What Black Leaders Bring to the Table

HBR IdeaCast

Harvard Business Review

Business, Marketing, Teams, Business/entrepreneurship, Harvard, Management, Strategy, Economics, Finance, Hbr, Business/management, Leadership, Entrepreneurship, Business/marketing, Innovation, Communication

4.3 • 1.9K Ratings

🗓️ 2 March 2021

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Chad Sanders, a former tech executive and entrepreneur, says that people of color, especially Black men like him, often feel the need to assimilate to white corporate culture. They learn to code switch and downplay their race. But Sanders realized a few years into his career that, by trying to fit in, he was failing to leverage the strengths he'd developed growing up as a minority in the United States. After digging into the stories of successful Black leaders, he discovered some common threads to their leadership styles, including empathy, resilience and creative thinking, and he has advice for rising Black executives who want to put those attributes to work as well as the organizations who employ them. Sanders is the author of "Black Magic: What Black Leaders Learned from Trauma and Triumph."

Transcript

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0:00.0	So you got the job. Now what? Join me, Eleni Mata, on HBR's new original podcast, New
0:08.1	Here, the Young Professionals Guide to Work, and how to make it work for you. Listen for
0:13.8	free wherever you get your podcasts. Just search New Here. See you there!
0:30.0	Welcome to the HBR idea cast from Harvard Business Review. I'm Alison Beard. We all know some of
0:49.4	the key skills you need to succeed in business. Perseverance, empathy, creativity, focus, but
0:56.0	how do people build them? Today's guest argues that black Americans do it from childhood, and
1:01.7	that organizations large and small need to start recognizing them for it. Because when you're up
1:07.3	against systemic racism and constantly navigating classrooms and workplaces where you're in the
1:12.0	minority, you learn grit, you pay more attention to what other people are thinking and feeling,
1:17.8	you get resourceful, and you work a hell of a lot harder than everyone else to prove you deserve
1:22.4	your spot at the table. Chad Sanders began his career in corporate roles at Google and then helped
1:27.8	lead a technology startup before becoming a writer and musician. For his new book, he talked to 15
1:33.1	black leaders from diverse fields about their experiences at home, school, and work. He wanted
1:38.3	to figure out what helped them get to the top and to showcase those skills for everyone else,
1:43.2	not just aspiring leaders of color but also white peers and bosses. His book is called Black
1:48.8	Magic, what black leaders learned from trauma and triumph. Chad, thanks so much for being here.
2:01.8	So I'd love to first talk about your personal story. You grew up in Maryland, you went to
2:06.8	Morehouse, which is a historically black college. You started out at Google, which is one of the world's
2:11.9	most prestigious companies in a pretty cool job, but you had trouble at first. Why?
2:16.9	I was unadjusted to whiteness as a cultural setting to be specific. I went to
2:29.1	very mixed schools growing up. My high school was about 50% white, 40% black, 10% other races,
2:38.6	and so I was very much adjusted to white culture and white social cues at that point in my life,
	...

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