How African-Americans Advance at Work — And What Organizations Can Do to Help

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Welcome to the hbr ideacast. From harvard business review, I'm alison beard.

We had a dream that one day our sons and daughters would grow up to be doctors, lawyers, engineers, teachers, preachers, politicians and business owners. Business owners. Yes, business owners with a capital B. Because back in the day, we were the capital. See, bought and sold per pound of flesh, tried and tested under great duress. The great race started with a gunshot bang, sprinting to the finish line before the closing bell rang. This land is our land, plowed by a sacred hand and claimed through a courageous stand.

That is a poem written and spoken by today's guest, Laura Morgan Roberts. But Roberts isn't just a poet. She's also a professor of management at the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business and studies diversity in organizations, particularly how African Americans experience the workplace. In some ways, it seems like these issues are more top of mind for business leaders than they ever have been before. Global companies have major initiatives to recruit and develop people of color, and organizations of all sizes claim to want more inclusivity in their senior ranks. All the research shows that diversity improves team performance, decision making and innovation. But while black people make up 12% of the U.S. workforce, they account for only 8% of managers and only 2% of Fortune 500 senior executives. And there are only three African American Fortune 500 CEOs, down from a peak of 12 in 2002. Roberts wants companies to start walking their talk, and that means more frank discussions about race in the workplace. It means understanding the challenges that people of color still face. And it means really pushing for advancement. To help that cause. She has co edited the new book Race, Work and New Perspectives on the Black Experience. Laura, thank you so much for being here.

Thank you for having me.

Your book includes reams of research. What were the findings that most stood out for you in reflecting the black experience in the workplace today?

We found that looking across the data, we looked at the relative experiences through a comparative lens. We found that disparities continue to persist in terms of career advancement, career outcomes, as well as career satisfaction. This reality of continued disparity was sobering, but it also became a launching point for us to ask what we feel is the central question of the age, which is how do we gain traction around developing and advancing more inclusive organizations? How do we move beyond spinning our wheels with the same policies, practices, PR campaigns around diversity and inclusion and really begin to gain some traction.

Is the problem that for companies it is more of a PR move than a meaningful effort, or are the intentions really good and the implementation not working?

Our data leads us to conclude that both may be at play. We have critical analyses of diversity programs and policies that indicate that over time, these programs have focused less and less on race, shown that leaders are less comfortable with having public and explicit conversations around how to develop and advance employees from differing racial backgrounds. Much of the civil rights movement had focused on social justice, but it also focused on economic justice. And race was a very central aspect of that conversation. Most corporations today have some public statement about their commitment to diversity and inclusion, and they probably have a brand campaign as well that invites authenticity and invites employees to bring all of their differences to work. These broad brush programs are not addressing the needs, the current needs, or the long standing disparities that African American employees have faced in organizations. We also found, though, that many employees of color have experienced overt and implicit racism in the form of contested authority. So when they are trying to exercise leadership, they're receiving a lot of pushback, where their credibility is being challenged and questioned, where they're feeling the need to temper or dial it down so that they don't come across as being too powerful or too, quote, unquote, threatening to other individuals who are not comfortable with the ways in which they might practice leadership.

Yeah, I would say that one of the central themes in the book is the idea that African American employees, managers, executives, don't feel like they can be as authentic in the workplace and don't feel as supported in the workplace.

That's right. The authenticity theme was very salient. Among the African Americans in a variety of industries. They may be a tenured professor, they may be an instructional coach, they may be a practicing physician, they may be a partner in a financial services firm or in a law firm. And even with that position of power, they feel as though in order to be effective, they have to make some compromises or trade offs.

So you talked about broad brush programs being perhaps part of the problem. You know, we're grouping all minorities together and including women too. Why should organizations specifically focus on advancing African Americans?

