Dear HBR: · Harvard Business Review

HBR Presents: Coaching Real Leaders

February 4, 2021·38 min·3 clips

A white woman leader is stuck between her wealthy white male boss and her team of color as racial tensions escalate.

A manager is caught in the middle. Her boss is on one side, her team is on the other, and race changes the charge in almost every choice she makes. When a teammate starts to make a point, she sometimes jumps in and carries it herself so the pressure lands on her. It sounds generous. Wilkins slows it down and asks the more awkward question: who benefits when she does that? The answer is not neat. The manager sees that stepping in gives her control, keeps things efficient, and may also leave her team unheard. She can carry a lot; she even describes taking on burdens as part of who she is, at work and in personal relationships. But carrying more is not the same as creating the culture she says she wants. Wilkins names the snag plainly: the manager wants direct communication, while her own interventions may be blocking it. The missing piece is what the team wants. Instead of treating protection as the obvious answer, Wilkins pushes her toward asking people what success would look like and what outcomes they want. The advice stays grounded. A healthier culture cannot depend on one capable person soaking up every hard moment. It has to make room for others to speak, even when that gets uncomfortable. The session ends on a tough little turn: maybe protection has started to look a lot like management.

As heard by us

A focused coaching session about leading across tension without muting the team.

This coaching session centers on a manager caught between a white male boss and a team of people of color, and it keeps returning to a hard question: can protection also become a way of silencing people?

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Why you'd press play

For when you're stuck between your boss and your team, and the tension is racial too.

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