Celebration of Wellington Accentuated WoC Leadership programme

Earlier this week, the community, government and businesses came out to celebrate the graduation of the first ever Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington Accentuated cohort.

Over the last six months, the three participants Andrea Clavijo McCormick PhD (Team Manager of Environment Health at Ministry for Primary Industries), Cina Katu (District Team Leader, Fisheries, Ministry for Primary Industries) and Eva Lu (Senior Intelligence Analyst at Department of Internal Affairs) had four in-person full day workshops in Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington and online group coaching sessions. They defined their authentic leadership identity and vision, embraced their cultural backgrounds as unique advantages, cultivated a confident mindset and habits, and learnt to influence fearlessly. By working on themselves and showcasing their progress, they are paving the way for the next generation of ethnically diverse women leaders.

Eva talked about how Accentuated helped her see herself more objectively. Coming from a Chinese background and growing up with strict parenting meant Eva learnt from a young age that achieving anything less than 100% is not acceptable and in fact a failure. This trend continued into work as Eva could only see the imperfections in her work and was putting herself under an immense pressure to achieve.

In Accentuated, Eva learnt to be kinder to her critical self and realised that making mistakes is often part and parcel of achieving success. As a result, she started during Accentuated and still continues the weekly habit of doing objective and compassionate reflections.

Cina found the first day workshop very challenging as we talked about the different identities we hold and the unique advantages that they bring. "Kaore te kumara e korero atu i tona ake reka" is what Cina has been taught being wahine Māori. So Cina is really used to being in the background, doing the work and not asking her employer anything more than a paycheck.

Through Accentuated, Cina realised the amount of times she had been overlooked and she was no longer satisfied with being undervalued. In order for Cina to shine with her own light and be the light for others, Cina had to consult with her elders and reconcile with her cultural upbringing. During Accentuated, Cina went from strength to strength from a highly performing Senior Fisheries Officer to applying for and getting the District Team Leader role leading a team of 9 Fisheries Officers across Waikato, Taranaki and Coromandel. With more acute awareness of the unconscious biases that exist and the difficulties that women of colour face in the workplace, Cina was also able to contribute to a fairer recruitment process for new fisheries officers.

Andrea has a PHD in Ecology and science has been her life and her passion. However, due to the harsh environment and the amount of sexism that science has, Andrea chose to work for the Aotearoa New Zealand public sector. At the start of Accentuated, Andrea was challenged to acknowledge her "lost" scientist identity. This was not an easy task as Andrea has been used to having her career as her life and Andrea’s parents evaluated Andrea, since a young age, by academic achievements.

Through Accentuated, Andrea was able to decide that science is still part of her despite on a much smaller scale. Andrea then honoured her authentic self by applying for the Team Manager position at Environment Health at MPI. In the Team Manager role, Andrea is working with scientists and investigators on a day to day basis. Andrea feels once again she is in her elements being her best self and has used the materials learnt on Day 3’s Influencing Workshop to enable her team to work more cohesively.

The stories that the participants have shared are all too common for women of colour. However, these stories are hardly talked about or surfaced in the workplace. The audience thanked the participants for their courage to share and asked how organisations can embrace women of colour's perspectives and contributions. We then went on to discuss how to attract more women of colour talents and deliberately progress them. Some great suggestions were putting on the job ads "We know you won't have all these traits. Please apply." to defining clearly what does being a supportive manager for women of colour mean.

Thank you to all those who came to celebrate with us in person and also in spirit. The next round of Accentuated is starting again across the motu and we do need your help to spread the word and get the funding for Accentuated to continue.

About Accentuated

Unlike other leadership programmes, Accentuated is designed for ethnically diverse women leaders, because we recognise the unique challenges you face and the value you bring.

Over four in-person full-day workshops and online coaching sessions over six months, you'll:

Define your authentic leadership and purpose, explore what makes you unique as a leader, and how cultural backgrounds are an asset.
Cultivate a confident mindset so that you are no longer battling with the imposter syndrome or any minimising self-talks and work habits
Shine brighter by learning to communicate your value clearly, influence fearlessly and handle stereotyping and racism
Expand your network and lead by example to build up the next generation of diverse leaders.

The Accentuated in-person workshop dates

Tāmaki Makaurau Auckland
Tues 7 November, Tues 12 December, Tues 13 February and Tues 12 March

Te Whanganui-a-Tara Wellington
Wed 15 November, Thurs 14 December, Thurs 8 February and Thurs 7 March

Ōtautahi Christchurch
Fri 20 October, Fri 1 December, Thurs 15 February, Fri 15 March

Tauranga
Tues 21 November, Tues 19 December, Tues 20 February and Tues 19 March

Kirikiriroa Hamilton
Taking Expressions of Interest.

One partial scholarship available now in each region.

suki xiaoMarch 17, 2023