{"id":971,"date":"2017-12-22T13:36:38","date_gmt":"2017-12-22T21:36:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nancymthurston.wordpress.com\/?p=971"},"modified":"2019-12-18T17:42:05","modified_gmt":"2019-12-18T17:42:05","slug":"black-womens-leadership-my-white-womans-leadership","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nancymthurston.com\/blog\/2017\/12\/22\/black-womens-leadership-my-white-womans-leadership\/","title":{"rendered":"Black Women\u2019s Leadership: My (White Woman\u2019s) Leadership"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>From Facebook posts to last Sunday\u2019s sermon, the influence and effectiveness of Black women\u2019s leadership is indisputable. The mid-session Alabama senate race spotlighted the critical power of the leadership of Black Women. While this leadership has been long present, many other white-skinned people are just noticing it \u2026 and are deeply grateful.<\/p>\n

However, it wasn\u2019t news to me. I\u2019ve been working in a network that was started by a Black woman, Lillie Pearl Allen, and whose foundation was built by Black women and girls. All aspects of our work for the past four years have been held within Be Present, Inc<\/a>.\u2019s Black Women\u2019s Leadership Initiative<\/em><\/a>, aimed to \u201craise the visibility of Black women\u2019s leadership as key to social justice movement-building in the United States \u2026 highlighting the process and achievements of using a collective leadership approach.\u201d<\/p>\n

What is a wealthy, white woman like me doing in an organization highlighting Black women\u2019s leadership? And why am I on the leadership team of next June\u2019s Black & Female Leadership Conference<\/em>?<\/p>\n

This seeming contradiction is, in fact, not incongruent because Be Present, Inc. understands true leadership. This Initiative \u201cspecifically demonstrates the leadership of Black women in partnering with diverse people [like me] to create sustainable change that serves everyone in our communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

Black women as a powerful force building sustainable leadership for social justice didn\u2019t start in Alabama with this election. Likewise, the crisis in American leadership\u2014leadership for social justice as well as corporate and institutional leadership\u2014didn\u2019t start with the Alabama election or the current administration in Washington. These two things merely highlight what has long been true: Black women have always played a powerful role in leadership (even though largely overlooked), and patriarchy\u2019s way of leadership (even when tweaked and updated) is tattered and full of holes.<\/p>\n

2017 was the year I faced the ways I have internalized and acted out of \u201ctraditional,\u201d patriarchal leadership. Some of my actions flowed from how I was schooled (often without words) to be in leadership as a woman: watchful and suspicious of my own power and wisdom, silent instead of asking for more information or addressing things that felt off, and truncating my sharing of insights if it appeared that others didn\u2019t agree or understand. This was despite my self-image as a liberated woman. Others of my behaviors were solidly set in patriarchy: over attachment to my plan or idea of how something should be done, and my belief that work is best served when everything is organized and planned out ahead of time\u2014unconscious of the fact that both of these flowed from a white, masculine framework.<\/p>\n

I was supported and mentored in stepping into leadership aligned with my values and Spirit by an organization birthed and supported by Black women\u2019s leadership. In this network, I\u2019ve grown to understand the self-responsibility required for me to fully bring my sight and wisdom into a collective where everyone also brings the fullness of their sight and wisdom.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a very demanding process. I\u2019ve stumbled in public and been unable to step into my leadership in a few places where I cared deeply about the work. But I was held as I opened up what happened, and I was able to catch a glimpse of what within me blocked my full participation and thereby shift my behavior.<\/p>\n

A recent innovation in leadership theory is to \u201cposit race analysis as central to effective leadership that can exercise power in social justice movement building.\u201d Be Present has been doing that for almost 35 years. But the old ways cling tightly as \u201cleadership within the social justice movement or more broadly, continues to be defined within a framework that assumes white males are the default leaders and a \u2018leader and follower\u2019 dichotomy is the natural order.\u201d<\/p>\n

For the last few decades I\u2019ve understood the importance of keeping sight of the Big Topics\u2014race, gender, power and class\u2014and the benefits of collective leadership, but something shifted this past year. Leadership is only partly the theory, style or skills we use. Without addressing what is within me\u2014old habits and assumptions\u2014in a difficult moment, I far too often have defaulted to either going silent or trying to control, and reacted by getting angry or deeply disappointed.<\/p>\n

Effective and sustainable leadership that moves from the heart and Spirit must begin with me, then move out to respect and honor my relationship with others and finally flow into the work that we do together.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>As this year draws to an end, I am deeply grateful for the leadership and partnership of Black women. Thank you.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

*Quotes from Be Present, Inc.<\/em> website<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

From Facebook posts to last Sunday\u2019s sermon, the influence and effectiveness of Black women\u2019s leadership is indisputable. The mid-session Alabama senate race spotlighted the critical power of the leadership of Black Women. While this leadership has been long present, many other white-skinned people are just noticing it \u2026 and are deeply grateful. However, it wasn\u2019t … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “Black Women\u2019s Leadership: My (White Woman\u2019s) Leadership”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,11,12],"tags":[35,46,48,71],"class_list":["post-971","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-gender","category-partnership","category-race","tag-be-present-inc","tag-black-female-leadership-initiative","tag-black-womens-leadership","tag-collective-process"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nancymthurston.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/971","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nancymthurston.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nancymthurston.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nancymthurston.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nancymthurston.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=971"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/nancymthurston.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/971\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1252,"href":"https:\/\/nancymthurston.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/971\/revisions\/1252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nancymthurston.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=971"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nancymthurston.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=971"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nancymthurston.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=971"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}