Our Story black women talk covid

I live in Charleston, South Carolina. I wrote a dissertation on this topic and the research I gained answered this overarching question. What was the lived experience based on the intersectionality of race and gender for African American female executives since May of 2020, when the pandemic started, and what my answer was after interviewing 11 African American women who were executives at the director and a level above director during the pandemic, there were three criteria they had to have worked as an executive during COVID. They had to have been a director and manage people, and I had three steps in my process. I offered people the ability to join and learn more about the research.Then I gave them the opportunity to complete a survey that was in Qualtrics to determine that they met those three criteria. And last but not least, I conducted a one hour long interview with them, asking the exact same questions and making sure that they signed an informed consent prior to all of that. And the thing that my research found, I'll share about my research, and then I'll share my perspective related to race, and I'll share around being a woman as well.So one of the themes was amazing Grace. Amazing Grace was defined as treating others with respect, respect, and at all times, regardless of the situation, just like Aretha Franklin said. It was about finding a path to navigate invisible barriers and using radical empathy to support others’ dreams and aspirations. It was about meeting others where they are and finding commonality to uplift them by truly supporting their needs. Grace is a quiet storm within the quiet voice, within a storm. It is the heart and the soul. It is compassion with a capital C and attribute that is too often lacking in white male leaders. That's a quote by Smith and Nkomo, and the codes for this particular theme were radical empathy, invisible barriers, navigating politics, hyper-visibility, earning my seat, and encouraging others’ voices. The women that I interviewed shared lots of stories around how they had to focus on others and focus on keeping things together at a time where there was considerable disruption. At the time, people were having difficulty doing their job for fear of catching COVID-19, as well as lots of other things.Many people were working remotely, and leaders had to make sure that people were focused on what they were doing. So having these 11 women interviewed during this time period gave some context on their unique experience with COVID. And as far as the second theme, the second theme was called Do What Your Soul Can Handle. Having their intelligence, education, qualifications and authority. Basically their agency questioned due to traumatic racial trauma in the workplace. It recentered their focus on courageous actions and things that mattered that re-energize their soul. There was a theme that they realized that they stand out and they were designed to stand out regardless of what they did.So despite the fact that they're occupational minorities, they were fearless in doing the impossible and changing things that they wanted to see changed in the world. Some of the quotes were racial awakening, intersectionality, invisibility, macro and micro aggressions, fixing inequities for self and others. I'll simply state they went out of their way to protect others on their teams and support them and make sure that they were in a safe environment. They were very resilient change agents, and they lifted uplifted other African American women. They were held to a higher standard.The third thing I will share is the last theme that I'll cover during our time together and it's around climbing glass cliff barriers to navigate their career. Um, grit gives them the ability to bounce back after being discouraged. And having influence is a way to describe a person with power, but with a lot more finesse. Some of the quotes where they were vulnerable at times. Disrupter who challenges the status quo. There's a Knee on My Neck was mentioned multiple times as leaders in corporate America where they were, um, threatened, challenged, and felt unsafe. Strategic agility.Willingness to sacrifice self for others was a key part of this theme, where it was all around making sure that they hit their career goals and milestones despite the fact that they were climbing these cliffs that had never been climbed before. Willing to sacrifice self and others, I mentioned values transparency advocates, listens to others direct and candid with others, and they all took on extra work with no resources or pay.This research was really important to me because many women, um, had heard the term executive presence, but yet had never heard it mentioned as something that was applicable to them. And executive presence is this ability, defined as Hyman by Hyman in 2020, is the ability to lead, engage, align, inspire and move others to act. And what the women shared is that most of their organizations never saw them as having executive presence.But later, towards the end of the interviews, I asked each one if they had to rate themselves from a scale from 1 to 10, if they could rate themselves and share, Yeah. And the average was an eight, which concluded that African American women, despite all of the challenges that they dealt with during the pandemic, saw themselves as being extremely, um, able to demonstrate executive presence, which is the ability to lead, engage, align, inspire and move people to act.How it influenced me personally, I had a