The Quiet Discipline of Leadership

One of the lessons I have learned over more than two decades in leadership positions is that leadership reveals something about who we are. One hundred percent. Titles can give us authority, but they do not imbue us with character or integrity. I have worked with talented people who seemed to believe that the quickest way to demonstrate their own value was to point out someone else’s shortcomings. I will never fully understand the psychology of climbing by stepping on others, whether it proves to be a successful professional advancement strategy or not. And, in full transparency, I have also had moments when frustration made that temptation understandable.

But the longer I lead, the more convinced I become that constantly tearing down colleagues is not evidence of high standards. More often, it reflects insecurity, competition, or an inability to recognize that another person’s success does not diminish our own. Someone else’s blessing is not our setback. I remember once addressing a group of people I led and using those exact words as I tried to explain how I was making sense of not receiving an internal promotion that ultimately went to an outside candidate. In that moment, I was speaking to them, but if I am being truthful, I was also speaking to myself.

I Have Had to Learn This, Too

I do not write this as someone who has mastered leadership. I have made mistakes, misread situations, become frustrated with colleagues, and held onto some disappointments longer than I should have. Life and leadership have required me to become more reflective about my own reactions, particularly when I believe someone has fallen short. I have learned to ask whether I am addressing a legitimate performance issue or simply reacting to someone who approaches the work differently than I would. Style is far too often confused with a right way and a wrong way, whatever that might mean in people professions. That distinction matters. Accountability is necessary, but accountability should be rooted in observable behavior, clear expectations, and consistent standards, not personality conflicts or the desire to prove that we are smarter, harder working, or more committed than someone else.

I Know What It Feels Like to Be Judged Differently

Part of this lesson is deeply personal. I have spent most of my entire career working at historically White institutions, and I have done so in a profession where men are already significantly underrepresented. Student affairs has long been a predominantly female profession, with women comprising more than 70% of the workforce in some national analyses. Add race to that gender imbalance, and the experience of being a Black man becomes even more statistically uncommon. Research on Black men in higher education leadership similarly documents their continued underrepresentation and the barriers they encounter as they attempt to advance professionally.

I have felt that reality throughout my career. I have often been the only Black man in the room, sometimes the only Black person, and with each advancement up the organizational chart, that experience has become more pronounced rather than less. There is something psychologically complicated about repeatedly entering spaces where almost no one looks like you while simultaneously being expected to demonstrate that you belong there. I know what it feels like to enter meetings believing I need to be more prepared than everyone else just to be considered equally competent. I have experienced recommendations being questioned, scrutinized, or requiring considerably more explanation, only to watch similar ideas receive a different reception when voiced by someone else. These are experiences also reflected in research on racialized workplace conditions faced by Black student affairs professionals.

Those experiences have taught me something important about leadership: people should not have to spend their careers constantly proving that they deserve to be in the room. When you have spent much of your professional life navigating spaces where your competence can feel perpetually under examination, you have a choice when you finally acquire positional power. You can reproduce those same conditions for the people coming behind you, or you can lead differently. I choose the latter. I will ALWAYS choose the latter. I refuse, based on my upbringing and life experiences, to knowingly create for the people I lead the same exhausting experience of constantly having to prove their worth that I have spent much of my own career navigating.

Leadership Is Not a Zero-Sum Game

Perhaps this is also connected to where I come from. I am fairly certain of it. The place I once thought of as a prison became one of my greatest teachers. My journey from the South Bronx to senior leadership in higher education was never something I accomplished alone. At different stages of my life, people opened doors, offered advice, challenged me, advocated for me, and sometimes saw potential in me before I fully recognized it myself. That history makes it difficult for me to embrace a version of leadership built around diminishing other people. I would rather create opportunities for people to grow, including people who may someday surpass me. Their success does not erase mine. In many ways, helping someone else succeed may be one of the strongest measures of whether my leadership mattered.

Grace Does Not Mean Avoiding Accountability

None of this means lowering standards. In fact, I believe strongly in accountability, perhaps more strongly today than earlier in my career. People deserve feedback that is fair, thoughtful, and timely. Sometimes leadership requires difficult conversations, documentation, performance management, and consequences. But there is a meaningful difference between holding someone accountable and building a narrative against them. One is leadership. The other is politics disguised as leadership.

I am still learning how to lead without losing the parts of myself that made me want to lead in the first place. I want to remain demanding without becoming cynical, discerning without becoming suspicious, and accountable without becoming punitive. Leadership will inevitably test those commitments. The challenge is remembering that my responsibility is not simply to evaluate people, but whenever possible, to help them become better.

Reflection

1. When you talk about your colleagues when they are not in the room, are you trying to solve a problem or strengthen your own position?
2. And when your leadership journey is over, will people remember how effectively you exposed their weaknesses, or how intentionally you helped them discover their strengths?