Black women stepping back from leadership

The Invisible Weight of Leading While Black & Female As a psychotherapist, senior mental health practitioner and doctoral researcher examining Black women's leadership experiences, I'm struck by the powerful alignment between my research and two groundbreaking reports on misogynoir from Runnymede Trust and Glitch. My research explores how Black women leaders navigate and achieve (agency) within organisational structures designed to exclude us. The causal mechanisms may be invisible, but the impacts are devastatingly real. The data is clear: • 76% of racialised women report workplace racism impacting mental health • 84% more likely to face online harassment than white women • 50% of Black women quit jobs due to racial trauma What emerges across all three studies is a pattern of: • Institutional gaslighting masquerading as "feedback" • Career progression blocked by "not being the right fit" • Constant pressure to be exceptional yet invisible • The exhausting dance between hypervisibility and erasure At the intersection of research and lived experience, we see how structures shape Black women's leadership journeys - from the subtle undermining to the overt hostility. But we're not just documenting pain. We're building evidence. We're demanding action. We're rewriting the rules. Because understanding these mechanisms isn't just academic - it's how we dismantle systems of oppression and create real change. To every Black woman leader: Your victories aren't despite the system. They're proof it needs to change. #BlackWomenInLeadership #Misogynoir #ResearchInAction #SystemicChange #RacialEquity [References: Glitch Digital Misogynoir Report 2024, Runnymede Trust Misogynoir in the Workplace 2024]

Many have asked me to comment on Claudine Gay's resignation, given that I interviewed over 500 WOC and many Black women in writing my book, "The First, The Few the Only" (about WOC about power and rising) and because of my academic affiliation. I needed a minute to take it all in. To be clear, I haven't spoken to anyone on campus nor been privy to any insider information. I am going to leave what has happened and why to other posts. Right now, I want to speak to WOC and Black women and say I am saddened, like many of you. It is hard to watch a visible First be pushed out, quit, or step down from any position because we all know how much she had to do to get there and because there are so few of us. Her exit is a grave loss that hurts deeply. Many of us experience "Inclusion Delusion." The conundrum of being highly visible as the first or only in an organization, occupying the seat, and yet managing through daily incidents that make us question if we belong, are respected or have real power. As visible Firsts face public scrutiny, we all pause, question our paths, and relive our weariness.  I want to share some thoughts and advice based on my research: 👩🏽 Firsts often follow the rules because we feel we must. A friend shared, "I wish they had been less obedient," that they had not followed the directions prescribed. I wish that Claudine Gay had spoken from the heart. I wish more had been done and said to make ALL students feel safe on campus.  📣 Advice: It's important to speak our truths and use power wisely while we have it. No one I interview ever tells me they wished they said less, just that they said more. 👩🏽 Firsts are taught as little girls to be 2-4x as good to get to the table. To be "perfect, exceptional, beyond reproach," dare I say heroic.  📣 Advice: You will be forced to overprove, over credentialize, and overperform. Check your levels of sacrifice & exhaustion.  📣 Advice: The questioning doesn't go away even when you get the top seat. Don't be surprised. 👩🏽 Firsts feel pressure to "represent their race." I imagine Claudine Gay felt this most acutely as she was weighing whether to step down. What would her actions signal to those coming after her? 📣 Advice: Take stock of how many tasks and how much you take on beyond the role you were hired to play. You CAN say no when it is too much. 📣 Advice: Sometimes the price of the seat is too high. Toxic culture makes us tox-sick, and sometimes you have to choose yourself. So many of the women reaching out to me are seeing themselves in how this is playing out. They say that if it can happen in the top seats, when does it get better? Easier? Is there any respite? And is it even worth it?   We will not continue to be first, the few, or the only, but in the meantime, we must remember three things: 1️⃣ Our worth is decided by us and only us. 2️⃣ We must find support & community for the long road ahead. 3️⃣ We draw our lines and know when we must choose ourselves.