There are a few reasons that it's important for us to do this. First and foremost, we would argue that race is and has been a central engine of the US Economy for, for centuries. And so for us to truly understand how to create more generative, humanistic and sustainable management practices, we must confront and reconcile the dynamics around exploitation and dehumanization that emerged from the legacy of forced labor. And African Americans, unfortunately, are still dealing with the legacy of exclusion, marginalization, oppression, and exploitation. For today's CEOs to take an intense and sustained focus on race and the African American experience, they are signaling that they have the courage to take a close and honest look at how their organizations are promoting employee engagement and flourishing, and how deep their commitment may be to actualizing human potential for everyone in the organization. It's easy for us to look at someone who reminds us of our younger self and tap them for the next level leadership role or position. But can you look at someone who comes from a background that has been marginalized, disadvantaged, stereotyped negatively, and identify the structures that have made it more difficult for that individual to advance to leadership?

Do you think that current racial tensions are factoring into how people are thinking about this in organizations?

Absolutely. Organizations are open systems. That means that the boundaries between your front door of your office building and the sidewalk outside are permeable. What goes out also comes in. And. And as we bring our whole and full selves and experiences into the organization, we are also having to grapple with these wicked problems and challenges that society is facing around racial inequality, around religion, just the social class disparities between the CEO salary and the frontline worker salary and the cleaning staff or janitorial staff's salary. You know, all of these different ways that our society reflects conflict and inequality are replicated in many organizations.

The lack of representation that we see in the most senior ranks, why does that matter so much?

I guess another way to ask that question is, you know, what do black senior executives have to offer? I mean, I could answer that in two ways. In one way, I would say the same thing that everyone else has to offer. So therefore, the case or the argument must be made for why they aren't worthy or haven't been represented in these positions. Because when you peel back the skin and you look at the core capabilities, you have the same representation of strengths and weaknesses around many of the different skills that are required to lead an organization effectively.

And indeed, probably because of all the challenges and biases, one has to overcome greater strengths.

That would be the second factor for us to consider is what else these leaders have developed as a function of their experience. And what we find in race, work and leadership are stories of agency, persistence, resilience, collective mobilization, ingenuity, thinking outside of the box, learning how to make things happen, the ability to build relationships across difference by being sensitive to other stakeholders, needs and interests and not assuming by default that what you desire as a CEO is the same thing that your stakeholders will desire. Dean Erica James and Dean Lynn Perry, Gary Wooten have conducted research on black CEOs who take on glass cliff assignments of crisis leadership. And they find that black CEOs have a higher proclivity toward these glass cliff assignments. Now, perhaps that's because, like Barack Obama, the moment at which things are starting to unravel is the moment at which people, the masses, become more open and willing to support diverse leaders. But another argument for that is African Americans have become more accustomed to taking on risks.

Yeah. Is there a danger, though in that that black leaders are also being set up to fail when they're given that challenging assignment?

This is a very real risk. This is the same risk that African Americans have carried through their experiences of beating the odds in so many other aspects of their life. Post emancipation, through Jim Crow, through integrating schools. Every time an African American leader took one of those steps, they were risking failure. Risking failure, yeah. It was a big bet. So the question for them became, well, what is my other option?

Right.

Playing it safe was not an option that they were willing to live with. The question becomes, how do we put in place the structures, the systems, and the social support that will enable African Americans and others of different racial backgrounds, including whites, to be able to lead most effectively?

So how are organizations, educational institutions, not getting that pipeline building process right now? And what are some specific recommendations that you have to make it better?

Here are five things that organizations can do to help to increase representation and to move beyond this rhetoric that says, oh, we just can't find anybody. The first is to conduct more sophisticated data analysis that examines race and its impact on talent management within the organization so that we can have a grounded empirical conversation about patterns and, and trends and not just base it on rhetoric, ideology, anxieties, fears, and stereotypes.

Do I see one picture in the annual report?

Exactly. The window dressing piece. There's a picture of a black board member or on the website.

So we're good. Yeah, exactly.