lot of unique challenges that would not have occurred if it were not for COVID-19. Professionally. Not just personally. As the Chief Learning Officer during the pandemic. So how race impacted me was I was a part of occupational minority, one of a few people at my level in the organization. And some of the challenges that I faced was I had several nurses that reported in to me, and we were redoing things because people were not having surgeries.It was a very difficult time. Hospitals were close to closing because they did not generate revenue, and everyone that I could think of was doing things outside of their comfort zone, including many of the people who work for me, who had to go work on COVID units or did work outside of their skill practice. So when I think about the impact of race on George Floyd's death caused a lot of people to ask questions around whether or not America was fair or not fair at this time when people's very lives were at risk.One thing I just want to help, to make sure historically it is noted is that because people couldn't go anywhere, couldn't do anything, everyone was stuck in the house with nothing to watch on TV because you were not supposed to go out for risk of getting COVID, and because of that, there was nothing to see. All sports stopped. Everything stopped. Everything came to a conclusion other than reruns. Um, and then eventually news came on where people were being broadcast from their home with a, with a black screen or a green screen. Um, but there was not a lot on but news and all of the news was about the numbers of people who were dying. So when I look back at race, I think about George Floyd being pivotal because America and the world slowed down at a time when a man, um, was killed by police who put their knee on his neck for too long.And dealing with a pandemic is one thing. But dealing with a pandemic in addition to America's racial awakening at the same time, while being a leader in a healthcare system where there are global and national. A lot of inconsistencies was a very difficult time. So when I think about being black and the inequities of 2019, I will never forget the impact of how everyone felt unsafe and started thinking about race and feeling more receptive to people who were not black, felt more receptive to the fact that there were inequalities because his public lynching was on TV for weeks and people talked about it. People thought it was quite severe and unnecessary, and they didn't have anything else to focus on. So it was an awakening for a lot of people to see the inequities for many black people. For black people in general, we knew that there were inequities. So it was no big surprise. And so that gives some context on what my experiences were working with COVID-19.To work virtually, I worked in a healthcare system, which meant we had meetings at 7 a.m., 12:00 and 7 p.m., seven days a week. Um, I worked a ridiculously large amount of hours trying to provide training and learning experiences for a hospital system, making sure that everyone who needed to get their resuscitation training was trained, making sure that people were prepared to go into COVID units. They knew how to don and doff the attire and the gloves and everything to be safe. Um, we spent a lot of time educating people on things where we didn't have enough education to educate properly. And as we knew more, we added more. It was extremely chaotic. Um. It was. I was at home with my husband and my mother-in-law, and eventually our daughter came and stayed with us. After a couple of months, we realized it wouldn't be a bad thing for her to be able to work virtually from home as well and stay with us, which was a really good situation, because the one positive out of everything that was going on during the pandemic was that I got to have quality time with my family, and as much as we all did not feel safe, we had a cocoon of safety in our home.Due to COVID. My sister died due to COVID. My hopes and dreams that that would limit the people who died from COVID. That was my biggest fear. Um, the second biggest fear was catching it and giving it to someone else, which would be almost tied because. Thinking that I could make someone else really sick was probably the biggest scary thing that I could think of, and making sure that I didn't contribute to this being worse hopes.Um, I would say my biggest hopes were that we could get through this as a country that was more united and more, um, positive and more optimistic after going through a lot of negative bad situations, similar to after 911, where people were very, um, sad, depressed, heartbroken for all of the victims of 911, but came out of that very, um, focused on being Americans, being proud, um, and wanting to make sure nothing like that ever happened again. That wasn't the case with COVID-19. I think people came out more cynical.Loneliness is at a high. Uh, depression is at a high. Um, but I also think that one of the things that occurred is that I walked away from my research and experiencing COVID-19, um, feeling a lot more secure and stronger as a leader. I learned a lot more about my strengths, my capability, whether others saw it. It was very empowering for me to see it in the 11 women that I interviewed for my dissertation, but more importantly, realizing that I don't need to have my leadership capability validated by others for it to actually exist.So I left a lot more resilient. And people who survived the pandemic not just survived but are thriving in different ways. Period. I found myself