Leveraging Your Power as Untapped Leaders

“Intersectionality is a lens through which you can see where power comes and collides, where it interlocks and intersects.”

Kimberlé Crenshaw

Understanding intersectionality as Untapped Leaders is vital. As we navigate our identities, we recognize the ways we experience marginalization and discover the spaces where we hold privilege as well. 

The intersectionality framework reminds us that our marginalized identities are compounding -- Indigenous and woman, queer and disabled -- meaning that discrimination compounds. But likewise, identities of privilege are compounding as well. 

Our work environments, where we are situated in the world or within our organizations, can contribute to the [varying] levels of power and privilege we experience. Power that has the potential to make our world (and workplace) and more equitable and inclusive space if we learn how to use it. 

When we understand intersectionality in leadership, not only do we make space to hold all of our identities, but more importantly, we’re able to use our power to bring in more marginalized perspectives.

Identities Influence Action

To understand how to leverage your power as an Untapped Leader, it’s essential to spend time considering and reflecting on your own identities. Each of them, as the intersectionality framework maintains, plays a role not only in how you experience the world, but how you act within it and interact with others. 

Remember, the goal is to bring in more marginalized perspectives. But even those with the most layered perspectives may not have a full understanding of the ways they can hold power, privilege, and sometimes even bias. 

You can begin to consider your identities and their influences by simply becoming more aware. Think about the ways that your identities have informed your actions. Do the deep work to resolve any of your own biases. 

Also, think deep and wide about where you have power and privilege. For many Untapped Leaders, our marginalized perspectives can feel overbearing. But by centering our attention and energy on those perspectives alone, we miss the potential impact that we could lead when we consider all the intersections of our identity and how we can use those with power.

Leveraging Your Power 

• Think about how and where you can change policies and practices in your workplace. What perspectives aren’t being considered that should be? In what ways might you make them more inclusive? 

• Be intentional about bringing in perspectives more marginalized than yourself. In what ways can you create practices and policies to speak to them? Continue to build and expand further across the spectrum. 

• Don’t discredit informal practices such as work culture or expectations. While these may not be actual policies, holding a position of power within your organization can go a long way in setting the tone and boundaries that can benefit your colleagues with more marginalized perspectives. 

The opportunity within our identities and our leadership capabilities are expansive. When we use the intersectionality framework to understand both our marginalization and our power, that’s when we can create change.