Celebrating Accentuated Te Whanganui-a-Tara WoC Leadership programme
The moment when the cohort started talking about designing the graduation and celebration hui to include more specific questions to ask the audience on the topic of supporting Women of Colour better, I knew we were in for a good one!
For the last six months, a group of five wāhine toa have gone through another Accentuated programme. This is the 2nd Te Whanganui-a-Tara cohort and the 5th cohort across the motu. The participants of this round are Anahera Brown, Head of Member Engagement and Comms at MAS, Chelsea Wong She, Senior Analyst at Treasury, Della Averina Project Coordinator and Leader of Treasury's Pan-Asian Network, Maria Kerensiana, Senior Analyst at Treasury and Purva Bhatnagar-Heeley, Senior Legal Counsel at Internet NZ. They had 4 in-person full day workshops centered around women of colour in leadership with 3 online group coaching sessions. They defined their authentic leadership identities and visions, embraced their cultural backgrounds as unique advantages, cultivated a confident mindset and habits, learnt to influence with their leadership styles and powers.
The day 4 workshop is all about expanding themselves as a leader and most of the day is made up of a presentation in front of their sponsors, managers, mentors, colleagues, whānau and allies, followed by a workshop on how to support WoC better.
Anahera talked about her passion of the normalisation and integration of te ao Māori and cultural safety in her working environment. Heading into Accentuated, Anahera wanted to fully embrace her authenticity as a wahine Māori and learn how to better influence Executive teams so that her passion can drive real change at a strategic business level. During Accentuated, Anahera learnt that creating culturally safer and accepting work environments does not mean she is responsible for the growth of others. She also updated her belief and habits so that she no longer regards her viewpoints as less valuable than others due to the difference in her communication and leadership styles.
Chelsea explained the origin of her last name Wong She and the discrimination that Chinese immigrants have faced in Aotearoa. Her motivations for coming into Accentuated stemmed from her desire to support other women of colour to overcome their challenges. Chelsea really enjoyed Day 3 of Accentuated when we talked about the different ways of working and how our working world and different cultures perceive powers. Chelsea continues to advocate for leadership styles that are different than what we have typically had in the western working world.
Della is the leader of Treasury's Pan-Asian Network and the union representative within Treasury. Della often finds herself in spaces where she is the only person of colour or woman of colour and she represents the voice for the unheard. Accentuated has given her the safe space to seek support from those who understand her challenges and has given her the fuel and tools to continue challenging the status quo. For example, Della asked the cohort and the audience to articulate the differences between the challenges faced by women versus women of colour.
One of the traits of WoC in leadership is that we are servant leaders. We tend to take care of everyone else's needs and help out on all jobs before we look after ourselves. Through Accentuated, Maria has found her assertive self and voice. Accentuated gave her a space to be vulnerable and the validation that her work and life struggles as a woman of colour were not just a fraction of her imagination, and that she was no longer facing these challenges alone. Maria gained the clarity that she needed on where she wants to be as an ethnically diverse woman leader, whom she wants to serve, and what actions she needs to take to get to where she wants to be.
Purva introduced herself powerfully to the audience with an opening of "Where are you from? Where is your accent from?". Those are questions that Purva gets asked about on a regular basis as people are trying to figure out her identities and cultural origins. Being born in Hong Kong with Indian roots and having lived in multiple continents, Purva's multi-faceted identity meant she had to consider a diverse collection of values and beliefs, sometimes conflicting, when making decisions or knowing how to act or interact with others or in certain environments. Working as a lawyer in Aotearoa, Purva felt the immense pressure to conform. Accentuated gave Purva the fertile ground to reclaim her cultural and ethnic roots and supported her in crafting a leadership vision that is authentic to her and sings out the superpowers and perspectives that she brings. Purva has taken control of defining who she is and where or which role she spends her energy on. She also wants to help fix the system to better support and celebrate cultural diversity.
After the cohort's presentation, we had our audience workshop. This is where the cohort led the facilitation by asking the audience three specific questions:
What do you think are the barriers and challenges that WoC face?
What are the benefits that WoC can bring to your organisation/team?
What is one thing you can do in your role and within your power to support WoC?
The first question is intended to check if the audience has listened throughout the presentation and has started to understand the challenges that WoC face. The audience answered with:
the system forces a monoculture on all of us which is to the detriment of WoC, namely WoC struggle between putting aside their culture to fit in versus staying true to themselves
part of the minority tax is having the responsibility or burden to be the cultural spokesperson.
there are assumptions that WoC will do the work without recognition
there are assumptions and biases about what a good leader should look and be like, and perceptions of what a WoC should be like
there is a lack of role models for WoC so they can't see it to be it
there is invisibility and a lack of awareness of the challenges that WoC face
The second question is all about having it front of mind what is the value that WoC bring to your workplaces. The benefits that WoC bring to workplaces are not limited to meeting the needs of "customers" given Aotearoa is so diverse but also in providing organisations with different role models, expanding the definition of what good leaders look like. WoC are leaders who are empathetic, who bring different perspectives, skills and approaches, who enable others to be their authentic selves and who unlock the potential for system change.
The third question focuses on what is within each person's power to bring about change for WoC. The audience came up with a list of affirmative allyship actions that are across personal, interpersonal and system levels. The ones that stood out to us were:
slow down, listen and think
seek to understand WoC experiences better, be willing to be challenged
amplify and recognise WoC voices
create a safe space for all voices to be heard
encourage WoC to take up opportunities that they might not naturally push themselves forward for and affirm that they should be in the room
acknowledge D&I roles and work
continue to provide visible support and access to funding to support WoC
We closed the workshop with a round of personal takeaways and actions.
We would like to thank all of you who were able to come celebrate with us and listened with open minds and hearts. Thank you to Internet NZ, Medical Assurance Society and the Treasury for sponsoring your women into Accentuated. Thank you to CK and Advance Diagnostics for letting us use your boardroom for the programme and two/fiftyseven for hosting us for the graduation. Thank you to Sneha Pulapaka and Trixan Grande from LensEpic for our videography and photography.
The next Accentuated programmes are starting in 2024. The dates for the 4 workshops are:
Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland
Thurs 18 April, Thurs 30 May, Tues 9 July and Fri 9 August
Tauranga
Tues 13 February, Tues 26 March, Tues 7 May and Tues 2 July
Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington
Fri 1 March, Tues 9 April, Tues 21 May and Tues 25 June
Ōtautahi Christchurch
Thurs 14 March, Fri 26 April, Fri 7 June and Fri 19 July
Get in touch if you or your organisation are interested, email us or book a 30min virtual call.