On Leadership: What it Means to Us and Why it Matters

Written by Dr. Damary Bonilla-Rodriguez, Director, Leaders of Color New York

Leadership is one of those qualities that we have all been thinking about a lot. This year started off with the inauguration of an historic presidency, ushering in the first Black, first Asian, and first female Vice President in Kamala Harris. Our leaders gaveled in the most diverse Congress this country has ever elected, and Georgians elected their first Black Senator. At the same time, Black and brown community leaders have organized to advocate for fundamental human rights and needs, to protest injustice, to rally against police brutality, and to bring communities together.

These are just a few examples of the progress people across our country, states, counties, cities, and communities have been making towards electing and building truly representative leadership to address the myriad issues that people of color face in this country because of systemic racism and inequitable policies. The Leaders of Color program started in 2018 to support this very progress: by helping more Black and Hispanic people get the network, knowledge, and necessary skills to lead community organizations, advocate for progress, and run for office, we can build the future we want to see.

Because we know: there is more work to be done.

Last month, we onboarded 38 new Black and Hispanic Fellows in New York, NY and Memphis, TN. They will work through our 70-hour curriculum over five months, and the very first module is on Leadership Development. Our Fellows are now taking intensive courses like Resiliency in Leadership, Emergency Management, Time Management, and Tackling Imposter Syndrome. Leveraging evidence-based research from academia, Leaders of Color measures Fellows and builds curriculum across all six dimensions of civic engagement as defined by the Association of American Colleges & Universities (AAC&U):

• Diversity of Communities and Cultures
• Analysis of Knowledge
• Civic Identity and Commitment
• Civic Communication
• Civic Action and Reflection
• Civic Contexts/Structures

We do this because we want better leadership. Ongoing failures in leadership lead to ongoing failures in support for our communities. Degree attainment and income gaps across race persist, and are widening. The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted systemic gaps and cracks in our economy, healthcare, food security, mental health care, carceral systems, and more. At the time of this writing, 524,000 Americans have lost their lives to COVID-19. Across the American South, many communities — particularly Black and Latinx communities — are still struggling in the aftermath of an unprecedented winter freeze and utilities failure, on the precipice of what most experts warn will be an ongoing, damaging climate crisis that disproportionately affects people of color, women, and the vulnerable here in the United States and globally.

This is our “why” — why we continue to do our part to build strong leadership for us all.