CHAPTER ONE

Please Sit Over There

The night before my first day as the newest global vice-president of a Fortune 100 company, I drove to the building where I would be working. I wanted to make sure that I wouldn’t get lost or be late. I had planned everything down to the last detail for my big debut with the organization. An announcement had been shared with every employee of the company. I had received congratulatory messages from places I didn’t even know had offices in countries throughout the world. I was overwhelmed but excited.

I drove for four hours from my home straight to my new office location. I arrived at 2:00 a.m., parked, jumped out of my car, and stood in the parking lot looking at the huge building. My only thought was, “Francine, look at what you have achieved!” I hadn’t screwed up. I had made it through undergraduate and graduate school and had managed to climb the ranks in two companies as a vice-president, as an executive—a title that so many Black women like me did not have but so many deserved. I still couldn’t quite believe it.

The next morning, when I returned to my new office location, I was ready. But all of my excitement and feelings of pride in my accomplishment were to be short lived.

I had decided to wear a boiled-wool dress suit that day, an understated, textured fabric in a deep crimson. I wanted to be balanced but noticed for this appearance, so while I chose only a watch and basic earrings for accessories, I wore an amazing pair of red suede platform heels that matched so well you might have thought that I had bought the shoes and had had the suit made to match. In fact, I had. I was dressed to reflect the statement I wanted to make on my first day—bold but tasteful, in a way that made me feel all the confidence of the senior leader that I was.

The words that I would use to introduce myself to my staff and executive colleagues in my first leadership meeting were etched in my brain. I parked my car, went through the front doors, and walked up to a receptionist to introduce myself. Before I could finish saying my last name, I heard a voice interrupting me, saying the words “Please sit over there.”

It wasn’t a request, it was a command. The receptionist didn’t even look directly at me. She simply acknowledged me and pointed to a row of chairs by the wall. “You’re early and the training for the associate employees hasn’t started yet. Please just sit over there until we are ready,” she said, emphasizing her instruction.

In that moment, I was reminded of who I was and where I didn’t belong. I had just been minimized and relegated, presumed to be something that I was not. Something that I had worked so hard to achieve felt as if it had just disappeared and didn’t matter anymore.

“Did I just hear what I thought I heard?” I thought to myself. What happened to me demonstrated what my parents had told me about and what every Black person in America knows to watch out for—being stereotyped. This was not the first time I’d experienced the misuse of power by others that so many of us as Black women in the workplace experience in our careers. We are often told to wait our turn. We receive feedback that we’re not quite ready or that we are super smart but not smart enough that those in power feel comfortable taking a risk on us. (I found that particularly interesting; as if we wouldn’t be smart enough to figure it out!)

All of my work and experience in corporate America had brought me to this critical moment in my career as a leader. I had trained and had practiced controlling my reactions in situations worse than this one. I had learned through watching others over the years that choosing my reactions strategically rather than reactively was the key to being the one in control— the one with the power.

Make no mistake that when she spoke those words to me, giving me a command, she was in charge. The hierarchy was flipped. I was many organizational levels above her. The key was that I knew this and I had an opportunity to choose my response. I could have used my voice and tone to put her in her place, letting her know who I was to take back my power. If only it were that simple.

I was being directed to move myself out of the way while others moved freely through the lobby. She had relationships with them, not me, and she was unquestionably in control. She was the gatekeeper. And despite her lower level in the organizational chart, I knew immediately that she could make my entrance into my new executive role much harder. I was aware that I could correct her misunderstanding, but she possessed relationships that I did not. If I reacted according to my (absolutely justified) feelings of indignation, I would spend a lot of time working to undo the damage she could do to my reputation, perhaps without even realizing what she was doing. At this point in my new job, the organization and its leaders trusted her more than they did me because they simply did not know me yet.

Maintaining control of my voice and managing my expression was the key to my power. I had no relationship with this woman at all. I didn’t know who she reported to or whether she was an assistant to an executive or a temp. What I did know was that she was there for a reason and that someone had given her the authority to do what she did to me. Clearly, I didn’t need to sit down, much less sit where I had been told to sit. I had no intention of doing that. But how I chose to respond to her was the power that I had. This was about getting what I wanted: a successful start in an organization where no one looked like me.

