675: How to Be a Better Ally, with Lauren Wesley Wilson

Dave Stachowiak [00:00:00]:
Many of us wish to be good allies in the workplace, especially to those who are underrepresented. Yet, what we assume that means isn’t always what’s wanted or needed. In this episode, what leaders and peers can do to be better allies. This is Coaching for Leaders episode 675.Production Credit: Produced by Innovate Learning, maximizing human potential.

Dave Stachowiak [00:00:29]:
Greetings to you from Orange County, California. This is Coaching for Leaders, and I’m your host, Dave Stachowiak. Leaders aren’t born, they’re made. And this weekly show helps you discover leadership wisdom through insightful conversations. So many of us want to be good allies in the workplace. Our intentions are good for many of us, and yet our actions don’t always follow through in the way that’s most helpful for those in disadvantaged populations and underrepresented populations and especially for women of color. Today, a conversation on how we can do a better job at being allies in the workplace to support success across the organization.

Dave Stachowiak [00:01:12]:
I’m so glad to welcome Lauren Wesley Wilson to the show. She is a leading thought leader on media relations, diversity and inclusion, and crisis communications. At 25, she became the founder and CEO of ColorComm Corporation. Prior to that, Lauren worked as a communication strategist at a prestigious crisis communications firm in Washington DC. Lauren has been featured in the Washington Post, Forbes, and People, as well as MSNBC, CNBC, and many more. She’s been recognized by PR Week’s 50 Most Powerful in PR Ad H’s Women TO Watch and New York Women in Communications. She is the author of What Do You Need? How Women of Color Can Take Ownership of Their Careers TO Accelerate Their Path TO Success. Lauren, what a pleasure to have you here.

Lauren Wesley Wilson [00:01:58]:
Thank you so much for having me.

Dave Stachowiak [00:02:00]:
The book is titled, What do you need? The question, where does that question come from?

Lauren Wesley Wilson [00:02:06]:
Well, thank you. You know, this question actually originated in my world and in my life about 13 years ago when I started the company that I now founded and lead, and the company’s called the ColorComm Corporation. And years ago, we weren’t what we are today. But years ago, we started over a meal, really gathering women of color in the industry and the business to connect, to learn from an executive, but more importantly, to learn from each other. And to be able to ask the question, what do you need? My belief is that when we go into rooms and spaces, those around us have what we need. We need to ask. We have something to give and something to receive. And that’s how you build community is through that question.

Dave Stachowiak [00:02:54]:
As I read your book over the last 2 days, I realized how I am a person who often asked the question, how can I help? And I’m rethinking that a lot after reading your book on what kind of question I ask. What’s the distinction between a question like, how can I help? Which I think a lot of us do ask versus that question, what do you need?

Lauren Wesley Wilson [00:03:19]:
I think when you ask what do you need, you start to think about the specifics. When you ask how can I help, sometimes it’s very broad, and you’re not quite sure how this person can help you? But when you think about your needs, those often are they’re different than your wants. And they’re very specific things that you need to be able to be seen, valued, and understood and compensated where you work.

Dave Stachowiak [00:03:49]:
Speaking of needs, I think one of the key things for us to appreciate is what can we do, all of us as allies, that will help you of course support a lot of women of color in your work one of the themes you hear a lot is that women of color are putting a ton of work into getting to know the people who they work with, especially those in the majority culture, but they don’t feel like a lot of that is reciprocated. I hear that theme in your book a bunch. Can you tell me more about that?

Lauren Wesley Wilson [00:04:21]:
Yeah. I think that when it comes to allyship, it’s about learning and doing. And, you know, it’s a term that’s been thrown around over the last few years, and sometimes people are a little bit lost as to what does good allyship mean and how to best show up for the people of color around them. I think the intentions are often so great, but not really sure about the action points. And, really, allyship is about supporting those and providing opportunities to those who are around you, but also learning, being able to have conversations, be able to get to know your colleagues, and being able to get to know them on a personal level. That’s not just something that’s very performative and saying I’m here to help, but actually showing up and being able to help.

