental health, feeling trapped, threatened, humiliated, used, or all of these combined.16 ■ Corporate complex trauma. With enough rejection this can lead to corporate complex trauma, which arises from a series

of what alone would be relatively minor traumas but traumatic when connected by repetition. As these traumas accumulate, the small but unsettling and distressing events culminate and exceed a person’s capacity to cope and disrupt emotional functioning. While these traumas have no accompanying threat of physical harm, they are ego-threatening due to the individual’s feeling of helplessness, along with guilt and shame.17 ■ Resignation. Clients often share hopelessness when met with a glass ceiling and believe that the only option is to resign. For example, when women feel hemmed in by rigid policies or a glass ceiling, for instance, they are much more likely to respond to the pull of family.18 Complicity in the Standards of Professionalism and Leadership Rooted in Whiteness Without a doubt, the standards of professionalism and leadership are contributing to the deficit of Black leadership. But who or what is responsible? As we learned before, a pro-white leadership bias is demonstrated across race, so we know that although the historical origination of the ideals began with white people, there has been a collective response to its preservation. Many factors are complicit in the preservation of standards of professionalism and leadership rooted in whiteness. ■ Culture Fit. Embracing the idea of culture fit versus culture adds leaves room for elusive notions of who does and does not belong in a company and leadership. ■ Definition of high potential leadership. Defining leadership potential as the ability to exhibit specific behaviors that reflect the company’s culture and values in an exemplary manner can lead to homogeneity among those who get to the next level. ■ Complicit leaders. These are leaders who have identified barriers and remain silent. ■ Complicit departments. Specifically, departments are meant to support leaders and offer checks and balances in decisionmaking. Departments such as Human Resources (i.e., HR

Business Partners and Recruiters), General Counsel, Diversity

and Inclusion, among others that fail to identify, acknowledge, or disrupt the bias baked into policies, practices, and behaviors that create barriers in hiring and promotion. ■ Employee enablers. These employees do not escalate matters and would prefer to exit the organization than to call out barriers. Creating Space for Standards of Leadership Professionalism Rooted in Blackness In 2016, Symone Sanders was the national press secretary for Bernie Sanders during his presidential campaign. After one CNN appearance, she received an influx of emails criticizing her fingernails. Rather than responding to the emails or direct messages, she took to Twitter and shared her thoughts in a thread where she shared, “When someone tells me my nails, the dress or blouse I wore or my hair is ‘unprofessional,’ I find what they are saying is out of the norm for what they are used to seeing on cable news.” She went on to write that an agent once told her she wasn’t “palatable” enough for cable, and another suggested she take voice lessons to sound more “professional” — comments that reinforce racist perceptions that Black people aren’t intelligent, articulate, or suitable for the spotlight in their “natural form.”

The solution to increasing diversity within senior leadership ranks is acknowledging the implicit bias of professionalism standards rooted in whiteness that shapes the way we view leadership potential. Rather than changing Black professionals, focus on changing the environment where they are observed and assessed. Create space for professionalism and leadership standards rooted in Blackness, or standards of professionalism inclusive of Black norms.

Earlier, we identified that whiteness standards are prevalent in the workplace dress code, speech, work style, timeliness, and scrutiny, among other factors. To incorporate standards inclusive of Black norms means that leaders must: ■ Build cultural competence. Culturally competent individuals can understand and navigate cultures unique to their own (i.e.,

Black culture). They see professionalism as a fluid concept

that manifests in diverse ways across cultures. This should be a requirement of leaders and high potential leadership candidates. ■ Learn how to mitigate unconscious bias in their assessment techniques. Teaching leaders to assess based on ability rather than physical features (i.e., clothing, makeup, nails, hair, etc.). ■ Be open and inclusive to diverse communication styles. This one is twofold. On the one hand, it is an individual who can actively listen to what is being said instead of how. For example, focusing on the presentation’s content and not being impacted by the accent or pronunciation. On the other, it is an individual who is aware of the power of language, recognizing the dynamic between the intent and impact of the language we use. ■ Getting comfortable with the discomfort of unfamiliar new images representing professionalism in the workplace. In addition, provide mentorship and sponsorship to individuals whose leadership style and professionalism are unique to your own. Only about 11 percent of Black women in corporate

America have been sponsored and can powerfully advocate for investment in their career success. For this reason, leaders (overwhelmingly white men) tend to select, groom, and promote individuals who remind them of themselves. An unconscious bias that blinds them to prospective leaders who don’t look, act, or sound like they do.19 Who is Accountable for Redefining Standards of Leadership Professionalism? All employees play a part in redefining professionalism. However, the primary onus falls on leaders because, ultimately, they make the hiring decisions. Leaders have access to the hiring process and decide who progresses and who gets left behind. Therefore, in redefining and shaping standards of leadership professionalism, leaders must: ■ Acknowledge the problem that Black executives’ underrepresentation is due to unconscious bias in defining

high potential professionalism and the inability to assess ability rather than physical features. ■ Deal with resistance. Understand that to create space for new images of professionalism will require leaders to deal with their resistance to change and diversity that is not assimilated in whiteness. ■ Be an authentic ally. Call people in when having courageous conversations. Debunk myths of unprofessionalism. Uncouple cultural misunderstanding from work performance. Redefine professional standards – continually ask yourself and others what is professionalism? How do we measure it? And by whose standards? Black senior leaders also have a specific level of accountability to create space for high potential leadership inclusive of Black norms, even though it is not a problem created by this group. Understand that this will feel like working within the problem and working on the problem simultaneously. This work includes: ■ Unlearning standards of professionalism rooted in whiteness.