Black women do not get the same space to make mistakes, speak up or take risks in corporate spaces. It's been a weeeeeeeek on the internet. I've gotten alot of messages about why I haven't said more, done more, been louder. We don't always have the space to yell our thoughts from the rooftops. We are expected to be exceptional at all times, flawless in execution, and tireless in our efforts. One slip-up that would be overlooked, or even forgiven, in others can become a permanent scarlet letter for us. So if you're asking yourself why certain creators aren't as loud as you'd like them to be, remember, we are simply trying to protect ourselves. Every word, every post, every room we walk into has the potential to not only impact us but also ripple out to our peace, our families, and our livelihoods. As a Black woman, you are often held to impossible standards while consistently running up against the last best thing you did, constantly having to outdo and prove yourself, over and over. We're forced to keep receipts just to prove that we aren't imagining it, while leaders try to gaslight us into believing that we are the problem. It doesn’t matter how brilliant, how impactful, or how necessary you were yesterday; today, you’re expected to do it all over again, only bigger, only better. The bar never moves for us; it just gets higher. And yet, we still show up. We still create. We still lead. We still carve out space in systems not designed for us, knowing that every move we make will be dissected under a microscope. You're too much. You're too smart. You're too inquisitive. You're too whatever it is they need to say to help them unpack their own discomfort. So when you don’t hear us screaming from the rooftops, it’s not because we don’t have something to say. It’s because survival sometimes requires silence. Strategy sometimes looks like restraint. Strategy sometimes looks like moving in silence. And protecting our joy, our sanity, and our longevity will always matter more than performing for anyone else’s comfort.

Chapter One of I'm Not Yelling was not written as self-help. It was written as an inquiry. Before the language of “psychological safety” and “belonging” became standard in workplace research, I was examining a specific question: What happens when a group is systematically taught that visibility is a risk? Chapter One analyzes how Black women learn silence as a survival strategy at work, not because of individual disposition, but because of repeated organizational feedback loops. Performance reviews. Informal norms. Tone policing. Racialized professionalism standards that are rarely named but consistently enforced. The chapter documents three core findings: • Silence is not neutral. It is a learned response to threat, often framed as professionalism or emotional intelligence, but associated with higher levels of stress, disengagement, and hopelessness. • Stereotype threat functions as a management tool. The fear of being labeled “difficult” or “angry” shapes communication behavior long before any actual conflict occurs. • Economic outcomes are not accidental. When voice is penalized and visibility is constrained, pay gaps, stalled advancement, and leadership exclusion follow predictably. The book was published in 2022. The data environment has only caught up since then. What I continue to study now is not whether Black women need more confidence or resilience, but how workplace systems reward silence while calling it strength. That question still sits at the center of my work.

👷🏽♀️ “She just handed in her resignation! No warning, no complaints. We thought she was doing great. She was a solid engineer. I mean she was smart, reliable, got along with everyone. I thought she was happy here.” I’ve heard that from execs too many times after a woman of color engineer resigns. But here’s the truth: She wasn’t unhappy. She was unseen. Mid-career women engineers of color are quietly exiting firms, not because they can’t hack it, but because they’re not being sponsored, supported, or seen as leadership material. 💼 They’re tired of proving themselves over and over. 📉 They don’t see a path forward. 🛑 And your competitors are scooping them up. If you’re not actively developing and sponsoring your mid-career women engineers of color, they’re watching the exit door quietly. And some of your competitors are opening their doors to them. Retention is a leadership issue, not just HR's job. Let’s fix the system before you lose the talent you're already invested in. Read more in my newsletter this week. #EngineeringLeadership #RetentionStrategy #DEIinAEC #PositiveHireCo