Dave Stachowiak [00:05:16]:
One of the things that’s really striking to me is the disconnect between how people of color define allyship and how white people often do. And you write in the book, white employees think the most meaningful action they can take as an ally is to speak out against discrimination. While women of color say the most critical action an ally can take is to advocate for new opportunities for women of color. Tell me a bit more about that distinction. I think that’s really huge.

Lauren Wesley Wilson [00:05:47]:
Yeah. I think what people are looking for in the workplace, women of color, people of color, just anyone in general, actually, is the opportunity to advance and grow. And so what actionable allyship could look like, you’re in a meeting, and you see that everyone in the meeting looks like yourself. And there is no other voice here in this meeting that is a person of color at this meeting. And it could be as simple as, you know what? I think Jane down the hall, who is a person of color, should be at this meeting. I think she’ll benefit from being here. I think we would also benefit from her opinion and her insight. That’s what it can look like.

Lauren Wesley Wilson [00:06:32]:
It could look like there’s a big upcoming project in client account. Also, the same thing. You look around and you see, you know, there’s really no diversity here on this account team, and we really need diversity of thought to be able to help our client grow, we should be thinking about someone else who is not in the room. That’s what people of color often find really successful allyship relationships. And they also show up in the form of sponsors. So there’s a lot of talk about mentors. There’s a lot of talk about sponsors. Sponsors advocate for you when you’re not in the room.

Lauren Wesley Wilson [00:07:09]:
That’s oftentimes what allyship is, is advocating for someone who’s not in the room and thinking about them to provide advancement or opportunity. Speaking out on racial injustice is important, but that’s likely going to take a very long time to change hearts and minds and to change outlooks. What we’re looking for is action, an action that can be done pretty quickly. And that’s being thought of. That is being able to make an effort with your colleagues, asking your colleagues to coffee for 15 minutes, getting to know work style, getting to know interest, and vice versa.

Dave Stachowiak [00:07:55]:
There’s a big yes and here, isn’t there? I mean, you’re very clear in the book. Of course, speak out against injustice when you see things that aren’t working. The nudge that I think is really, profound here is that that tends to be, as you say, a reactive often a one time thing. What folks are looking for in allyship is consistency. It’s the things you just said. It’s the proactiveness of consistency of making invitations, of inviting people to collaborate, of thinking about the economic indicators that are gonna move people’s careers and lives. That’s where this becomes really powerful.

Lauren Wesley Wilson [00:08:38]:
Yeah. I mean, I think what people want to understand oftentimes is how does this contribute to the bottom line? You know, how does this contribute to workplace productivity, increasing revenue streams, etcetera. And so I think employers look at things from a very different lens than employees in the workplace. And while it’s a good thing to do, but diversity is good for business beyond just let’s all be friends with each other. Because at the end of the day, if you better understand the people that you work with, that is going to increase productivity. That is going to help increase the bottom line. That is going to help increase revenue for the company. And then it’s a win win for all of us.

Lauren Wesley Wilson [00:09:25]:
It’s a win win. The company does well, employees can do well. If the company is hitting their benchmarks, employees can continue to whether get salary increases, get bonuses, and hit their benchmarks too because there’s the funds to be able to do so. So at the end of the day, diversity is really understanding difference. And if we are able to come together and be more productive because we understand each other, we’re looking out for each other, we’re providing opportunities for each other, that’s going to create better work practices and be a more exciting place to work. But if you look at the workplace and you see that there’s disconnect, if you see that there is challenges, if you can see that there is conflict, or it could be as simple as you weren’t aware that you might have offended somebody, and somebody’s keeping that in for weeks, for months at a time. Then there is inactivity going on. There’s conflict.

Lauren Wesley Wilson [00:10:25]:
There’s delays. There’s I don’t wanna work with so and so because they offended me 2 weeks ago. There’s quiet coding. There’s all these different things happening in the workplace that you’re not really understanding where they derive from. And then, ultimately, if we all play our part to be good stewards and good employees and look out for each other, that’s gonna have a long term better outcome for everyone around us.

Dave Stachowiak [00:10:52]:
Indeed, and it starts with making that invitation I mean one of the themes I’m hearing in what you’ve said already is just inviting people to the table and you write extending an invitation might not seem as impactful as making some grand statement in support of diversity equity and inclusion but that invitation will contribute to the larger goal of people getting to know one another it’s a distinction between statements versus actions and that oftentimes folks of color are not getting that olive branch. If we can start with that invitation, yes, obviously, speak out when you see something that is wrong. But actually putting that time and effort and that consistency of making invitations, that’s huge on moving the needle.

Lauren Wesley Wilson [00:11:38]:
Yeah. I mean, speaking out is great, but that’s not about opportunity or advancement. I mean, it not about opportunity or advancement, it’s one aspect, but at the end of the day we are looking for opportunities, we want to be able to grow in our careers. We also want feedback. So many times, people of color don’t get the feedback that they need to be able to grow because being afraid of conflict, being afraid to share information. And so they’ll wait say, we’ll we’ll we’ll give you this feedback on review time, and then that could be a little late to to be able to improve. So I think it’s being able to think about opportunities, be able to share honest feedback, and be able to support one another.

Dave Stachowiak [00:12:23]:
And I hear that fear from the other side too, folks who are in that majority culture sometimes feeling like, gosh. I don’t know how to give feedback. I don’t want it to be interpreted the wrong way. When you see people do that well, like, really jump in, give feedback that helps move someone forward, what is it that they do that works that helps?

Lauren Wesley Wilson [00:12:45]:
I think that’s a great question. But one of the things that I say to people oftentimes is that feedback is happening all around you. So you might not be able to get that 30 minute meeting with your boss. Your boss may not set it up or your manager may not have set it up, But pay attention to the feedback that happens all around you, which looks like if you’re being micromanaged. What does that look like? Is it because this is how this manager treats all of their employees? Is there a lack of trust that you might have contributed to? Did you even turn assignments in on time? Did you meet deadlines? Are you communicating when those assignments are getting sent to you? Are you absolutely on it, or are you delivering it when the deadline is and no one has any idea that you were working on it for the last 2 hours? Communication is key. Feedback is happening all around you. It shows up in terms of attitude. It shows up in terms of assignments.

Lauren Wesley Wilson [00:13:41]:
It shows up in terms of how assignments are delivered. Those are points you can pick up on if you’re not getting that 30 minute meeting when someone sits down to provide that feedback. Additionally, though, what I see is great feedback is someone who is looping you in all along so that you’re not surprised. Because you don’t wanna be working in a place and think you’re doing well, and you’re just doing kind of average. Or you don’t wanna be working in a place on the flip side where you’re killing it, but maybe your manager hasn’t shared that with you. Maybe they haven’t shared that they are overjoyed and over the moon, excited with your performance. And so much of that comes with taking ownership of your career, paying attention to feedback that is happening all around you, but then also having open lines of communication with your manager or your boss, swinging on by their desk, sending them if you’re working in a hybrid environment, sending them away to check-in with them. Having open communication is important.

Lauren Wesley Wilson [00:14:46]:
You should never be surprised on how you’re doing.

Dave Stachowiak [00:14:49]:
Yeah. Hey. It comes back to that theme of consistency, right, on both sides, especially the manager, consistent communication. If you’re doing it regularly, then it’s not a big thing of, like, I’m gonna have this big this big conversation. And one of the things that I’m rethinking in in a few of my relationships after reading the book is just how I think about allyship as far as what that looks like and how I tie it in. And one of the invitations you make is tie allyship to economic gains. And you write “Women of color don’t need new besties, they need upward mobility.”

Dave Stachowiak [00:15:24]:
There’s an invitation here, I think, to really think about what am I doing and how does that actually tie into the economics that support people. Right?

