…especially for Black Women Leaders…
My favorite activity of Black History Month has become hosting a conversation with Black Women in Leadership. These conversations are a masterclass in what it means to lead, even when the world is designed to keep you from doing so. What does it mean to lead, when your very presence represents a disruption to the systems you are part of? How do you keep showing up when simply doing so and doing your job is resisting the pull of a system that would prefer that you stay silent? How do you keep going, when leading in systems that react to your presence, by design and default, by manufacturing challenges to distract and exhaust you? This showing up, this leading, is nothing short of resistance and transformation for today’s Black women leaders, and all who find themselves leading in spite of being from an underrepresented and marginalized people group. As Paulette Senior who was then President and Chief Executive Officer of The Canadian Women’s Foundation and is now a Canadian Senator said in a past Black History Month conversation with me: “Leading as myself has been the most powerful, transformative act that I have taken, Leading with a vision that is informed by who I am and not having others tell me what that is, is a transformative, if not a revolutionary act.”
Here are some nuggets of wisdom (paraphrased from their stories) about what leading in this era means from the 2026 In conversation with Black Women in Leadership: Sisterhood and Storytelling.
H.E. Nadia Theodore, Canadian Ambassador in Geneva: Even when you fail or lose, look for the lesson, and do not resist the lessons that come from adversity either. Grab the seed of learning in the process and run with it. Choose to remember the joy and when work is no longer joyful…choose to leave.
- Advise to leaders: “Your energy is your most finite resource and your relationship to other people’s opinions is everything. Once you accept that some voices will try to redirect or reshape you – not for your growth, but to serve their own agenda – you stop needing to respond to every criticism or disprove every doubt. You can peacefully roll your eyes at the noise and save your energy for what matters.” (see video summary advise to leaders from Nadia here and detailed Q+A version here)
Judith Bosire, Chief Economist at Vancity: Decide to keep going, even when those around you, including your family do not understand your vision and/or the opportunities that you step into (cue Nick Emmanwori’s mother’s comments about attending the 2026 Super Bowl – if you know, you know!). This means you must find and create your own network to keep nourishing your dreams. You must also be willing to step into unexpected opportunities, like accepting the prompting from someone in my network to apply to a federal government role…and moving to Canada’s northern territories—Yukon, Northwest Territories, and Nunavut, to take advantage of the resulting opportunity.
- Advise to leaders: “Your network is one of your greatest assets — invest in it with intention. The peers you collaborate with today may become tomorrow’s gatekeepers, decision‑makers, and changemakers. Leave them with a lasting sense of your value.”
Matilda Williams-Obiajunwa, Founder & Executive Director, Sisters-in-Canada Wellness Society: The adversity of almost becoming homeless with her family as a newcomer to Canada taught her that we must do more than hope for someone to save us. The kindness of a stranger taught her to advocate for what she needed that night and reinforced the courage to lead beyond fear. She calls on sisters everyone to support one another.
- To Women leaders: Always remember, when we hold each other with genuine care, we don’t just survive, we rebuild, we rise and we bring others with us. But the foundation is loving ourselves intentionally, so we can love the next woman wholeheartedly. Love makes it easier!
Michelle Fenton, Founding Partner/Lead Architect at Khôra Architecture + Interiors: We are asked about our credentials and roles all the time. No one asks who we are and what our story is! This opportunity to reflect on her own story was a reminder that it is in knowing who we are that we can find true joy and happiness in our work, especially when we are the only Black leader in a room. Showing up in our authentic identities is what moves work into a calling and will help each of us create spaces and lead in ways that are inclusive and promotes wellbeing and happiness. It is what helps us unlearn self-harmful colonial teachings and lead from the place of our own identity, self-definition and self-valuation.
- Advise to leaders: “YOU are the architect of your leadership—free to design the conditions under which it takes shape, is inhabited, and lived each day.”
This conversation has once again, reinforced for me the power of our own storytelling for leaders committed to ongoing learning and transformation. It has highlighted the importance for Black (and other marginalized communities) to understand that there is nothing more powerful for our development and transformation than the self-articulation of our own Identities, Belonging and Agency, as I have proposed through the IBA Framework. This means knowing our own identities, finding the spaces and communities of belonging where we are challenged to learn/unlearn, grow and thrive and exercising agency to act on the changes we need in our organizations and communities.
As I noted in my Royal Roads university Black History Month keynote, continued anti-Blackness racism, policies that are increasing systemic / structural disadvantages and human rights subjugating changes we are seeing in these times:
“…begs the question of what’s the era we’re in? Are we seeing a resurgence and a slide back to these kinds of policies and rules that would limit the flourishing of Black communities? Or are we going to work together for a different kind of future that continues the trajectory of recognition and movement for Black inclusions and Black flourishing here in Canada?…”
The dilemma, as Toni Morrison ever so eloquently articulated in her call to artists to keep telling human stories and uplifting beauty in a similar time, is this:
“It’s important, therefore, to know who the real enemy is, and to know the function, the very serious function of racism, which is distraction. It keeps you from doing your work. It keeps you explaining, over and over again, your reason for being. Somebody says you have no language and you spend twenty years proving that you do. Somebody says your head isn’t shaped properly so you have scientists working on the fact that it is. Somebody says you have no art, so you dredge that up. Somebody says you have no kingdoms, so you dredge that up. None of this is necessary. There will always be one more thing”. Toni Morrison, “A Humanist View,” May 30, 1975
The response?
Know who you are…
Know where you belong…
Know that you have agency to choose your one thing… whatever that is, from economics to architecture to public policy and human services, as the small subset of our speakers modelled and do your work…lead!
And to my fellow Black women leaders, know that your transformational leadership act means leading as you are…without distraction, without apology.
Video Links/Resources from the event: