How To Tell Your Leadership Story
I enter the room filled with energy and excitement. I’m here to celebrate my friend Michelle’s achievement of having been nominated for the 40 under 40 award from her alma mater.
I spot Michelle instantly. She is dressed in a pristine all-white suit, her makeup impeccable and her short-cropped hair adding an air of chic professionalism to her look. She is commanding the table that she’s sitting at. As I approach, I can see that the other nominees and guests are buzzing around her like fireflies to a light bulb.
Without a doubt, she is owning the room.
I grab a drink, then settle in to the seat next to Michelle so I can offer my congratulations and we can catch up before the evening’s official festivities begin.
We chat about things - life, work, our families - for a little bit, while enjoying our hors d’oeuvres and cocktails. After a few moments, Michelle confides in me…
“I still have to write a statement about myself to be officially considered for the award. It’s due in a few weeks and I’ve just been putting it off.”
“Oh? Why’s that?” I ask.
“I just don’t know what to say about myself. I mean, I feel like I haven’t really done anything. Especially compared to these other people,” she says, motioning to the other nominees in the room.
“They’re all so much younger than me. And I’m a nontraditional student. I’m not on campus. I’m a mom. I’m working. Like. what’s so special about that?”
I try not to choke on my hors d’oeuvre.
“Girl!?” I exclaim. “Are you serious?”
***
Why High-Achieving Black Women Have A Hard Time telling their stories
By any standard, Michelle is a high-achieving black woman. She immigrated to the US from Zimbabwe on her own in her early 20s and has since made a successful career for herself in accounting. She was recently promoted to a senior executive position in her firm and she’s recently earned her MBA. All of this while also holding the titles of wife and mom.
Like many black women I know, Michelle has not just one, but many amazing and inspiring stories to tell about her life experiences and accomplishments. So why would she (and other high-achieving black women) have such a hard time putting something down on paper? A few contributing factors could be:
Humility as more feminine or culturally appropriate
Women of all cultures are often conditioned to downplay their achievements and not take up too much ‘air time’ with their stories or anecdotes.
Normalization of struggle, hustle, grind culture
Balancing work, parenting, school and marriage may seem like nothing special when everyone else around you is balancing at least that much if not more and making it look easy.
Thinking of achievements as story
A list of awards and achievements does not a story make. Rattling off a series of accomplishments is more suitable for a resume not a leadership story or personal bio. And chances are we’re more used to writing our resume than writing our story.
Because everybody else has a hard time with it too
I don’t think high-achieving black women have any more of a difficult time telling compelling leadership stories than anyone else, The fact is, most of us haven’t learned or practiced the storytelling skills needed to tell great leadership stories. So when we’re asked to do it, we freeze, panic or procrastinate until the last minute.
How to Tell Your Leadership Story
Focus on Your Vision
Decide what aspect of your leadership story you want to focus on. Is it your philosophy as a leader? Is it a specific obstacle or challenge you’ve overcome? Is it a biographical account of your leadership history? Once you’ve narrowed your focus, you’re ready to start constructing your story.
Understand Your Audience
Who are you telling your story to and what will they get out of it? The most important thing to remember when telling your leadership story is that you’re telling it for someone else’s benefit. The more you know about them, the better you’ll understand what they care about and how to bring that out in your story.
Define Your Main Character
As the main character of your leadership story, it is essential that you have a deep and accurate understanding of your own values, strengths and your challenges. These are the attributes you want to highlight in your story. They will help you earn your audience’s trust and build a meaningful connection with them.
The 4-Part Change Story
The most inspirational and memorable stories are usually stories that involve a significant transformation or change. To quickly structure an impactful leadership story, use the following 4-part change story format:
Start - “When I started out…”
Key story points: What were you like before the change? What did you not yet have, know or understand?
Decide - “I had to make a change…”
Key story points: What forced you to take action so you could have, know or understand more?
Learn - “That taught me a valuable lesson…”
Key story points: What mistakes did you make, what did you lose or learn?
Transform - “Which made me who I am today.”
Key story points: How were you changed? How does that change still influence you today?
That evening, I shared the tips above with Michelle, and let her know that the non-traditional parts of her story were what made her story so impressive. Her unique story of growth and change ended up being a perfect fit for the 4-part change story structure.
Tell Your Story.
Download My Free Storytelling Ebook
Don’t know what story to tell or how to tell it? Learn a simple method for telling compelling impact stories. Create a draft of your own signature story. Download Now.
1,001 black women’s stories
My goal of recording 1,001 black women’s life stories was inspired by my grandmother, but I won’t be able to make ‘herstory’ happen without your help.
At the start of this year, one of the items I plotted and prioritized on my Life Value Map was my goal to record the stories of 1,001 black women.
The desire came as a result of having taken the time to record a series of life story interviews with my grandmother in the summer of 2020.
The experience was not only profoundly revelatory for me, it also strengthened the bond between me and my grandma. This was our special thing. Something only we shared and I felt as honored to listen as she felt to be seen and heard.
Later in the year, I was introduced to the book ‘But Some of Us Are Brave’ a collection of womanist - aka, black feminist - essays from a variety of black woman scholars and writers. One such essay, entitled, ‘Debunking Sapphire: Toward a Non-Racist and Non-Sexist Social Science’ by Patricia Bell-Scott, highlighted the lack of ‘everyday black women’s stories’ in the overall study of black women and black women’s histories.
“Proponents… have concentrated almost exclusively on the lives of nationally known Black women. Implicit in this “life and times” approach is a class bias. The prevailing or resulting impression is that Black working-class or low-income women are inconsequential to the American experience. All this is not to say that the lives of prominent Black women are not important; however, their lives represent only a few of the least generalizable circumstances that Black women have experienced. Most Black women have not been able to rise to prominence.”
The essay was written in 1977, the same year I was born. And 43 years after its writing, I can see that there’s still a lack of celebration of the ‘everywoman’s’ story in black media and literature, even in black families.
Much of the details of my womenfolk’s stories were never shared with me, but within them are the seeds of my own story. Any path that I chart to success or other destinations will be a continuation of their stories, but what I’ve often been encouraged to do is to look outside of my family and latch on to the stories of prominent or notorious black women as either templates for me to follow or emulate, or cautionary tales on what I should avoid.
It wasn’t until I was able to hear my grandma’s stories about her upbringing and values, her struggles and sorrows, her triumphs and adventures, that I could truly give a name to some of the shadow or not-fully-visible parts of myself and my own story. My process of self-actualization (i.e., becoming my authentic self) and self-definition would be unnecessarily difficult or even impossible if I did not ‘go back and fetch it’.
And this experience of loving compassion for another’s story leading to loving compassion for one’s own story is the experience I want to share with as many other black women as possible.
The reason for the goal specifically being 1,001 is two-fold:
It seemed a number that was big enough to scare me a little, while still being achievable, and
It was inspired by the legendary heroine of 1,001 Arabian Nights, Scheherazade. A woman who literally saved her own life through her storytelling.
So! To accomplish this slightly-scary-but-still-achievable goal, I need your help.
I’m asking for you to help me achieve this goal by recording the life story of an elder black woman family member (preferably, for the reasons stated above) or any black woman that you know and would be willing to interview, listen to and honor via this act of love.
I understand that the telling of one’s personal story is an intimate or even private event, so I won’t ask for you to share the recorded stories with me - though you are certainly welcome to! - instead, I will measure success or progress towards this goal by the number of ‘story pledges’ I receive.
Not a perfect metric, but it’s one that respects the process more than the goal.
For all those who take this pledge, I will provide support in the form of:
Step-by-step instructions and guides on how to prepare for the recording, what questions to ask, and how to interview your subject(s),
Guidance on how to use the StoryCorps app or site as a completely free tool for recording your interview AND a way to have your story archived at The Library of Congress!
My personal participation as an interviewer or facilitator, if you would like your own story heard and recorded, or if you feel like you could use an unrelated person to help bring out the story of a close relative (full disclosure: there will be a small fee to cover my opportunity cost)
So - will you help me reach my goal?
I wish we would stop pretending that we love Breonna Taylor
I’m gonna need us to get really real about one thing.
I wish we would stop pretending that we love Breonna Taylor.
You do not love Breonna. You would not have loved her when she was alive.
You would not have loved her because she was too fat. Because she had a facial piercing. Because her skin wasn’t light enough. Because she had a perm. Because of that one time she showed up late for work. Because of that one time she smelled like weed. Because she talked too loud. Because she clapped her hands and threw her head back and cackled when she laughed. Because she wasn’t married. Because she was laid up with some dude. Because she dated the wrong kind of dude. Because she didn’t have kids. Because she worked a regular job. Because she lived in a black neighborhood. Because she had a black-sounding name. Because she ate pork. Because she didn’t go to church every Sunday. Because she watched BET. Because she went too long between pedicures. Because she didn’t get a university degree. Because she ‘talked black’. Because she never traveled abroad. Because she listened to ratchet music. Because she had a tattoo. Because...
You do not love Black women.
Because you only love or like Black women when they are good.
When their edges lay down just right. When they talk cute, or look cute or act cute. When they don’t have opinions or make too much sound. When their bodies are shaped in the way you find most pleasing. When they dance for you. Or make you laugh. Or act sassy without seriousness. Or serve as your meme, or your hashtag or your poster child.
And if you only like something or someone when they are ‘good’, you do not actually like that someone or something.
So stop pretending that you love Breonna. Or that you cry for Breonna. Or that you like Breonna.
Or that you like me.
Hell, you only like me when I do something cute or entertaining. You don’t like me when I just wake up everyday and go about my business of minding my business. No. You don’t. Because if you did, you wouldn’t tell me, ‘smile’, ‘make friends’, ‘stop being so extra’, ‘you gotta...’, ‘you know what you need to...’ ‘why you always gotta..?’ ‘Ain’t nobody gonna want...’
You would simply see me going about my business of minding my business, and you would smile and nod, or smile and wave, or smile and say,
‘Hey, girl. It’s good to see you. I’m glad you’re here.’
And i would say:
‘Hey, there. It’s good to be seen. I’m glad that I’m here.’
But it’s not good. And I ain’t glad.
So. Let’s just stop pretending.
Kisha Solomon is an Atlanta-based writer, knowledge worker and serial expat. She is also the founder of The Good Woman School. When she’s not writing, working or travelling, you can find her in deep conversation with herself or her four-legged familiar, Taurus the Cat. www.kishasolomon.com
This year is f***in' hard.
Dear black woman: you’re gonna make it, sis.
This year is f***in’ hard. And we’ve still got a ways left to go.
I swear, it seems like each week of this year has started off like an epic, emotional, unpredictable adventure that brings victory coupled with loss. Severs old ties to fertilize new ground. Makes you get rid of yet another old comfort so you can grow yet another new branch for yourself.
I can barely get my bearing from the last tidal wave of WTF, before a new one starts charging right at me.
It’s a tough time, but it is also a potent time. This swirling energy that’s upsetting so much normalcy is also charged with possibility. With manifest-making magic. You are knee-deep in it, and if you can just keep focus, engage your core, not get swept away in the current, you can make things happen that you only imagined before. And they will come fast, hard, and unexpected. And they will last.
So be very intentional about what you are creating and calling forth now. With the relationships you begin and end. About how you are entering into contracts, projects, relationships. What is created now will not be easily undone.
And if you have not been focused on creating, if you have just been being tossed about or holding your little piece of normal ground with your head tucked down, that won’t do any longer.
It’s time to make the most of the rest of this year.
Kisha Solomon is an Atlanta-based writer, knowledge worker and serial expat. She is also the founder of The Good Woman School. When she’s not writing, working or travelling, you can find her in deep conversation with herself or her four-legged familiar, Taurus the Cat. www.lifeworktravels.com
What the big tree in my front yard taught me about being a woman
The big tree in my front yard doesn’t give a fuck about me.
Free women are offensive.
This is due to the social obligation that female-bodied humans have to conform, to be acceptable according to a narrow set of standards. To be quiet, polite, tucked in, soft, predictable and tamed.
The true nature of woman – just as it is with all of nature, all of creation – is wild. Women – because of their blood connection with the cycles of nature – the waxing and waning of the moon, the ebbing and flowing of tides, the blossoming, fruiting and shedding that their bodies pass through in a lifetime, are, in their natural state, more wild than men. So that I’m understood clearly, when I say wild, I don’t mean crazy, or dangerous or daring; I mean that which is unbound, untamed, uncivilized. Wild like birds that come and go according to some unseen rhythm, or wild like flowers that sprout and grow whenever and wherever they please. Or wild like the tree in my front yard.
The big tree in my front yard doesn’t give a fuck about me. It doesn’t give a fuck that I paid my yard guy to clear all its leaves away not even a week ago. Or that her leaves blanket not only my yard, but the yards of my 3 closest neighbors on both sides of the street (it’s a wonder they haven’t sent me their yard guys’ bills). It doesn’t give a fuck that the Uber Eats delivery driver has to pick her way carefully up the walkway to my front door, wading thru the latest deposit of fallen fall leaves and last-of-the-season seed pods. It doesn’t give a fuck that I nearly twist my ankle nearly once a week on said seed pods, or that I curse her like Yosemite Sam whenever I do. She has a tendency to grow moss up her right side when the weather is moist, and a penchant for dropping her scraggliest branches on my lawn and driveway when the wind picks up. No doubt, even now as I write this, her roots are snaking down into the ground, towards the pipes that carry my waste away from the house, seeking to break them open so she can better use my organic matter to fuel her slow and steady growth.