Lauren Wesley Wilson [00:15:33]:
Absolutely. I mean, that’s the key is not necessarily new besties, but new sponsors, new mentors, economic mobility, and that and advancement is key. I mean, I tell the story in my book, and I can kinda get to it. And I will share you an example of performative allyship and allyship that’s not performative. Please. Years ago, this is an example of performative allyship. Years ago, I had a friend in the industry reach out and make some introductions to our company. And those introductions led to a financial partnership, which was fantastic.

Lauren Wesley Wilson [00:16:12]:
And we were so thrilled this company, this chairman hadn’t been involved in before, and we were thrilled. And then we’ve properly thanked her. We sent flowers. We were very gracious. Weeks later, everybody seemed to know about her role in our financial partnership. And it seemed like everywhere I turned around, people would say, oh, isn’t it great? Let’s call this woman Susan for the sake of it. Isn’t Susan amazing? I heard everything she did for you. She helped you with your company.

Lauren Wesley Wilson [00:16:44]:
Isn’t Susan amazing? I go somewhere else. Isn’t Susan amazing? Didn’t she get you that partnership with this company? Isn’t Susan amazing? And everywhere I go is, isn’t Susan amazing? And I had no idea that Susan was doing this for her own benefit to show that she had helped this woman of color. And while the intentions might have been good, it became, look at me. This is what I’m doing. I need celebration. I need praise. On the flip side, there was a similar woman, let’s call her Mandy. And she had saw our work, and this was during a rough time years ago, and she had said, okay.

Lauren Wesley Wilson [00:17:29]:
I really wanna be supportive. How can I help you? And we shared our needs. Our needs had nothing to do with finances, but we shared our needs. She decided to help us out and write a check. We didn’t ask for it. We didn’t mention that we needed money, but she’s decided to support. That was the way that she thought she could be helpful, and that was the way that she wanted to support. And she did that.

Lauren Wesley Wilson [00:17:55]:
We properly thanked her, sent you know, graciously thanked her. I never heard from her again. No. She did not go around telling everybody that what she did was such a good thing, and it didn’t come up in a way that she was looking for public praise. It was private celebration, and we helped her with what she wanted for that financial exchange. But it was not a public praise that she was looking for. And so that’s an example of what performative allyship could look like if if your intentions aren’t to be performative or that was not your intention, but it came across as performative. It came across the example I gave with Susan, came across as you were doing this for public praise and not necessarily for wanting to help move the needle forward.

Lauren Wesley Wilson [00:18:51]:
And so and a lot of times, performative allyship could look like there was a trend on Instagram where people would post various things to show that they support, but not showing up for people of color at work. So showing that you stand in solidarity, whether it’s an issue or a crisis that’s happening in the world, is also very different than showing up for employees who don’t look like you and helping them get information in advance.

Dave Stachowiak [00:19:23]:
There’s a 6 word sentence in the book that captures what you’ve just said. “True allyship happens behind the scenes.” I’m thinking about both of those stories you just shared. Thank you for sharing them. And the person out there who’s listening to this and thinking, okay. I wanna be that person who’s behind the scenes. I don’t want to be the person that does something because I wanna get recognition or praise, aybe that’s not the intention, but I don’t want it to be perceived that way.

Dave Stachowiak [00:19:54]:
And yet, I also want to support the organization or the person publicly and do that in a way that affirms them. When you see people navigate that well, who are sponsors, donors, leaders, what is it they do that makes it not about them?

Lauren Wesley Wilson [00:20:18]:
I think first and foremost, there’s a genuine intention to do good, to be a good doer, to know the privilege that you have, and be able to spread that privilege forward that helps someone else who would take many, many years to be where you are simply because they don’t have the benefit of that privilege or that access or that trust or that loyalty that comes along with privilege. And I think understanding that all good deeds come back to you in some shape or form. And it may not be the way you want it at that moment, but all good deeds come back around and understanding that you’re truly benefiting that person, yourself, and that company by helping out other people.

