White Allyship of Afro-Diasporic Women in the Workplace: A Transformative Strategy for Organizational Change

Abstract

Given the underrepresentation of Afro-Diasporic women in senior leadership roles, this conceptual article points to the transformative potential of antiracist, feminist White allyship to serve as a missing piece in organizations that may propel the career development and leadership advancement of Afro-Diasporic women. We define White allyship as a continuous, reflexive practice of proactively interrogating Whiteness from an intersectionality framework, leveraging one’s position of power and privilege and courageously interrupting the status quo by engaging in prosocial behaviors that foster growth-in-connection and have both the intention and impact of creating mutuality, solidarity, and support of Afro-Diasporic women’s career development and leadership advancement. We describe the behaviors, outcomes, motivations, and detractors of White allyship and offer suggestions for future research. White allyship of Afro-Diasporic women holds important opportunities for meaningful relationships to develop in organizations, for which would-be allies need support, coaching, and training to increase their allyship competence and self-efficacy.

Making Black Lives Matter in academia: A Black feminist call for collective action against anti‐blackness in the academy

“…We then discuss the meanings of “anti‐blackness,” and “liberal White supremacy,” and their presence in and suggestions for addressing them in academia. We conclude with a call to action for allies to more collectively, actively participate in the struggle to eradicate anti‐blackness and White supremacy in the academy “even when the struggles are not their own” (Weatherall, 2019, p. 471) and even in the face of individual and institutional resistance to change (Contu, 2020; Erskine & Bilimoria, 2019; Holmes, 2019; Ozkazanc‐Pan, 2019).…”

Increasing Career Advancement Opportunities Through Sponsorship: An Identity-Based Model With Illustrative Application to Cross-Race Mentorship of African Americans

“…For example, this research could consider how in today’s era of mobility and shorter tenures, career advancement efforts involving sponsorship might occur across organizational boundaries and involve protégés leaving the organization in order to pursue opportunities at a new organization with the help of well-connected mentors inside and outside of the organization (Scully, Blake-Beard, Felicio, & O’Neill, 2017). Further development of how individuals in positions of privilege can serve as allies to African Americans in ways that work in concert with or independent from sponsorship as a cross-race mechanism for increasing career advancement of African Americans is also encouraged (Droogendyk, Wright, Lubensky, & Loui, 2016; Erskine & Bilimoria, 2019). In addition, future research could consider how identity dynamics in informal versus formal mentorship differ and the speed with which career advancement is achieved in these two relationship forms.…”

“…For example, this might include negating others’ efforts to render protégés invisible, disrupting efforts to presume that all African Americans have uniform experiences and increasing awareness about the lack of African Americans in senior corporate roles (Holder et al, 2015) with obvious benefits for the protégé. When the status hierarchy is challenged in such ways, African Americans are more comfortable leveraging their networks to help their careers, thus increasing career advancement attainments further (Erskine & Bilimoria, 2019; Khattab et al, 2020). The mentor may also benefit by, for instance, experiencing career revitalization as a result of projecting confidence and taking a leadership role in countering exclusion (Young & Perrewe, 2000).…”

From Strategic Leaders to Societal Leaders: On the Expanding Social Role of Executives and Boards

“…Attempts by strategic leaders to signal their support for social change often amount to performative allyship: “Well-meaning people with power and privilege show interest in becoming an ally but do not engage in the ongoing emotional labor, self-reflection, continuous education, courage, commitment, and exchange of power inherent in true allyship” (Erskine & Bilimoria, 2019: 329). The public and the press have criticized such performative efforts as they look deeper into the upper echelons’ vague media statements and hashtag advocacy.…”

“…The public and the press have criticized such performative efforts as they look deeper into the upper echelons’ vague media statements and hashtag advocacy. The disconnect between strategic leaders’ verbal support and their organizations’ histories of racial and social inequality (Yuan, 2020) has sparked calls for more sincere and substantive allyship: strategic leaders “working in solidarity with a marginalized individual or group of people, and building relationships based on the ability of a dominant group member to support marginalized groups” (Erskine & Bilimoria, 2019: 321).…”