Black Leadership in White Corporate America

Welcome to another episode of The Black Cheese. On The Black Cheese video podcast, Dr. Murray examines sociopolitical and socioeconomic factors past, present, and future factors that impact Black economics, Black entrepreneurship, and Black wealth. Dr. Walter V. Murray is the author of the book The Black Cheese. It is available in ebook or hard copy on Amazon. In this episode today, Dr. Murray talks about Black leadership in white corporate America. He takes a hard look at how Black leaders and managers can counteract the unconscious biases and entrenched racism in the workplace. Dr. Murray explores how Black leaders can respond to biases and systemic racism that often puts color ahead of competence as a barrier to Black leadership advancement in white corporate America.

So, uh, Black History Month focusing on Black leadership in white corporate America. What are the demands? What are the strains? What are the pressures, if any, that we as Black leaders, whether we are at the C-level suite, the mid to senior level managers or junior managers, or whatever level or role we play or fill as a leader, leading a team, leading people, As Black leaders in corporate, in white corporate America, what are some of the challenges that we face?

So in our previous—

of course, I have not worked in corporate America since 1990, a couple of decades. Well, but I still have a pulse on Black leadership in white corporate America because of my consulting work in leadership training and leadership development. Consult with— I consult with, coach, train hundreds of Black C-level executives, managers who struggle with Black leadership in white corporate America. So I understand the pain, I understand the pulse. And drawing on my own experience working as a consultant in white corporate America, where I have to compete against other white consultants, I understand the barriers of leadership and advancement for a Black professional. In white corporate America. In our previous podcast, we talked about the challenge of aligning to the R&R, right? Remember we talked about R&R being reputation and revenue. Also, we call it I squared, income and image, right? We need to make sure that our efforts align with bringing align with those values of the organization that we work with, right? But there's a more fundamental strategy and paradigm that we must pursue as Black leaders in white corporate America. The underlying premise here, the reality is that We know we have to be better. That's the reality. To deny that is to have your head in the sand. In white corporate America, to achieve the same level of advancement, Black leaders, Black managers have to be better than their white counterparts. Is not an equal playing field, right? But better how? Better in what regard? There are 6 core leadership competencies on which we must outcompete our white counterparts. If a white counterpart competitor I mean, that's really what they are. I mean, we're both striving for that corner office, that promotion with the big raise. We're trying to advance to leadership, and he or she is in line for that just as I am. I've got to outdo them. So if they are good, if they have good delegation skills, I must have excellent delegation skills. If they are good team builders, I must be a super excellent team builder. You follow me? But here are 6 core competencies that we must outcompete our white counterparts on if we as Black leaders want to level the playing field, so to speak. So does upskilling yourself in these areas of competency these 6 areas of leadership competency. So does it mean that you master these 6 competencies that you have eliminated the barriers, systemic barriers to Black leadership advancement in white corporate America? Does this mean that you have completely nullified the impact of unconscious bias in the workplace for black leaders and managers? Of course not. But becoming a master in these 6 leadership competencies puts you that much further ahead, way ahead in the competitive workplace, especially as a black leader competing against your white counterparts. In fact, let me pull them up. They are on our website. You go to leadershipsolutions.training, leadershipsolutions.training. But those 6 core leadership competencies are learning how to lead through disagreement, Right. We've gotta master that and we've gotta be better at it than any of our white counterparts. Actually, this goes across the board, right? If we wanna outcompete the white competition, the Asian competition, the Hispanic competition, other Black leaders, whoever it is we wanna outcompete. To advance in our leadership journey, we've got to outcompete them at least at a minimum on these 6 core competencies. So competency number 1 is leading through disagreement. How do you handle disagreement on a team? How do you handle disagreement with other co-leaders, co-managers? The better you are at that, The more you can outcompete other contestants vying for that corner office, then the more likely you are to get that advancement. Self-leadership, that's another core competency. How competent are you at managing your own emotions, recognizing and aligning your emotions with that of your team, that of his peers? Are your emotional values aligned with those of the organization, i.e., organizational culture? How are you in self-leadership? You win at self-leadership, you are on your way to outcompeting the competition. Team building. Can you pull a team together, especially during this pandemic, post-pandemic era where teams are now becoming very hybrid, very virtual, um, without that physical connection, sometimes team building, pulling a team together to work towards a common objective, that becomes more challenging. But again, if you can outcompete your competition And in the context of black leadership, if you could outcompete the white managers, the white fellow employees, you put yourself ahead of the game for leadership advancement, for leadership advancement, right? Strategic planning. How well do you plan the activities of your team? How well do you plan your project? Do you do the research? Is your strategy well-researched, well-vetted? Is it a cohesive strategy that aligns with values, vision, and mission? If you are a better strategic planner than your white counterparts, you give yourself a pretty good chance of being ahead of the game when it comes to Black leadership advancement. In