No, the big tree in my front yard doesn’t give a fuck about any of that. It simply exists. It abides by its nature. It flowers and lets fall according to the seasons. It provides abundantly and matter of factly - neither benevolently nor magnanimously - to all nature of organisms... squirrels, butterflies, hummingbirds, exotic seen-only-once-a-year moths. It almost certainly predates me, and will very likely survive me. It’s she who denotes the location of my simple blue cottage to first time visitors. More than the numbers affixed to my mailbox post. Certainly more than my almost-invisible driveway. I even bought a sparkling belt of lights to wrap around her mid-trunk, so that newcomers will know where to stop, where to turn. “It’s the house with the big tree out front with lights around it.” They arrive now without panic, confused texts or calls to ask, “where?” or, “which?” Her presence says unmistakably, “here”. It gives certainty to the would-be lost.
Why did no one ever think to cut her down? I wonder, as i sit on my front porch, sipping coffee, contemplating her grandness. Or at least prune her? She’s mine now, so that duty (aka, expense) falls to me, but who in the hell let her grow so wild and wide and wanton in the first place?
I meditate on this tree a lot. On how little of a fuck it gives and how much of a nuisance it is and how majestic and beautiful and necessary it is in spite of all that. Of how much, in its messy necessity, it reminds me of the wild women I know. The big tree women.
Of big tree women and bonsai women
Big trees like the one in my front yard are beautiful to us civilized folks only until they become a nuisance to our civilized lives. The tree is lovely and majestic until one of its branches reaches too far over our carefully constructed homes and threatens to damage what we’ve built. Or until its roots begin to creep and spread in their endless search for sustenance and start to buckle up the smooth pavement we’ve poured over them or until their leaves and seed pods begin to clutter up our perfectly manicured lawns and clog our straight, clean gutters.
This is how women are naturally. Lovely, majestic things whose wildness is an inconvenience for a civilized society. Their unpredictability is a threat to a stable, controlled way of living. As trees provide an essential element we need for life to exist, women provide the essential portals through which human life flows. We’ve not yet found a way to control the oxygen that trees provide us (though no doubt some scientist, somewhere is working on it), but we’ve found ways to control women and our collective access to the life force they hold within themselves.
In doing so, we’ve made these wild, inconvenient trees into bonsais. Beautiful still, yet dwarfed and carefully, meticulously deformed. The same tree that is made into a bonsai would naturally exist somewhere on the edge of a cliff, perhaps. Beautiful to behold, but unable to be possessed.
“If you set a bonsai in a window that overlooks a wild, untamed forest, would it feel jealousy? Would the forest silently long for the warm, homed comfort of the bonsai?”
So in order to take this unreachable, unattainable thing and make it an owned object, it is plucked from its natural state at an early age, placed in a small container and wrapped tightly with restrictive wires, pruned and clipped until it adopts a new shape and scale. One that can easily fit on a shelf or a table or a mantel and be pointed to while saying, “That is mine. See how lovely?”
Yet there are some women who, through magic or folly or lack of training, have escaped the small pot, the stiff wires, the sharp pruning shears. They remain full-sized. They live in plain sight, but in a state that makes them seem unattainable, unable to be possessed. And, while beautiful, they are also disturbing, even offensive to a world that has come to define tree as bonsai and woman as domesticated house pet.
It may be some time for these women to even become aware of the offensiveness of their particular brand of existence. They may go years or decades before even recognizing that there’s anything unique or different or unusual about them. But eventually, they find out. It usually comes to them first when they are shunned by other women. Bonsai women who look at them and proclaim, ‘Ugh. Too big!’ Too wide. Too all over the place. Taking up too much space. To the bonsai woman, the big-tree woman is grotesque.
It will later come to her when she decides that she wishes to be within a certain space – a shelf or a table or mantel she desires to be set upon and adored from. She will attempt to fit herself into these coveted spaces, but will soon realize that it is impossible. That she would need to cut off much of herself to even try to fit in and be accepted and admired by a lover, a group of colleagues or even the bonsai women who are her kin.
Some of these big-tree women will spend the rest of their lives trying to do just that, however, chopping off more and more of themselves, trying to fit their big roots into tiny pots that eventually break and shatter, or trying to balance their full-grown selves on top of tables and mantels that buckle under their weight. Ignoring the physics of the matter in a desperate need to be possessed by someone.
