To our friends, colleagues, peers, and leaders who are facing organizational shifts right now, know that you’re not alone.
Ericka and I have facilitated leadership transition focus groups, cohorts, and gatherings in the past several years at Leadership Learning Community. We’ve shared wisdom on change (here, here, and here) and have offered a comprehensive resource for leadership transitions here. Much of our focus has been on executive leadership transitions, including the impact of these transitions on leaders of color. What Karla Monterroso remarked in Leadership and Race: A Call to Each Other still resonates deeply, “I’ve watched a lot of Black women lose their jobs in the last few years, in part because they stepped into a gap that was there post-George Floyd during a pandemic that, had it not been filled, would have devastated a lot of communities. But now that we’re past it, folks are like, ‘And you didn’t do enough.’”.
The recent executive orders have already caused dramatic funding shifts to the social good sector. While the numbers are being tallied, the layoffs have started. We expect more shifts to come in the following weeks and have already observed that the scarcity mindset is creeping in all around us. This month, it feels like every leadership for equity and collective liberation organization and every nonprofit for democracy, civil rights, and human rights are feeling like “we did not do enough,” “we don’t have enough,” and perhaps even, “we are not enough.”
Three:
Lastly, if you are in the process of scenario planning or already facing the hardest decisions one might have as a leader, like layoffs and organizational restructure. We offer lessons from the immortal jellyfish. It is not normal or perhaps wise for anything to go on in perpetuity, but if an organization must exist forever, perhaps the small immortal jellyfish (or Turritopsis dohrnii) may serve as a reference. Jellyfish are made of mostly water, and a typical jellyfish’s life cycle goes from eggs, larvae, and polyps to a young and then mature jellyfish. The immortal jellyfish is different than most jellyfish and other animals in that it is “ capable of reverting completely to a sexually immature, colonial stage after having reached sexual maturity as a solitary individual.” In other words, it releases parts of itself and changes to a younger version that can mature again. Moreover, in death, it can grow polyps from its decaying body, which skips the early larvae forms. Finally, a reminder that although biologically immortal, like other living beings, it can still die from disease and predators.
One:
Get connected with others at every opportunity, from house parties and third spaces to work gatherings. Recently, every time we held space for a learning circle, affinity group, or cohort, participants leave feeling relieved to know they are not alone and relieved to have more tips and resources on how to navigate these conditions.
Two:
If we are feeling defeated by the current policies and politics in our country, let us be reminded of the timeline.
- It was just 5 years ago that we were in a global health pandemic, sheltered in place, and physically disconnected (While data was still being recorded, over 1.1 million deaths related to COVID-19 resulted since the pandemic). This was also when George Floyd was murdered, leading to a public racial justice reckoning in America. At the time, polls found that as high as 74% of Americans viewed George Floyd’s death as an underlying racial injustice problem.
- Only 10 years ago did our queer friends get married, and same sex marriages were legally recognized in all 50 states (Obergefell v. Hodges).
- It was just 37 years ago that a woman could own a business all on her own without a male co-signer (Women’s Business Ownership Act).
- 58 years ago, people of color and white people in the United States could marry, and their marriage would be legally recognized (Loving v. Virginia).
- It was about 60 years ago that the United States established the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964, the Voting Rights Act, and the Fair Housing Act, which prohibited discrimination based on race, color, religion, sex, and national origin.
- It was 71 years ago when schools were desegregated. A few years later, Ruby Bridges went to a school with white children. She’s still around, and in 2025, Ms. Ruby will be 70 years old. (Brown v. Board of Education, which overturned the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson case).
- 83 years ago, our military was legally authorized and acted to remove people, many American citizens, of Japanese ancestry from their homes and placed in internment camps (Executive Order 9066).
- Just 127 years ago, birthright citizenship was established for the first Chinese child United States v. Wong Kim Ark. (Note that the Chinese Exclusion Act and many other laws made sure to keep Asians and immigrants of color out of America.)
- It was only 160 years ago that the United States finally abolished slavery (13th Amendment).
