What Does a Leader Look Like?

Welcome back to the First, Few and Only newsletter, a monthly deep dive to dispel common inclusion delusions and a guide to making work work for us all! Make sure to subscribe to be a part of the conversation and to pick up insights you can use to begin shifting your own workplace culture.

At most of my speaking engagements, I lead the audience through an exercise on reimagining leadership. I’ll guide you through a shortened version of it now—just make mental notes of your answers.?

Close your eyes and picture who comes to mind when I ask you these questions. Think about what they might be wearing, how tall they are, what they sound like, and how old they are…

When I ask you to imagine an executive, who do you think of?

When I ask you to imagine a politician, who do you think of?

When I ask you to imagine a professor, who do you think of?

When I ask you to imagine a pilot, who do you think of?

Answer: Most people think of a white man in his 50s with salt and pepper hair wearing a power suit, usually 5’10 or taller (Note the professor is usually wearing a sweater vest).

We have all been conditioned and indoctrinated to think of leadership and leaders through a very narrow lens.

Over the course of my own career, countless people have made assumptions about who I am and what I'm capable of doing based on what I look like. First it was, "Oh, you're too young to be a manager,” undercutting my authority in front of the whole room. Then, I graduated to, "You're a partner? Really? You don't look like a partner!" Well, just what exactly is a partner supposed to look like? Based on the exercise above, it’s likely a white male in his 50s.

We have a singular notion of what leadership looks like and we need to change that. The way we currently hold leadership impacts who gets hired. It impacts who gets promoted and who companies see as “executive material.” Our practices of reinforcing leadership in this way maintains the status quo.?

If we truly want to transform systems and structures, if we want more people to be seen and heard, and we want to increase belonging in workplaces we need to expand and remake our definitions around leadership and our images of leaders.

At the end of my speaking engagements, I usually close my sessions with this exercise…

I want you to think of someone who is a role model to you or someone you admire. What are they wearing? What do they look like?

Answer: Most people will think of their mothers, grandmothers, and people like Mother Theresa.

Why are the values we admire so different from who we see or promote to leadership? Don’t we want our values and our leaders to be more aligned?

Indoctrination about leadership and leaders starts early with the conversations we’re having with our kids. Take a look at this classroom experiment.?

The kids are mind blown when each woman walks in. How many girls, especially girls of color, inadvertently opt out of leadership roles because of this messaging?

Something is clearly broken and its time we work together to make work work for all.

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