Black Leaders On Leadership

Rethinking How to Build Inclusive Organizations Race, Work, and Leadership is a rare and important compilation of essays that examines how race matters in people's experience of work and leadership. What does it mean to be black in corporate America today? How are racial dynamics in organizations changing? How do we build inclusive organizations? Inspired by and developed in conjunction with the research and programming for Harvard Business School's commemoration of the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the HBS African American Student Union, this groundbreaking book shines new light on these and other timely questions and illuminates the present-day dynamics of race in the workplace. Contributions from top scholars, researchers, and practitioners in leadership, organizational behavior, psychology, sociology, and education test the relevance of long-held assumptions and reconsider the research approaches and interventions needed to understand and advance African Americans in work settings and leadership roles. At a time when--following a peak in 2002--there are fewer African American men and women in corporate leadership roles, Race, Work, and Leadership will stimulate new scholarship and dialogue on the organizational and leadership challenges of African Americans and become the indispensable reference for anyone committed to understanding, studying, and acting on the challenges facing leaders who are building inclusive organizations.

A theoretical examination of the concepts of the citizen, citizenship, and leadership, A Crisis of Leadership and the Role of Citizens in Black America: Leaders of the New School proposes to develop a prototype or model of effective Black leadership. Furthermore, it examines “citizenship habits” of the Black community based on their economic standing, educational attainment, participation in the criminal justice system, and health and family structure. It tracks data in these four categories from 1970 to today, measuring effective leadership by the improvement or decline in the majority of African Americans standing in these four categories. This book concludes that African Americans have negative perceptions of themselves as U.S. citizens, which thus produce “bad citizenship habits.” Additionally, ineffective Black leaders since the Civil Rights era have been unwilling to demonstrate the purpose and significance of service, particularly to the poor and disadvantaged members of the Black community. Contemporary Black leaders (post–Civil Rights Era) have focused primarily on self-promotion, careerism, and middle-class interests. A new type of leader is needed, one that stresses unity and reinforces commitment to the group as a whole by establishing new institutions that introduce community-building.

Drawing on a wealth of oral interviews, Conversations on Black Leadership uses the lives of prominent African Americans to trace the contours of Black leadership in America. Included here are fascinating accounts from a wide variety of figures such as John Lewis, Clarence Thomas, Eleanor Holmes Norton, Angela Davis, Amiri Baraka, and many more.

A “daring, urgent, and transformative” (Brené Brown, New York Times bestselling author of Dare to Lead) exploration of Black achievement in a white world based on honest, provocative, and moving interviews with Black leaders, scientists, artists, activists, and champions. “I remember the day I realized I couldn’t play a white guy as well as a white guy. It felt like a death sentence for my career.” When Chad Sanders landed his first job in lily-white Silicon Valley, he quickly concluded that to be successful at work meant playing a certain social game. Each meeting was drenched in white slang and the privileged talk of international travel or folk concerts in San Francisco, which led Chad to believe he needed to emulate whiteness to be successful. So Chad changed. He changed his wardrobe, his behavior, his speech—everything that connected him with his Black identity. And while he finally felt included, he felt awful. So he decided to give up the charade. He reverted to the methods he learned at the dinner table, or at the Black Baptist church where he’d been raised, or at the concrete basketball courts, barbershops, and summertime cookouts. And it paid off. Chad began to land more exciting projects. He earned the respect of his colleagues. Accounting for this turnaround, Chad believes, was something he calls Black Magic, namely resilience, creativity, and confidence forged in his experience navigating America as a Black man. Black Magic has emboldened his every step since, leading him to wonder: Was he alone in this discovery? Were there others who felt the same? In “pulverizing, educational, and inspirational” (Shea Serrano, #1 New York Times bestselling author of Basketball (And Other Things)) essays, Chad dives into his formative experiences to see if they might offer the possibility of discovering or honing this skill. He tests his theory by interviewing Black leaders across industries to get their take on Black Magic. The result is a revelatory and essential book. Black Magic explores Black experiences in predominantly white environments and demonstrates the risks of self-betrayal and the value of being yourself.

The Rise and Fall of Modern Black Leadership is designed to show how black leaders responded to the omnipresent racism of twentieth century America. Although the efforts of black leadership eventually succeeded in eradicating de jure discrimination and brought the nation closer to realizing the idealized tenets of American democracy, their achievements occurred at a cost to their influence as leaders of the entire race. Synopses appear on the lives of the influential men and women who comprised the leadership cadre so that readers can understand the motives underlying leadership goals, and comprehend why the lofty objectives of the Civil Rights Movement remain unfulfilled.

The history of the black struggle for civil rights and political and economic equality in America is tied to the strategies, agendas, and styles of black leaders. Marable examines different models of black leadership and the figures who embody them: integration (Booker T. Washington, Harold Washington), nationalist separatism (Louis Farrakhan), and democratic transformation (W.E.B. Du Bois).

CHOICE 2000 Outstanding Academic Title Written by two preeminent scholars of the subject, this book provides a panoramic view of the theory, research, and praxis of African American leadership. Walters and Smith offer a great deal to students of black leadership, as well as important strategy and policy recommendations for black leaders. The book first presents a comprehensive assessment of the social science research literature on black leadership. It finds that older studies (1930s to 1960s) dealt with the nascent formation of leadership theory, where blacks were located predominantly in the context of southern politics and had to adopt a conservative to moderate leadership style. The authors also review and evaluate research on black leadership from the 1970s to the present and suggest attention be given to studies of leadership that involve community level leadership, female leaders, black mayors, and black conservatives. African American Leadership also focuses on the practice of black leadership. It begins with an analysis of the roles of black leadership and historical analysis of strategies or "strategy shift." The authors then provide illustrative case studies of the styles of black leadership. They examine the continued utilization of mass mobilization in the form of boycotts, direct action, and mass demonstrations and marches. The issue of collective black leadership or the framework of unity—an illusive but necessary form of community organization—is also explored, and serious attention is given to issues, recruitment, and deployment.

The story of black emancipation is one of the most dramatic themes of American history, covering racism, murder, poverty and extreme heroism. Figures such as Malcolm X and Martin Luther King are the demigods of the freedom movements, both film and household figures. This major text explores the African-American experience of the twentieth century with particular reference to six outstanding race leaders. Their philosophies and strategies for racial advancement are compared and set against the historical framework and constraints within which they functioned. The book also examines the 'grass roots' of black protest movements in America, paying particular attention to the major civil rights organizations as well as black separatist groups such as the Nation of Islam.