Advocacy

Advocacy is not Easy!

Advocacy is not new. It's been around for years. Executives everywhere; executives anywhere, attain their statuses as a result of someone advocating on their behalf. Someone advocated for their assignments that strategically prepared them for the future. Someone advocated for them despite their failures. Someone advocated for them to be placed into their executive roles. 

The circumstances surrounding racial injustice following the murders of George Floyd, Amaud Arberry, and Breona Taylor - helped to influence the expansion of Diversity & Inclusion efforts to include "equity." The concept of equity includes the idea that women and people of color start from places that are farther behind their white, male counterparts. And, as a result, require advocacy to thrive and advance.

According to Dictionary.com, "advocacy" is defined as: "The act of pleading for, supporting, or recommending; active espousal." Advocacy is not a foreign concept. But equitable advocacy is tricky. 

In order to advocate for someone who is different, a person has to be willing to be judged. Advocating for someone who is different, or not readily accepted by main stream audiences requires a tremendous amount of courage. It requires risking one's own social capital. For example, a white male, wrongly advocating for another white male will likely outlive this error. But the risks associated with advocating for a woman or person of color can be unforgiving. In fact, the greater the difference between the advocator and the advocated, the higher the stakes. And mistakes? Forget about it. Mistakes are not easy to overcome in these situations.

Some executives need to be more "sure" of a woman or person of color before they are willing to put their own social capital on the line. This explains why white men get promoted based on potential, and women and people of color are subjected to rounds and rounds of development and mentorship, when what they really need is opportunity and support (even through failure). It is actual experience that sharpens performance and the process for sharpening skills is imperfect for anyone. High performance ratings doled out to women and people of color in the name of D&I metrics don't mean much without real progress on advancement to executive levels. 

So, if you advocate for others only when it's safe to do so - it doesn't count. Capable (and confident) leaders understand this, and make early investments in the success of the people they lead - regardless of race, ethnicity or gender - but especially in the case of race, ethnicity and gender.