Ideas at the intersection of career, personal growth and current events.
In our Reframing Series, we examine commonplaces that, upon closer look, reveal a toxic belief or harmful behavior. Read more from our Reframing Series: Reframing Boundaries; Reframing Burnout, Reframing Nice, Reframing Uncertainty. We Can’t Do It All At...
What started out as a typical newsletter call turned into something else this week. We were all set up on a group video call to create the next newsletter when the conversation took an abrupt turn. Our topic was values, something we talk about a lot. MJ wondered aloud...
Our company motto isn’t just something we help clients with. Our own team at Leverage to Lead has experienced (and continues to experience) moments when something previously hidden, often in service of upholding white supremacy culture, is made visible to us for the...
“If you can’t hear me, you can’t see me.” -Tarana Burke, founder of the #MeToo movement Our nation is struggling with, and sometimes feels stalled by, disparate beliefs—conflicting worldviews and beliefs about what facts or truths are valid. We all carry different...
A year ago, we published a newsletter titled Breaking the Rules of DEI where we exposed some of the toxic, unspoken “rules” of DEI. Contradictory, self-canceling, and paralyzing, such “rules” are really meant to undermine any real progress toward increasing diversity...
We’ve been writing a lot about seeing each other’s humanity —the full, unique individual made up of many identity markers and experiences. In Bobbie Harro’s Cycle of Liberation, this is part of the Waking Up and Getting Ready stages. You can see from Harro’s graphic...
When we see aspects of white supremacy culture arise during DEI work (perfectionism; assimilation; presumption of comfort, safety, and power; individualism), it’s rarely in the form of overt bigotry or discrimination. We’ve all been socialized with white supremacy...
At Leverage to Lead, the complexity of identity is always on our minds. In a recent meeting, we saw different identities and different realities clash. Three colleagues were reminiscing about living in the same city in southern California. Two Black women lamented...
DEI work is never linear. People and organizations rarely move from Point A to Point B in a neat or simple way. Instead, we go slowly, then quickly, then slowly again. We grow and we resist. We take risks and we retreat. We progress, we stall, and we surprise...
Read more from our Reframing Series: Reframing Burnout, Reframing Nice, Reframing Uncertainty In our Reframing Series, we examine commonplaces that, upon closer look, reveal a toxic belief or harmful behavior. In this newsletter, we’re taking on boundaries. There’s...