Business News
Black Women Increasingly Seek the Corner Office
women, it’s 84 percent.
“We found that Black women list financial independence
as a top goal,” said Green.
One possible contributing factor: Black women are more
likely to be unmarried and supporting others such as rais-
ing nieces and nephews or significantly giving back to their
community. To these Black women, having a top job means
more money in order to completely and independently ful-
fill their financial obligations.
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gled and sacrificed to make sure you have the opportunity
to compete.”
“There was a deeply rooted understanding of what it
means to not have a voice in this country for so long that
really drove them to go for it,” said Green. This attitude
stemmed from both obligation and personal ambition.
Green said where Blacks are similar to their white coun-
terparts were among five things: the ability to flourish; to
excel; to reach their purpose; the ability to empower others
and be empowered; and have the ability to earn well.
Looking closely at attitudes about women’s finances,
there was a gap. Fifty-four percent of White women list-
ed “the ability to earn well” as being important. For Black
Mellody Hobson, president Ariel Investments
penned the foreword of a new report on Black
women in the workplace.
By Jessica R. Key
Special to the NNPA from the Indianapolis Recorder
I
n business, there’s long been a perception among Black
employees that they must work harder than their White
counterparts to rise to the top. A recent report suggests
Black women in particular are eyeing the executive office
more so than their White peers.
A study conducted by the Center for Talent Innovation
(CTI), a think tank which conducts research on the chal-
lenges diverse individuals face in the workplace, published
a report that shows Black women are more likely than
White women to aspire to a powerful position with a pres-
tigious title.
“Black Women: Ready to Lead” also uncovers that Black
women also perceive a powerful position as the means to
achieving their professional goals and are confident they
can succeed in the role.
Yet despite their ambition and qualifications, Black wom-
en often feel stalled in their careers. This inertia can be at-
tributed to the unconscious biases and the lack of advocacy
these women face in the workplace.
The study was inspired by a report conducted last year
by CTI that looked at women in the U.S., U.K. and Germa-
ny and found women often were not seeking positions of
power. When they dug deeper, they discovered other racial
groups had ambivalence to power except Black women.
Mellody Hobson, president of Ariel Investments and wife
of film director and producer George Lucas, penned the re-
port’s foreword.
‘There was a deeply rooted
understanding of what it means
to not have a voice in this
country for so long that really
drove them to go for it’
“What sparked this was through some of the interviews
conducted. Some of the African-American executives com-
mented they really weren’t seeing an ambivalence to power
from Black women,” said Tai Green, senior vice president at
CTI and co-author of Black Women: Ready to Lead. “They
said executive leadership positions, they find, are a hard sell
for this group.”
Green and her team then focused on women in the U.S.
to see if the data aligned with their qualitative research. All
Black women questioned had a college education and often-
times had leadership experience outside of their jobs.
“We saw the narrative around Black women was one that
isn’t really fraught with talk of the confidence gap or a need
to ‘lean in’ as a group, but is far more likely to aspire to
positions of power,” said Green.
She added that Black women are three times more likely
than their peers to go for the top spot. Why?
Green said Black women responded they were raised
hearing statements such as “you need to work twice as hard
to be viewed equal to your peers” or “a lot of people strug-
July 29, 2015 The Portland and Seattle Skanner Page 9