I have always wondered if the same assumption would have been made about me if I had been a white female or male. My guess is probably not. This was one of the most pointed and memorable moments where I was told what to do and the concept of power manifested itself distinctly in my thinking. The way I thought about power in that moment guided all my future actions as a professional Black woman in the workplace.

Power Is More Than an Org Chart

You might think that power follows the structure of a hierarchy, that each level at an organization conveys more power as you ascend. That is definitely not the case.

Anyone who has been an administrative assistant or has worked with an administrative assistant knows that they are the gatekeepers of the calendar. They make the decisions about who will get time on their manager’s calendar and who just keeps getting pushed forward until they get the message and stop asking. They decide whether your request will be heard or not. They are often the trusted confidant of their manager and often what they say goes.

The kind of power held by an administrative assistant is a form of informal power. They may not be high in the hierarchy, but they do have the ability to control certain aspects of their organization’s functioning. Make no mistake, “informal” does not mean “less.” Administrative assistants may wield considerable power by virtue of their relationships with powerful people in the company. I would argue that there is even an aspect of formal power to their roles, since their authority is granted to them by someone in a position of leadership and authority.

The official organizational chart only tells you who reports to whom officially. You can assume that there is more to the network of power relationships behind the hierarchy and reporting structure on that chart. And even at the level of vice-presidents and CEOs, the real power networks may have some nuance. It’s often the unofficial organizational chart that reveals the truth of who works to get things done and for whom.

How You Use Your Voice Impacts How Much Power You Have

When I was told to “please sit over there,” I had a choice about how to respond. How I responded was going to have an out-sized impact on the power I would wield in this new position.

I recovered quickly and thanked the receptionist for sharing that information and for pointing me in the right direction. And then I said that my new role was reporting to the president of the organization as the new executive vice-president. The receptionist of course became deeply embarrassed. I smiled, tilted my head ever so slightly, and let her apologize profusely. I never forgot her.

Thank God for the fact that I learned to have a “clutch,” as I call it, between my brain and my mouth. I couldn’t respond like I really wanted to because thousands of Black people were counting on me. It would have been so easy to become angry, to raise my voice or demonstrate that I was in charge or felt insulted. However, I knew that that would not have gone over well. The only thing it would have gotten me would have been a story circulating throughout the company about how the new leader was demanding or insulting or whatever I could have been painted to be as an outsider—a Black female outsider.

The story would have taken a life of its own and would have been recounted or remembered in some way that would not have been beneficial to my professional success. I purposefully chose not to take that path. I chose not to let her have that power over me. More important, I chose not to let the organization or any other individual have that type of power over me. The ability to recognize these truths and predict the downstream impacts came from the years I’d already spent learning the game of power in corporate America.

Like it or not, there is a game to be played. You can choose to play it by figuring out what the game is in your organization and how you can navigate it for your own success. There is no five-step approach to building your power. It comes over time and it must be what works for you. But you have to be comfortable with your voice and how you express it, regardless of what you see others doing.

But also know that you will be held accountable for what you choose to do. My key message is that you must know what you are doing. Your problems will begin when you don’t realize that there is a game being played or when you try to pretend that there isn’t one. That is when you will have given up your power unconsciously. But if you are aware of your power, you will never lose it, even if you are not the one in control at that moment. The name of the game is to get back your control.

Breaking It Down

Even though we exchanged just a few sentences, the way I chose to respond to the receptionist was highly strategic. I want to break down the component parts to show you the rational and invisible architecture behind my choices. While I made these choices in a split second, I had spent a decade in corporate America, watching, listening, and practicing, and I had plenty of missteps and learning opportunities behind me.

How I chose to respond is known as false respect or false politics. In this case, what that meant was maintaining a pleasant physical and verbal demeanor and choosing words that did not imply any adversarial intent. This of course did not reflect what I was experiencing internally. But I knew that the choice I made would place me in charge in the long run. I knew what I was doing. In that moment I had to be purposeful and strategic.

First, I thanked her for telling me to “please sit over there.” Obviously, I was not genuinely thanking her, but it follows the scripted social expectation of this sort of interaction; a thank-you is polite. I did not want to make her feel defensive. I wanted her to feel comfortable in the interaction so that my next comment could have a powerful impact.

