Beyond Gender and Ethnic Stereotypes

By Angela McCullough

Your career guidebook for public sector leadership

For women of color, the leadership climb in the public sector feels like a staircase missing steps. This guidebook? Your detailed blueprint to understanding that progress means persever

• Language: English
• Publisher: Manuscripts LLC
• Release date: Feb 2, 2024
• ISBN: 9798889268703

Book preview

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Beyond Gender and Ethnic Stereotypes

Angela R. McCullough

Copyright © 2024 Angela R. McCullough

All rights reserved.

Beyond Gender and Ethnic Stereotypes

How Women of Color Redefine Public Sector Leadership

ISBN

979-8-88926-871-0 Paperback

979-8-88926-872-7 Hardcover

979-8-88926-870-3 Ebook

Contents

Author’s Note1

Introduction3

Part I.How You Show Up11

Chapter 1.From Outsider to Trailblazer: Embracing Authentic Leadership13

Chapter 2.Beyond the Wall: Harnessing the Power of Voice27

Chapter 3.Hair, Identity, and Power: Owning Your True Self at Work41

Chapter 4.From Vision to Reality: Crafting Your Career Roadmap55

Part II.Overcoming Internal and External Barriers67

Chapter 5.Redefining Failure: How Personal Setbacks Can Propel You to Success69

Chapter 6.Shattering Stereotypes: Triumphing over Racism and Bias81

Chapter 7.From Target to Victor: Overcoming Hostility93

Chapter 8.Bouncing Back: The Power of Grit and Resilience105

Part III.Taking It to the Next Level117

Chapter 9.Build Your Brand: Become the Obvious Choice119

Chapter 10.It’s Who You Know: Building Your Network131

Chapter 11.Trifecta: The Power of Mentors, Allies, and Sponsors145

Conclusion163

Acknowledgments167

Appendix171

Author’s Note

As I began my journey to write this book, my initial goal was to amplify the voices of women of color, which is a critical and necessary task. However, as I progressed midway through the process, I experienced a sudden awakening of my spirit, which left me unable to proceed further. At that time, I didn’t fully understand the reason behind this feeling.

I believe amplifying the voices of Black women is crucial and necessary work. For this reason, I have focused on centering this book in the public sector, where our voices are often missing from important policy decisions. As a Black woman, I envision that more of us will enter public sector spaces and have fulfilling careers leading us to executive positions. This way, we can contribute to creating policies informed by our lived experiences. Our communities face numerous challenges, such as food deserts, homelessness, mental health, joblessness, and inadequate education. We are in crisis and require critical voices from people in power who look like us to help reshape policies.

I did not intend to place the book at the center of the diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) space. To me, it is just a collection of words and letters frequently used. In my experience, using these words at the workplace is often only performative. After the George Floyd murder, there was a surge of energy around changing the system, but without any real work and money to tear down the structures still haunting us in this country. I have realized we should focus on more than just DEI by creating spaces where we all belong. We need places where we feel welcome, heard, respected, and valued. We need to know that our opinions matter and that people are willing to listen and change course based on what we say.

The women in the following chapters lend their voices as a guide in helping other women reach their career goals. Their stories celebrate overcoming the often-insurmountable challenges of living and working within a white supremacist society. The system and the structures flash a neon light, reminding you that it is closed to women of color.

The time is now to counter that narrative. Understanding that progress means perseverance plus influential sponsorship is the key to executive leadership in the public sector for women of color.

As a fifty-three-year-old, having been the first in many instances, I want to make sure I share my experience and what I’ve learned over my career to open the door for others. We are all unique and should have the same opportunities. I hope to encourage women considering career options or already in the workforce to join the space to move toward a future where being the first is no longer a thing and diversity, inclusion, and belonging are the norm.

With gratitude,Angela

Introduction

They only hired you to comply with affirmative action, a colleague said to me in a quiet whisper within the first few months of my new public sector job.

I stood there frozen, looking directly at him as my heart beat faster. Thoughts quickly flooded my mind. Am I safe? Do I have to be concerned about working in the building alone? Who would help me if something happened? How would my parents find out if I was hurt or missing?

I remember the phone call from my mother that started me on my career path. She said, There’s a letter here for you from the federal government.

In a rather high-pitched voice, I responded, Really? Please open it.

I heard the sound of tearing paper as my mother opened the envelope. I had no idea what to expect. Reading from the letter, my mother said, We would like to invite you to apply for a position in our agency. We see that you have recently left the Air Force, and we believe your skills will be transferrable to our work.

I was surprised, so I quickly phoned the contact in the letter and then applied for a position. Within a few months, I started my career as a public servant working for the federal government in Evansville, Indiana. Having grown up in Detroit, Michigan, Evansville was a bit of a culture shock with its small-town vibe.

I entered my new job as an early twenty-something filled with the joy of new opportunities and the hope of a fulfilling career. A staff of white men, all as old as my father and grandfather, greeted me. I was alone. There were no other female electronics technicians or no other people of color. One coworker and his wife welcomed me and helped me settle into the area, sharing valuable local information to help me transition. Everyone else was not quite as welcoming. Within the first few months of employment, one of my new coworkers let me know that because of my gender and race, I wasn’t wanted.

After my initial fear from my colleague’s whisper had subsided, I took deep breaths to still myself and focus my thoughts. I would be just fine. It was his way of letting me know that I didn’t deserve or that I was not qualified to be there. I had only walked through those doors because I was a Black woman—nothing more than a number, a part of a quota system. He had a lot of audacity, I thought. I had served this country and defended the Constitution, and I had earned my ticket into the coveted federal halls.

With quiet determination, I turned and walked away. I knew he and the other men I worked with had knowledge and experience that I didn’t have, and I needed to develop. I instantly vowed to myself that I would learn all I could from them and would gain their respect by working hard and accomplishing my work with a spirit of excellence.

It didn’t matter if they liked me. It only mattered that they could depend on me to do my job. I understood that early from my upbringing and my days in the Air Force. His comments, though eye-opening, were not going to dissuade me from my opportunity. With an unseen chuckle to myself, I thought, They will work for me one day.

My family and my life experiences had prepared me for what I experienced in Evansville. My parents and grandparents had taught me that life was not particularly kind to Black folks, and my family instilled in me a sense of strength and resiliency. My grandparents were not ones to dwell on the ills of the world, but they shared stories of the discriminatory practices they had to overcome. Yet they remained people of deep faith with humility and openness to all.

One story they told was of their desire to buy land in rural northern Michigan. At the time, no one was selling land to Black people. It wasn’t illegal. It was only the racist practices of the time. They tried to purchase land on several occasions and were turned away. Never ones to quit, they had to develop another plan.

They had befriended a white man who agreed to represent them to complete the purchase. Finally, they were successful. The lesson I learned was that other people cannot determine your fate. With commitment, relentlessness, and a willingness to approach a challenge from different angles, you can accomplish what you want.

I learned the lesson and applied it. It helped me effectively handle that coworker and would become a cornerstone of how I approached my career and my life. That comment would be the only time I was directly told how unwelcome I was, but I would live through countless microaggressions from others simply because I was a woman of color (WOC). Whether it was the comments about how different I was from other Black people, my aggressiveness, how well I spoke, or the fascination with my ever-changing hairstyles, there was always an undercurrent that somehow I had been let into a place that should have never opened the door for me or for those who look like me.

My thirty years as a public sector employee would be filled with many firsts. I was aware that I was shattering glass ceilings along the way. However, my ultimate focus remained on doing great work. In the process, I established a reputation for delivering, and I caught the attention of colleagues who would support, encourage, and invest in my career, much like my grandparents’ friend, who opened the door for them to buy the land they wanted.

My network opened doors for me and positioned me to begin opening doors for other people. While my career skyrocketed, I was cognizant that very few women of color were having the same career success.

This lack of women of color would be undeniable on Tuesday, August 9, 2022, at 5:30 p.m. I sat in my home office in Washington, DC, catching up on emails after spending another exhausting day of back-to-back Zoom meetings. I know the exact time because it is captured in an email exchange.

During that time, I was the second in command, leading a geographically dispersed organization of over thirty-one thousand employees, and I had been invited to a speaking engagement. In preparation to represent the organization, I reviewed the current organization diversity statistics for the upcoming breakfast panel, where I would be addressing an internal organization of the National Black Employee Association.

Reviewing the data, I saw approximately thirty-one thousand employees, approximately fifty-nine hundred women, and—there it was in black and white—954 Black women. I couldn’t help it. I performed a quick calculation in my head and realized that 954 represented less than three percent of the total population of employees in the organization. At that moment, my heart shattered, and I responded to that email, Nine hundred and fifty-four Black women, it breaks my heart, to which the receiver, a strategic communications specialist, replied, I’m sorry, Angela. It really is sad. She was correct.

No one celebrates these women or tells the stories of those who made it against the odds. Their careers could be defined as a nightmare filled with overt and covert racism, sexual harassment, and a prevailing sense of hopelessness. Yet there is beauty in their triumph over the challenges they faced. They have been the unheard and unseen among us. The time had come to write about the impact of these women of color in the public sector. I always knew I would write this book, and seeing the numbers on my computer screen became the proverbial camel’s back. My silence was broken.

As a scholar and practitioner with a keen interest in public sector organizations and leadership for women of color, I recognized the current research and writing was focused on women of color in corporate and educational settings but was silent on the impact of women in broader public sector workspaces. How do these women move into the senior leadership positions? What can their success teach future generations? How can you apply these teachings to impact your career?

According to the Census of Governments, Survey of Public Employment & Payroll Summary Report: 2022 approximately 19.2 million persons are employed by state and local governments combined (Saxon et al. 2023). A report by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) in 2021 stated there were 5,327,812 full-time women and minorities employed in local and state