alone with my daughter and my husband, my mother-in-law but didn't feel completely isolated or alone. We spent a lot of quality time doing things that mattered and being reconnected because we weren't always all together. Our daughter, um, stayed with us for a good year during that time period for a variety of reasons, and as much as it was a scary time period, I did not feel isolated. I was very fearful for my family. Um, But my strongest memory was that we were together and we had good quality time together.For me, seeing racial inequities at play and being unable to be able to call them out, um, seeing things happen that were extremely inequitable. Um, but I must admit, in the last two years, I have been much clearer at being able to articulate seeing them and act and reduce micro and macro, um, inequities when I see them occurring. I would say one of the biggest challenges was working in a healthcare system that was not equitable in the way it treated its employees was probably my biggest challenge, and I also found it. One of the biggest challenges for me during the opportunity to work during the pandemic was there were a lot of inconsistencies that were going on within my work environment.A lot of change and upheaval. People were being reduced in their pay, um, 15 to 20%. And at a time when things were becoming a lot more expensive due to a lack of manufacturing. Um, I was taking a cut in pay. We put in an offer on a house to move. At the time, we were in a temporary residence because I moved for a job, And we ended up pulling out of that house because of a 20% pay cut that I did not know was permanent or not. Uh, a good six, nine months later, they reinstated our pay and ended up moving into a different place. But some of my challenges during the pandemic were processing everything that took place with George Floyd, processing the racism that I had not processed in the majority of my lifetime, and being able to articulate key things that occurred during my history. Um, from a work perspective, as much as my parents always taught me that life would not be fair, I didn't expect it to be this unfair and this egregious. I didn't expect to have people question my knowledge, education, experience, or capability in the way that they did. Um, so those were some of my bigger challenges.And I must admit I finished my dissertation in 2022. And since then, I feel like I've found a voice and a resilience that could have only come from experiencing the pandemic. Uh, going to school and getting my doctorate at the same time, and really having the opportunity to learn a lot of new things through this program, the doctoral program, but more importantly, reflecting on things that happened in the past as I researched and helped other people go through some of their experiences during the pandemic.So as much as it will never be a positive thing, there were some good things that came out of this time. I was able to spend time with 11. phenomenal executives and have them share things that required a trust trusting relationship so that I realized I was not alone in my experiences. And I think when they read the dissertation and specific quotes that they gave me permission to share, they learned that they weren't alone as well.And last but not least, um, the part that was most impactful for me in my dissertation was to share some things that leaders could, um, gain some insight from in the dissertation, and I wanted leaders to be able to get some tips on what to do with, um, African American women, uh, as far as helping to support them in being Successful. And here is a little bit of information around what we suggested. Specific research. My research. My dissertation research provided executives some suggestions and feedback from the 11 African American female executives at executives at the director level and above to enhance organizational culture, to retain these leaders. When the senior leaders read these suggestions, it will be helpful for them to support future African American leaders and help them navigate in their career paths. Senior executives must dismantle racism and discrimination in their organization. They must realize that systems are in place that allow and protect discrimination to occur in their organizations. Senior executives must pay African-American women equitably without giving them extra work. Without extra resources. There are considerable gaps in how people are treated and how senior leaders must become allies and sponsors of African American females. Senior executives must believe African American women when they say they are being disrespected and experiencing microaggressions.Senior executives must use their power to listen to African American women and gain their perspective. Top organizational executives must recognize their blind spots and biases and commit to supporting African American women. Senior organizational executives need to understand how professionalism is used as a construct to rationalize why some people fit and others do, and they need to question professionalism as a race-based paradigm paradigm. Those are my executive tips from the 11 people in my research. Thank you for the opportunity to share my experiences during COVID-19 and the unique experiences that I had because of being African American and a female, and the intersectionality of both of those. I really appreciate the opportunity to share and look forward to gaining more insight from others sharing. Thank you very much.

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