Those who figure things out ultimately discover that belonging to, rather than being possessed by is what differentiates the big-tree woman from the bonsai woman. That belonging to is really the only thing other than complete wildness that a big tree woman can aspire to. Since she will never be able to shrink herself to fit into a place of possession, she will instead need to seek out spaces where she simply belongs. Where she can exist as her full self, in ground that nurtures and keeps her in place. Where she can be tended to, admired, adored, appreciated and allowed to give freely of herself without being begrudged for branches that spread too wide or roots that buckle concrete or leaves that fall here, there and everywhere. Where she does not run the risk of being cut down and used up or consumed to be someone else’s shelter or warmth.
A big tree woman who finds such a space is lucky. A big tree woman who learns how to create such a space for herself is blessed. A big tree woman who shows bonsai women that it’s ok for them to become big tree women (if they so desire) and shows them how or encourages them to find their own way of breaking out of their pots and unwrapping the tight wires from their branches is magic. She is in league with the universe and an agent of both God and nature.
recipe for a good woman
A woman is an important somebody and sometimes you win the triple crown: good food, good sex, and good talk. Most men settle for any one, happy as a clam if they get two. But listen, let me tell you something. A good man is a good thing, but there is nothing in the world better than a good good woman. She can be your mother, your wife, your girlfriend, your sister, or somebody you work next to. Don’t matter. You find one, stay there.”
~from Toni Morrison’s “Love“
After reading this passage from Toni Morrison’s novel, “Love”, I knew I’d found a morsel that would become a permanent part of my personal collection of life recipes.
The quote comes from the character, Sandler – a concerned father who is schooling his teenage son on what to look for in a woman. Fortunately, it’s an easy-to-remember recipe that includes 3 very simple ingredients.
Good Food
I don’t care how old-fashioned or outmoded I sound saying it, I’m going to say it anyway. If you’re a woman, you should know how to cook something. I’m not suggesting that you channel Betty Crocker and prance around the kitchen all day in frilly aprons and heels making biscuits and pies from scratch (but, if that’s your thing, by all means, go for it!). But every woman should have at least 3 solid dishes that she can whip up at a moment’s notice. That means not having to consult a cookbook or a recipe, but being able to prepare a simple, elegant meal from memory – preferably with easy-to-find ingredients. As they say, “The way to a man’s heart is through his stomach”. Even in non-romantic situations, being able to cook something tasty for someone you care about (whether it be your man, your mom, your kids, or your friends) is not only a useful talent, but also a satisfying and rewarding experience.
Good Sex
I suppose this one should go without saying, since we’re all sexual creatures. But since everyone has different tastes and preferences, what exactly qualifies as good sex? Whether you’re the swing-from-the-rafters type or more of a missionary girl, I think that at the root of it all, a woman with ‘good sex’ is a woman who is equally skilled at giving and receiving pleasure.
Good Talk
I’ve heard numerous tales from my guy friends about dates or relationships with drop-dead gorgeous girls that they found extremely attractive… until they opened their mouths. A good woman cultivates interests in things that are worth talking about. A good woman stays abreast of current events (no, not just celebrity gossip), a good woman has a bit of ‘game’. A good woman knows how to give a compliment.
Recipe Notes:
Noticeably missing from this recipe for a good woman are inessential ingredients like: big boobs, long hair, thick legs, fat booty, expensive clothes, killer makeup, and similar decorative toppings.
Admittedly, a good woman who comes with one or more of these inessential ingredients will be just as fulfilling and even sweeter than the original recipe. However, a woman that possesses inessential ingredients yet lacks all of the good woman ingredients may be sweet, but won’t be nearly as filling. And really… who needs empty calories?
ma annie
I wish my great grandmother hadn’t died when I was still so young. But I feel blessed to have touched her, to have known her smell, walked the floors of her little house out in the country where she made lye soap, tended a wood-burning cookstove and did all manner of hard handwork in the back yard.
I was only 5 when she left, so I don’t remember details like what her voice sounded like, or what color her eyes were, or how long her hair. I remember feelings. I remember how it felt to be near her – warm, moist, yet coarse and firm. I knew even then what it meant to be a woman of contrasts.
I remember the little girl who lived out there too. Her name? Long gone. But I remember her reddish-brown skin like the inside of pecan shells, her pigtails which hung low at the nape of her neck, while mine perched high on the sides of my head like rabbit ears. I remember the kinship we had – the mischief in both of our eyes. we would run around playing made-up little girl games in the tall grass out back, make our own social club clubhouse out of the abandoned school bus forever-parked next door. who did that little girl belong to? I can’t recall. it doesn’t matter. Our minds were not yet preoccupied with thoughts of belonging or ownership. we took such things for granted.
I remember the joy of how it felt to be wild yet loved. Of knowing that no matter how far we went, we would always be seen by eyes that knew us, that cared. and we would always have a place to return to. a place that smelled like lye soap and wet grass and wood and ma annie.
