The challenges for women of color in landing leadership roles

Women continue to be underrepresented when it comes to leadership in the international development sector. Research published last year by Quantum Impact highlighted how women still miss out on these roles — 20% of organizations failed to have a single woman serving on their leadership teams. The same research showed that 80% of these organizations did not have a representative number of people of color on their leadership team and more than half had no leaders of color at all. Devex takes a look at some of the additional barriers and biases that prevent women of color landing leadership roles in global development. An insiders’ club The development space is not somewhere you find a lot of black women, especially in leadership roles, said Angela Bruce-Raeburn, associate director for advocacy at the Global Health Advocacy Incubator. Speaking at a recent event on the perspectives of women of color in international relations, hosted by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., she explained that this disparity is in part because of who you know and which circles you move in. When it comes to top jobs, she explained, when choosing who to hire or promote, decision-makers usually go with someone they already know. “This means that there are certain people who are often excluded,” Bruce-Raeburn said, “and it’s mostly women who are excluded and certainly women of color.” This is an issue that affects other sectors. Women are underrepresented in high-level government conversations, said Mieke Eoyang, vice president for the National Security program and chairperson of the Cyber Enforcement Initiative at U.S.-based think tank Third Way. There are many women with tremendous qualifications that are not present for conversations due to groups that are largely self-selecting, made up of people who naturally run into each other and socialize, she said. Women tend to be excluded as a result, she explained. Lack of allies in positions of power Since women of color tend not to be part of these self-selecting groups, they not only miss out on hiring and promotion opportunities, but are also less likely to have allies to advocate for them, according to the panelists at the event that focused on women of color. The networks are so poor and fragile, Bruce-Raeburn explained, that when job opportunities arise, black women are not in the pipeline of candidates. Speaking about the event’s hosting organization, she said: “We want to be a part of organizations — to know people in CSIS for example — to know how your pipeline works, to get mentored by people so we can go into the high-level jobs here.” It’s not just women of color, but people of color who are starved of mentorship, said Pam Campos-Palma, a political strategist. And even those in more senior-level positions are struggling and burned out, she added. Building relations across lines of difference, such as race and class, is the only way to solve this dilemma of power-sharing, she continued. “I want to see more men be very interested in why are the black and brown women in my institution not rising in power, in leadership, in authority,” Campos-Palma said. She also encouraged assertive diplomacy, and for people of color to approach their white colleagues who “have political, social resources in abundance” for sponsorship and professional development opportunities. Risk-taking In a field such as international development that lacks representation of black women, there is a real pressure not to fail, Bruce-Raeburn said. Eoyang agreed that one of the challenges for minorities in leadership roles is that taking a risk and failing is “much more likely to incur a negative price.” As a result, aversion to risk is higher among minority groups, she continued, which can be detrimental to a rising career in a world where leadership rewards innovation, entrepreneurship, and risk-taking. What leadership looks like There needs to be a change in the way we think about leadership and the qualities we look for in leaders, Eoyang explained. Empathy, for example, is a key quality both Eoyang and Bruce-Raeburn agreed as overlooked when recruiting leaders. People can be captured by an idea of how someone in power should look, Eoyang said. Decision-makers wind up excluding people who don’t match that expectation and pick someone “who fits a casting decision and not a competence decision,” she continued. “It is a very different challenge ... for people of color to be included in the selection process for leaders of organizations,” Eoyang said, “if the people who are doing the selecting have such a narrow view of what leadership looks like that they cannot see the leadership potential in those of us who don’t fit that mold.” People who sit on hiring committees and recruiting firms need to think more broadly about what makes a good leader, she concluded.