white corporate America. How well can you educate, motivate, and facilitate your team? Right? See, a lot of times we think about the motivate, right? You know, a leader has to motivate their team, but try motivating a team that's not educated. And I don't mean academic education. I mean educated in terms of what the objectives are. It doesn't matter how hyped up your team is. If they don't know what they're doing, they get nothing done. All right? I mean, it's plain and simple. So again, if you are good at— and I call those the trifecta of leadership, right? That's why I have them together. Educate, motivate, and facilitate in that order. If you are good, better at doing that than your white counterparts, again, you give yourself that competitive edge. Because you become a more effective leader, which in turn makes your organization more productive. It puts you in alignment with organizational values of revenue and reputation, because chances are you are less likely to mess up than someone who is not as competent as you are in these areas. And organizations place a high value on managers and leaders who make them look good, right? So remember we talked about that in our first, in episode number 4, I believe it was, or 3. So we talked about leading through disagreement, self-leadership, team building, strategic planning, and then the 3 demands or the trifecta: educate, motivate, and facilitate. And final one is your leadership ecosystem. Now, so your leadership ecosystem is understanding the 4 Rs. This is a, this is a huge competency. The 4 Rs of every organization are the relationships, resources, rules, and results. Any leader, any manager who has a full understanding of the 4 Rs within the organization or on their team and knows how to massage those 4 Rs to achieve optimal results is a manager or leader who is going to go far, who is going to advance. You know how to, you understand the culture of the organization, you understand the interconnectivity between relationships, between relationships, resources, rules, and results. Once you understand that, you could manipulate, massage, maybe those might be negative words with negative connotations, but you could strategically allocate— that's a much better word— strategically allocate the resources, relationships, rules, and results within an organization, which is the ecosystem, the leadership ecosystem, or the organizational ecosystem. You become a master at doing that, you're well on your way to advance as a black leader in white corporate America. Does proficiency in these 6 competencies guarantee that you will rise above systemic racism, unconscious bias in the workplace? Probably not. It's ironic that sometimes organizations are so blinded by their unconscious bias, so blinded by racism, that they would promote a less competent leader to a leadership position simply because he or she was white. That's, that's, that's just, this blows my mind. But typically organizations that have a practice of ignoring competency as a criteria for advancing its leaders typically do not compete well in the marketplace. All right, and so sooner or later, that malpractice of leadership advancing based on color is going to come back and bite that company. Of course, in the meantime, you know, you have a choice to make. You become competent in these competencies, you've taken training courses, you've done, you know, reading, you've upskilled yourself in these 6 areas, and yet still you're being overlooked for leadership, black leadership in white corporate America. So what do you do? Well, here's the thing. Those skills that you've learned, those competencies that you've gained, no one could take those away from you. Those become part of your DNA, your leadership DNA. You have made yourself significantly more marketable, significantly more attractive to another organization who understands the value of promoting leaders based on competency rather than color. So you start sending your resumes out. Yeah, you know, because you send your resumes out now as a more competent leader because you have understood, grasped, internalized these 6 core leadership competencies. We just talked about, you know, upskilling yourself, and if you're still not promoted based on your competency, then you have the competencies now as part of entrenched in your leadership DNA. It's a skill set that you have that makes you more marketable. Well, yeah, that's exactly what I did. I was overlooked based on color even though I was more competent. I'm not going to give my competencies away in a place where I'm not appreciated. So I was, so I was out of there 30-something years ago, 1990. It was 25 years old, 25, 24, 26, something like that. Started my own practice. See, look, I'll be in charge of my own destiny. I'll promote myself. I'm not going to wait around. So while they were trying figure out color versus competency, I said, look, I'm out of here. I'm gonna start my own practice 30 years ago. And knock on wood, praise be to God, still doing well 30 years later. Ups and downs, of course, but I've been able to promote myself. Now, now, you, you know, entrepreneurship may not be for you. But at least you have the option because you are now a better leader, having gained the competencies of team building, strategic planning, self-leadership, educating, motivating, and facilitating your team, leading through disagreement, and understanding your leadership ecosystem. Because you have upskilled yourself in those areas, you have some leverage because now you are more marketable in the marketplace. First Black History Month, so this is another insight of how today, right now, you and I as Black leaders in white corporate America could be a better Black leader in white corporate America.

Remember to grab your copy of The Black Cheese on Amazon.com. It's available in hard copy and Kindle ebook format. Dr. Murray has discounted The Black Cheese until the end of Black History Month, so get your copy now. Do you need an informative and engaging expert speaker? You can book Dr. Murray to speak to your business, university, church, or nonprofit on issues of Black entrepreneurship or Black leadership, reach out to Dr. Murray through the social media platform where you are viewing this podcast, or you can book Dr. Murray at www.strategicbusinessanalysts.com/bookwaltermurray. See the post or description below to find Breathe in. Come to the place for which our Father's done.