The rigged test of leadership | Sophie Williams

TED Business

TED

Business, Modupe Akinola, Ted Business Podcast, Business Leadership Podcast, Ted Talks Business, Ted Modupe, Ted Talks

4 • 1.2K Ratings

🗓️ 19 June 2023

⏱️ 19 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The glass cliff: an experience of taking on a leadership role only to find that your chances of success have been limited before you've even begun. Equality activist Sophie Williams explores the research-backed reasons behind this workplace phenomenon and how it overwhelmingly affects underrepresented groups, despite a facade of progress and inclusion. Learn more about the biases and behaviors that set people up for failure -- and what can be done to make the path to success in leadership better for everyone. Join our host Modupe Akinola after the talk for tips on how to recognize people’s full potential -- so everyone has a fair chance to shine at work

Transcript

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0:00.0	Ted Audio Collective
0:07.0	The summer after my freshman year of college, I had an internship on Wall Street.
0:12.5	This was in the 90s when I was 19 years old and one of the few people of color at the company,
0:18.2	and certainly the only black summer intern in my group.
0:22.1	I wanted to do well, see if corporate America was for me, and learn all there is to learn
0:27.6	about business.
0:29.5	Just afternoon, the company brought in a Harvard Business School Professor for its lunchtime
0:33.5	speaker series, and I was so excited to attend.
0:37.3	Why?
0:38.4	Because this talk was going to be about the making of the minority executive in corporate
0:42.9	America.
0:44.3	About what someone like me needed to do to make it in an environment where there were
0:49.2	so few role models.
0:52.0	I was totally enamored with the presentation.
0:55.3	The professor talked about the individual and organizational factors that influenced
0:59.5	the promotion of people of color.
1:01.8	He highlighted the importance of developing relationships that help you grow, and he shared
1:06.4	insights that came from his interviews with people of color at different organizations.
1:11.7	His talk resonated deeply with me and energized me as it gave lots of helpful tools for my
1:17.0	career.
1:18.4	But honestly, I think what struck me the most was that he was the first black professor
1:23.8	I'd ever heard speak.
	...

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