Next, it was after making her feel comfortable, but getting her full attention, that I revealed who I was. I did this without any fanfare or extensive explanation and as though it were a normal, everyday conversation. I could have been asking where the restrooms were, but I was actually letting her know that I was one of the new, most powerful leaders in her office.

And then I used the most powerful tool at my disposal: silence. I stopped speaking and simply waited for her to respond, even though the silence went on for a few moments. My silence made space for her to process what she’d just heard and for her to feel embarrassed. Silence can be impactful and it can speak as loudly as your words.

I also made a decision to use nonverbal power cues. They are often more impactful than anything else. My condescending smile, my direct look, and the tilting of my head spoke volumes. Actions speak louder than words, and I chose to use the power of actions. How many times have we watched our leaders and dissected their moves, what they have said, who they have said it to, and what happened? How many conversations have we had with our peers about this?

My goal has always been to be perceived as a leader, no matter what level I was at in my career. I always leaned into portraying the job and the role I wanted before I officially gained the leadership title or salary that went with it. Hence, once I got to this moment, I was prepared. And in this situation, it was for real. I was a leader, so I had to set the tone as a leader. People always watch how others respond, especially in a work setting. You always have the opportunity to set the tone for how you are perceived. I may have been told to “please sit over there,” but I controlled my narrative and the narrative about the situation.

Power Doesn’t Come from Where You Think It Does

“Make yourself invaluable” to those at work is a saying I’ve always lived by. As I built my career and worked more with people at the executive level, this advice came to have more importance. Even just a few years into working a corporate job, I no longer believed that my success had anything to do with my skills and abilities. Skills and the ability to perform well are a basic requirement, and I had always demonstrated them flawlessly. Career advancement is about much more than performance. But if your value doesn’t come from your performance, the issue becomes how to make yourself invaluable.

I knew that all was not fair in the workplace. I had seen white males and females succeed much faster with less work experience than me and with less education or knowledge than I had. Clearly, something unseen was happening. Even if all things were equal between me and whoever I was competing with, my white colleagues often got the developmental opportunity, the visible projects, or the promotion I wanted. It surely wasn’t about hard work. Showing the organization that you make money for them wasn’t it either. We’ve all made a lot of money for our organizations, either directly or indirectly. I learned that career advancement was always situational, depending on the individuals involved, what was at stake, or who liked what you were doing. Many times it came down to who liked you in the organization.

As I became more senior in my roles over the years, I observed that others were succeeding by using unexpected and sometimes counterintuitive methods. Their power plays were often invisible, or nearly so, and didn’t follow the surface-level, obvious pathways. I also realized that there were no rules or standards to guide me. The higher I climbed in my career, the more opaque the rules and standards became, to the point that they were virtually invisible to those who were not privileged enough to know them or have access to effective guidance.

I had no relationship with the woman who told me to “please sit over there.” That was the critical factor that influenced who had the power in that situation. If she had known my role, she would have known to have a more appropriate interaction with me. But the absence of a relationship resulted in her power play. The question for me became, as it hopefully will for you, how I should choose to use my voice, my power, to control the narrative about me. Even though I didn’t have a relationship with her, I had the opportunity to set the tone, thus protecting my ability to form the relationships I was going to need to be successful in that role.

Relationships, it turns out, are everything. Navigating power is really navigating relationships. It is about knowing which relationships you need, what they need to look like, how to build them, and how to leverage them for your own success and the success of others. And you build and nurture these relationships by using your voice.

Building the right strategic relationships to achieve what the organization and its leadership deemed important became the most powerful tool in my arsenal. I consciously decided to build the most strategically advantageous relationships by using the power of my voice appropriately to achieve my goal of advancing as a Black woman in corporate America.

Years of applying these lessons had led me to that lobby and that executive role. I had learned that having sponsorship, building organizational advocacy for yourself, and having a leadership story were essential. These were all things that no one told me about and that were often used to exclude me as a Black professional. Using my voice and building the right relationships had prepared me to know how to respond to that administrative assistant. My response served me well; she later became one of my advocates in the organization. Never discount anyone at first glance; you never know who they are or who they could be.