Black women aren’t just leading, we’re leading while carrying twice the emotional weight. That’s the part no performance review, leadership handbook, or DEI report ever names. The leadership tax hits our nervous system first, not as stress we can shake off, but as hypervigilance, people-pleasing, and the pressure to be “on” even when we’re exhausted. Research backs what we’ve always felt: Black women leaders shoulder more invisible labor, navigate more bias-based scrutiny, and experience burnout at some of the highest rates in the workforce, but we’re praised for pushing through it. The tax shows up like this: - You double-check your decisions because mistakes aren’t seen as human; they’re seen as proof. - You mentor, mediate, and manage emotional dynamics no one else even acknowledges. - You carry the silent expectation to fix everything without ever asking for anything. While the world calls it resilience, your body calls it overload. But here’s what I need more Black women leaders to hear: Strength without restoration is not sustainability, and leadership without support is not leadership, it’s survival. You deserve rooms where: ✔ your brilliance is assumed ✔ your emotional labor isn’t free ✔ and your nervous system is part of the leadership conversation That’s why on Dec 14, Bloom Again is offering a 7-hour restoration experience in Houston for Black women leaders who are overdue for reprieve, not more pressure. This isn’t about escaping leadership; it’s about learning to lead without losing yourself in the process. Where does the “leadership tax” show up in your body most: your shoulders, your sleep, or your spirit?

The latest reporting on Black women leaving the workforce isn’t surprising, it’s confirmation of what I’ve spent my career working on. When hundreds of thousands of Black women leave or are pushed out of the labor market, it’s not an individual choice issue. It’s a structural one. In Build the Damn Thing, I wrote about what happens when systems designed without us force us to choose between economic survival and our well-being. This “exit economy” is exactly that moment — and it’s why ownership matters more than ever. For years, through Genius Guild, The Doonie Fund, and my broader work investing in underestimated founders, I’ve been building solutions that create real pathways to ownership, wealth, and agency, not just participation. Right now, I’m working on a new platform that will help Black women re-enter the economy on their own terms: through entrepreneurship, high-opportunity work, and the kind of flexible, self-determined paths that traditional systems still fail to offer. If we want to reverse this trend, we can’t just “keep Black women in jobs.” We must build an economy where people, including Black women, can own, create, and lead. This is the work ahead and I’m committed to building the solutions. More to come Thanks Katica Roy for the analysis. #BlackWomen #Ownership #BuildTheDamnThing #InclusiveEconomy #Entrepreneurship

I really want to know what it’ll take for nonprofit organizations to express the same joy, excitement, and support on the day they hire a Black woman Executive Director, even 1 year later. I wonder what it would look like for boards to have healthy conversations with that Black woman executive. To talk through inevitable disagreements but remain supportive and cede power so she can use the exact skills she was hired for.  To not do so is mind boggling to me. But here we are again. Just 16 months ago, the Chair of the Greenpeace Fund Board, said: “Now, as the first Black woman to serve as the sole Executive Director, I look forward to watching [Ebony] inspire and lead into action a diversity of partners in communities across the country in our journey toward justice for people and for the planet.” So, what happened? Ebony announced her departure from the organization last week on LinkedIn, among online articles which state, “the relationship between Twilley Martin and the board ‘really soured’ in a short period of time over the group’s approach to a settlement … the board not only disagreed [with her], the board vehemently disagreed with the direction she was willing to take.” Folks, I have déjà vu. Here we have a brilliant Black woman leader who was empowered to make decisions about the organization. Who followed legal guidance to make thoughtful recommendations about how to solve a complex program and was backed by her senior management. Who was simply doing what she was hired to do. Once more, we see how Black women are often treated when they express their power and expertise. (And sometimes, it be your own people. But that’s a whole different post.) I had the joy of meeting Ebony last year. Her leadership is admirable and impressive: between her strategic thinking, her care for her team, and strong operational abilities -- she was killing it! So, reading this article especially broke my heart. Although multiple people spoke out in support of Ebony’s leadership, Ebony’s own voice was missing from the piece. She knows – as well as I do – she can’t defend herself directly because she’d be seen as an “angry Black woman,” right? Her comments could potentially be weaponized against her and impact future opportunities. Because societally, we do not believe Black women. What will it take for the nonprofit environmental sector to TRULY support Black, Indigenous, and people of color in top leadership positions – from the day they’re extended an offer letter to the first time they try to lead (as they were hired to do?) #BlackWomen #Environment #Conservation #NonprofitLeadership