What Black Women Leaders Reveal About Workplace Culture

The body will keep the score if systems stay the same and expect us to adapt indefinitely.

When I read The Weight We Carry: How Stress Affects Immunity in Black Women from the Black Women’s Health Imperative, it didn’t just resonate—it recalled chapters from my own life.

For years, I moved through high-performing environments while carrying a quiet, relentless weight. The migraines. The inflammation. The chronic pain and creeping signs of pre-diabetes. I brushed them off. There were teams to lead, strategies to execute, expectations to meet.

And I met them—until my body said, No more.

What the article calls “a slow erosion of immunity” felt like my reality. A personal unraveling—masked by excellence, powered by pressure, and ignored until it threatened my well-being.

And I know I’m not alone.

A Systemic Pattern, Not a Personal Failing

As of mid-2025, nearly 300,000 Black women have left or been pushed out of the U.S. workforce, with unemployment rates for Black women hovering around 6%—double that of White women.

This isn’t just about burnout. It’s about structural neglect. Black women often serve as the pulse of what’s unsustainable in a workplace. When we begin to fray, it means the system is already unraveling. Yet far too often, our early warning signs are ignored while we are called difficult.

This Is Why I Do the Work

In my work as a fractional leadership development strategist and people & culture manager, I carry this understanding into every conversation. I know what it means to lead while unraveling. I also know what it means to build environments where all people—especially Black women—don’t have to armor up to be seen as capable.

That’s the foundation of the work we do at the Transformative Leadership Collective.

We’re not just teaching skills—we’re redesigning culture.

What Is Transformative Leadership?

Transformative Leadership is a model that integrates:

• Healing-centered approaches

• Trauma-informed frameworks

• Inclusive design

• Adaptive, nimble strategies

It challenges the idea that resilience must mean self-sacrifice—because it doesn’t.

Let’s Ask Better Questions

So many leadership programs center productivity, grit, and optimization. But if we’re going to build futures where all people can thrive, we need to ask:

• How might you build programs that explicitly address the emotional labor often shouldered disproportionately by employees holding certain identities?

• What practices in your organization acknowledge and buffer chronic stress before performance suffers?

• Are you holding space for people’s stories to inform how work structures are designed?

• Are we truly listening to those navigating toxic systems while being asked to lead?

• Have we audited our workplace norms for toxicity—and are we willing to redesign?

These are the questions that shape my work and the story I continue to live. Because real leadership isn’t just about outcomes—it’s about who gets to survive the process of achieving them.

Ready to Lead Differently?

If you’re a leader, founder, or HR decision-maker ready to reimagine how leadership can look, feel, and function—let’s talk. Burnout is not a part of the job description. Let’s stop celebrating burnout and start building something that truly sustains.

Tags:

#TransformativeLeadership #BlackWomenLead #LeadershipDevelopment #OrganizationalHealth #TraumaInformedLeadership #PeopleAndCulture #BlackWomensHealth