Do not fall victim to respectability politics where you feel you must police the behaviors of other Black professionals that do not adhere to traditional professionalism standards. ■ Role-modeling authenticity. In Grayson Perry’s recent docuseries, Grayson Perry’s Big American Road Trip, he engages in dialogue with residents of Atlanta, Georgia, known as the

Black elite. He asks provoking questions to unpack the concept of white privilege and its impact on the Black experience of professionalism and leadership. Within this docuseries, Perry highlights a space where professionalism and leadership rooted in Blackness already exist, but Black leaders are in-network and fellowship among other Black peers. Rather than codeswitching, redefining professionalism standards requires those who are currently in senior leadership to dress, communicate, work, and engage in the same manner with their white peers as they do with Black peers.

■ Sponsorship. Publicly mentoring and sponsoring Black high performing employees that represent diverse images of professionalism. ■ Having courageous conversations. Have conversations that matter and that drive change. When you see something, say something. Underrepresentation of Black professionals can change, but it won’t change overnight, and it will not change without intentional and concerted action. Hope is not an action, and inaction is not a strategy. With a strong business case for increased representation, desire for leadership among Black professionals, and a clear workforce supply, we are better positioned today to create change than ever before—starting with professionalism and leadership. With all leaders’ support, in particular Black leaders, we can create space for professionalism and leadership standards rooted in Blackness. Notes:

1 – Ray, V. (2019). Why so many organizations stay white. Harvard Business Review. 2 – Chen, T.-P. (2020, September 28). Why Are There Still So Few Black CEOs? 3 – Pace, C. (2018, August 31). How Women of Color Get to Senior Management. 4 – Ibid 5 – Ready, D. A., Conger, J. A., & Hill, L. A. (2010, June). Are You a High Potential? 6 – Hewlett, S. A., (2014). Executive Presence: The Missing Link Between Merit and Success. 7 – Gündemir, S., Homan, A. C., Dreu, C. K., & Vugt, M. v. (2014). Think Leader, Think White? Capturing and Weakening an Implicit Pro-White Leadership Bias. 8 – Gray, A. (2014, June 4). The Bias of ‘Professionalism’ Standards. 9 – Ray, V. (2019, November 19). Why So Many Organizations Stay White. 10 – Gray, A. (2014, June 4). The Bias of ‘Professionalism’ Standards. 11 – Cooper, F. R. (2007). Against Bipolar Black Masculinity: Intersectionality, Assimilation, Identity Performance, and Hierarchy. 12 – Phillips, K. W., Dumas, T. L., & Rothbard, N. P. (2018, April). Diversity and Authenticity. 13 – Pridgett, T. (2020, July 22). Racial Trauma at Work — Here’s What It Looks Like and How to Navigate It. 14 – Wong, K. (2018, June 12). Dealing With Impostor Syndrome When You’re Treated as an Impostor. Retrieved from The New York Times: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/12/smarter-living/dealing-withimpostor-syndrome-when-youre-treated-as-an-impostor.html 15 – Smith, A. N., Watkins, M. B., Ladge, J. J., & Carlton, P. (2018, May 10). Interviews with 59 Black Female Executives Explore Intersectional Invisibility and Strategies to Overcome It. 16 – Renfrewshire Council. (2020). Psychological harm. Retrieved from Renfrewshire Council: http://www. renfrewshire.gov.uk/article/3005/Psychological-harm#:~:text=Psychological%20harm%20is%20one%20 of,that%20matters%20to%20the%20person.&text=Psychological%20harm%20can%20have%20a%20serious%20impact%20on%20a%20person’s%20mental%20health. 17 – Chick, G. (2019, April 4). Corporate Traumatic Stress Disorder (CTSD) Is the Scourge of the 21st-Century Workplace. Retrieved from Training Industry: https://trainingindustry.com/blog/compliance/corporatetraumatic-stress-disorder-ctsd-is-the-scourge-of-the-21st-century-workplace/ 18 – Hewlett, S. A., & Luce, C. B. (2005, March). Off-Ramps and On-Ramps: Keeping Talented Women on the Road to Success. 19 – Hewlett, S. A., & Wingfield, T. (2015, June 11). Qualified Black Women Are Being Held Back from Management.