Dave Stachowiak [00:21:08]:
It takes some trust, and it’s coming from the right place, but it’s also the getting behind the scenes, just knowing that it’s going to work out well for people if you do that well.

Lauren Wesley Wilson [00:21:22]:
Absolutely.

Dave Stachowiak [00:21:23]:
One of the other invitations that you make is everyone’s gonna make mistakes. Right? Like, we’re all going to screw things up. You say, “Apologize, own it, and move on.” And that the mistake that sometimes folks make is that they spend a lot of time trying to explain themselves when they realize they’ve said something, done something, something landed in a way it shouldn’t. What is it that people miss?

Lauren Wesley Wilson [00:21:50]:
Yeah. I think that it’s natural to feel defensive if you- at the end of the day, like you’ve said, and like I said in my book, we are human beings. We don’t always get it right. Curiosity could have good intentions behind it. Curiosity could have negative intentions behind it. I think it’s a covenant upon both people. I think it’s, 1, understanding that people are human. They don’t always get it right.

Lauren Wesley Wilson [00:22:15]:
It could be a genuine mistake, a genuine I did not know. And if that’s the case, be willing to learn. If you do make that mistake, if you do say something where you put your foot in your mouth, if you do say something that was inappropriate, but maybe you didn’t think it was, but they took it that way, Be willing to learn. Be willing to listen and taking a step back. So often, you get it wrong by defending yourself, explaining yourself, or making comparisons. Many people of color share that they will get a comparison thrown at them. Like, oh, well, you know, my son is gay, so I completely know what you feel like because he’s dealing with something that he’s a minority in a such and such situation. Or I had one black friend over here growing up, etcetera, etcetera.

Dave Stachowiak [00:23:05]:
And it’s it’s people generalize, and also they’re making the situation about them, and it’s not about them, right?

Lauren Wesley Wilson [00:23:14]:
Right. It’s not about them.

Dave Stachowiak [00:23:16]:
Yeah. You’ve been doing so much work to support women of color in the workplace, supporting folks’ careers. Of course, you hear people’s stories all the time, and you’ve captured so much in this book. As you have been putting the book together and doing this work over the last few years, I’m curious. What’s one thing you’ve changed your mind on?

Lauren Wesley Wilson [00:23:39]:
I think that there are no hard fast rules. A lot of things are very nuanced and subjective. And there’s a lot of learning and growing to do at no matter what level you are at your career, you don’t have it all figured out. I think early on when you are starting out in the working world, you idolize people with various titles or idolize people who are have more seniority and have made it in your mind. And, really, we’re all learning and growing and evolving. It’s just it’s gonna look like it’s happening at different stages in different times. And that there’s just no hard and fast rule in terms of the way to do things. It’s just very nuanced.

Lauren Wesley Wilson [00:24:26]:
But then I also realized too the importance of taking ownership of your career that no one person is responsible for your trajectory. Don’t put all that responsibility into your boss, manager, employer. And equally, no one person can, ruin that for you either. Sometimes people share that they have the power to ruin things. And that’s that’s not the case either. Can I add one more thing?

Dave Stachowiak [00:24:55]:
Of course.

Lauren Wesley Wilson [00:24:56]:
No, I set out to write this book for women of color. But really, this is a leadership book for all women and men too. I think that anyone who reads this will learn some basic business principles, but then they will also learn about difference and some of the challenges that their colleagues may experience in the workplace that they were completely unaware of because those weren’t some of their challenges. And so I think it’s really about understanding difference and understanding how we come to the table and think about the the professional game that’s being played around us.

Dave Stachowiak [00:25:30]:
Agreed. It’s huge for that, and I’m excited for folks to get into the book and get that perspective. Lauren Wesley Wilson is the author of What Do You Need? How Women of Color Can Take Ownership of Their Careers To Accelerate Their Path To Success. Lauren, thank you so much for your work.

Lauren Wesley Wilson [00:25:47]:
Alright. Thank you.