We're looking for a small signal, and that can even be tokenism. But as long as we see a small signal, then we feel like, okay, we can check that box. We're doing just fine with race and advancement, but the numbers are really what has to tell the story. The second is to lay the foundation throughout the entire organization for psychological safety so that individuals are not afraid to talk about their fears, their anxieties, their ignorance, the things that they just don't know. Then we can move into creating a culture of more focused inquiry around race and as Purdy, Greenaway and Davidson say, promoting an environment of race, intelligent inclusion. So now we're having deeper conversations about different people's experiences in the organization and how those experiences may interface with race, gender, class, religion, nationality, sexual orientation, and many other dimensions of difference. Step four involves recognizing, valuing and rewarding the leadership roles and accomplishments that black professionals are already making. Black professionals are able to articulate the ways in which they are leading change within their organizations, with those individuals getting the same degree of credit and additional responsibilities that would correspond with the amount of work and effort that they're putting.

Forward, especially because they're often doing their actual job and then the job of leading diversity efforts, you know, not formally, but informally.

Exactly which that additional work is often invisible. It may even be devalued. It may be counted as a strike against them or pigeonholing them into a set of leadership responsibilities that only involve serving diverse communities.

Right?

And then the last element is something for us to consider as academics, as leaders, as practitioners, how we are relying so comfortably on this business case for diversity, if the business case for diversity is going far enough for us to promote true inclusion, equity and flourishing in our diverse organizations. So we need to embrace inclusion and advancement of black leaders, not just because it's the financially savvy thing to do. We have to get beyond the business case and deal with the moral issues at hand. And leaders have to make a choice about the kind of societ that we're trying to create.

If I am an individual leader today, and I want to try to effect some sort of change in my organization, where do I start? And I'm white, okay?

And you're white. So the first thing that you would do is to start building relationship, to learn to take on the lens of another person's experience and try to understand more about how two individuals in the same organization working in similar roles might have very different experiences in those roles. Read a story. It's a news story about a man who had this awakening, a white man who had this awakening around gender dynamics because he was filling in for one of his female colleagues who say she was on vacation or something like that, and so he was answering her emails. So he's having these exchanges with clients, and he was shocked because clients kept pushing back on her recommendations or her suggestions or her proposed solutions to their problems. And he just couldn't believe how much back and forth he was having. And the only difference in the communication was the name and the gendering of the name.

He was using her sign off.

He was using her sign off. And that was a moment in which he was able to metaphorically walk in her shoes for a day.

Right?

It was enough for him to say, hmm, I had no idea that she had to work that much harder to engage and support our clients than I have to work because I can offer a suggestion and then they respond immediately and they move on. The other message, really strong message from our book, is that the emotional labor that is required for promoting inclusion often hangs on the shoulders of the marginalized, those who already have fewer resources, support systems. They're the individuals who are also having to carry the emotional weight of managing other people's fears and anxieties and doubts and skepticism about diversity. This work of truly gaining traction, we have to join hands to do that work together.

What advice do you give to rising young African American professionals today?

Know your strengths. Know your strengths. The world is not designed, orchestrated in a way that helps any of us to truly learn about, acknowledge, affirm our strengths in the context of work. You know, I talk about current work experiences for professionals in a paradox of almost seussical terms, like as in Dr. Seuss, right? Where individuals feel that they are simultaneously overextended and underutilized, so they're not having the opportunities to contribute from a position of strength in their work every day. Part of it is they don't know what their strengths are. They're conditioned to focus so much on their weaknesses, their deficiencies, things that they have to do to compensate or overcompensate for other people's doubts and critiques and negative stereotypes that they really lose sight of the game itself. They never have a chance to actually soar and excel within their own lane. So one of the first things that I do with aspiring and emerging leaders is to try to help to reconstruct that foundation from a position of strength. Who are you? How have your cultural and professional experiences equipped you to meet the challenges and opportunities in your career? Now we can talk about your opportunities for growth and development and we can talk about the kind of network that you need to form so that you can have the appropriate advisors to help you grow and develop in the necessary ways.

That is terrific advice. Thank you so much for coming in today.

Thank you.

That's Laura Morgan Roberts, professor at the University of Virginia's Darden School of Business and co editor with Anthony Mayo and David Thomas of the book Race, Work and New Perspectives on the Black Experience. This episode was produced by Mary Dew. We get technical help from Rob Eckart. Adam Buckles is our audio product manager. Thanks. Thanks for listening to the hbr ideacast. I'm alison beard.