From "What Is Happening to Me?" to "How Do I Make Things Happen?"
For a long time, I saw myself through the lens of what I lacked and saw aspects of my cultural identity as a deficit. I walked into spaces defining myself as an African immigrant living in the US who has an “accent” and an unfamiliar name that others found hard to pronounce, and a Black woman. Often, I believed these parts of my identity placed barriers in front of my leadership in terms of being heard and understood and several times acquiesced to others’ ideas without sharing mine. I was very aware of what I was doing and would ask myself the question: What is happening to me?
A few years ago, I made the decision to switch the way I saw myself after an experience I had in a meeting.
This scenario was not a unique experience, it was one of many throughout my career. I was at a meeting discussing a project that I was leading, and the others at the meeting were White women, and I was the only person of color in the room. As I shared my ideas, the others looked to my supervisor for confirmation that my ideas were valid and worth following up on. And when she agreed with what I had said, suddenly my ideas were accepted. After the meeting, I was frustrated and reflected on “why hadn't I spoken up, again?” and “why had I allowed myself to disappear, again?”
I realized I had spent so much time focusing on where I lacked privilege and power that I had completely overlooked where I already had it. When I reflected back on who was at the meeting, I realized I was the only person in the room with a PhD, I brought decades of leadership experience, and as an immigrant I carried lived expertise and cultural insights that no one else at the table could offer. All of these are sources of influence and forms of privilege that I had not recognized I had.
We often hear the words privilege and power together in conversations about inequality, and rightly so. Especially for those of us who come from marginalized groups we focus on those aspects of our identities that we have been told hold no privilege or power. And very rarely look at those same identities as holding privilege and power.
I've come to believe there's another conversation worth having for those, who like myself, have not felt seen or heard. What if we recognized the privilege we already hold, whether through our education, professional experience, relationships, or lived expertise and used that privilege to exercise our power to use our voice and effect change.
The definition of privilege is an advantage that gives us opportunities others may not have, and power is the ability to create change. When we understand we have both, something powerful happens, synergy.
Today, I still walk into rooms where bias is ever present however my voice is now strong. I've stopped asking, "What is happening to me?" and instead, I ask, "Given who I am and what I bring, how can I make things happen?"
As leaders, our cultural identity is a story of opportunities, including our strengths and how we use them to influence others. When you recognize this, you begin to lead with authenticity as you give yourself permission to do so. That's where the real synergy between privilege and power begins.
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