Dave Stachowiak [00:25:55]:
If this conversation was helpful, a few related episodes I’d recommend to you. One of them is episode 552, the way managers can be champions for justice. Minda Harts was my guest on that episode. Bestselling author of The Memo and Right Within. Minda’s done extraordinary work for women of color in the workplace over the years. She’s been on the podcast a couple of times. Episode 552, a great compliment to this conversation because we looked at it from the lens of what can we do as managers to be better champions in the workplace and, of course, better allies.

Dave Stachowiak [00:26:29]:
Also recommended episode 556, end imposter syndrome in your organization. Jodi-Ann Burey was my guest on that episode. We often think about imposter syndrome as a challenge that an individual is facing. Jodi-Ann really challenged us to think about it differently and look at it from the lens of what are we doing as leaders in an organization that’s causing it to be pervasive, and how can we do a better job of setting the right environment so that imposter syndrome is framed in a different way? Really extraordinary invitation from her on how to think about what we hear about a lot, this term imposter syndrome, and how to think about it in a more productive way and how we can do a better job as leaders of preventing it. Episode 556 for that.

Dave Stachowiak [00:27:13]:
And then I’d also recommend episode 615, how to respond better when challenged. Dolly Chugh was my guest on that episode, and we talked about the reality that we all face as we get challenged rightfully or wrongfully. We get challenged in our work. Yes.Sometimes it’s related to DNI, but on almost any topic, all of us can remember times we’ve been challenged. And what matters, of course, is how do we respond when we do get challenged? Do we respond in a healthy way? Do we respond defensively as we talked a bit about in this conversation? Episode 615, a great invitation from Dolly on how we can do better and be good as she makes the invitation in that conversation to do. All of those episodes you can find on the coachingforleaders.com website. I’m inviting you to set up your free membership if you haven’t already at coachingforleaders.com. It’s gonna give you access to all of the conversations that I just mentioned, but so much more inside of our library. We’re filing this conversation under diversity, equity, and inclusion. We’ve had many dozens of conversations over the years on this topic. We’ll continue to have conversations because of its importance.

Dave Stachowiak [00:28:23]:
Lots more inside of the library, plus so many other topics, dozens and dozens of topics that are important for all of us on coaching, management, team leadership, how to develop talent in your organization, and so many of the other things we talk about regularly on the show. Your free membership gives you access to be able to search by topic through the entire library, plus to be able to receive my weekly leadership guide. Once a week, I’m sending you a message with a bit of a summary of the episode, relevant links, all of the related episodes I just mentioned, plus more that I’ve been finding online and in the weekly publications from Harvard Business Review and The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal that I think will be helpful to you in continuing to support your leadership development. You can get access to all of that just by going to coachingforleaders.com, setting up your free membership.And if you’ve been using the free membership for a bit, I would invite you to learn more about Coaching for Leaders Plus one of our academy members asked us a group of us about a week ago. Do you ever get tired of leading people? Do you really ever have down days or seasons? And just about all of us nodded as we went around the room and were discussing that topic. And I wrote a journal entry on that exact question.

Dave Stachowiak [00:29:43]:
How do you handle it on the bad days, on the bad weeks, on the bad seasons? What works for me to keep perspective, but also what I’ve seen work for all of the leaders I’ve had the privilege to work with. That was one of my weekly journal entries in recent weeks. If you’d like to receive that perspective from me in addition to everything here on the podcast, you may wanna find out about Coaching for Leaders Plus. It’s one of the key benefits of those weekly journal entries in Coaching for Leaders Plus. You can find out more by going over to coachingforleaders.plus. Coaching for Leaders is edited by Andrew Kroeger. Production support is provided by Sierra Priest. Next week, I’m glad to welcome Michael McQueen to the show.

Dave Stachowiak [00:30:26]:
He is going to be joining me to discuss how to change people’s minds, something that we all find ourselves needing to do at one point or another. And for most leaders, fairly often. Join me for that conversation with Michael, and I will see you back on Monday.