by Dr. LeAnna Majors
1. From womanish. (Opp. of “girlish,” i.e., frivolous, irresponsible, not serious.) A Black feminist or feminist of color. From the Black folk expression of mothers to female children, “you acting womanish,” i.e., like a woman. Usually referring to outrageous, audacious, courageous, or willful behavior. Wanting to know more and in greater depth than is considered “good” for one. Interested in grown-up doings. Acting grown up. Being grown up. Interchangeable with another Black folk expression: “You trying to be grown.” Responsible. In charge. Serious.
2. Also: A woman who loves other women, sexually and/or nonsexually. Appreciates and prefers women’s culture, women’s emotional flexibility (values tears as natural counterbalance of laughter), and women’s strength. Sometimes loves individual men, sexually and/or nonsexually. Committed to survival and wholeness of entire people, male and female. Not a separatist, except periodically, for health. Traditionally a universalist, as in: “Mama, why are we brown, pink, and yellow, and our cousins are white, beige, and black?” Answer: “Well, you know the colored race is just like a flower garden, with every color flower represented.” Traditionally capable, as in: “Mama, I’m walking to Canada and I’m taking you and a bunch of other slaves with me.” Reply: “It wouldn’t be the first time.”
3. Loves music. Loves dance. Loves the moon. Loves the Spirit. Loves love and food and roundness. Loves struggle. Loves the Folk. Loves herself. Regardless.
4. Womanist is to feminist as purple is to lavender.
-A.Walker
“What piece of media radicalized you?” So many ideas come rushing to my mind in response to this question; it’s hard for me to choose only one. When I think of a piece of art that truly connects to my spirit as I am today, it has to be “The Color Purple” by Alice Walker. I first read this book the summer after I graduated from high school. It was a time in my life when I was searching for a deeper understanding of my identity. It touched my spirit so deeply, that for many years, every summer, reading it became a ritual for me. Walker’s storytelling allowed me to begin to engaging in what would be a lifetime of coming to understand what it meant to me to be a radical Black feminist.
So it should come to no surprise that when it came time to write my dissertation, there was no other voice I wanted to center. No other standpoint theory that would serve as the lens by which I would understand the expertise I wanted to share with the world. This is when I first engaged with the definition of womanism as offered by Alice Walker (1971), in her book “In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens”. At the time, I connected with the ideas of feminism, as one that was inclusive of my experiences. It was one moment where I engaged with a concept that made me feel seen.
In the early days of realizing When We Gather Consulting, a dear friend asked me what framework I wanted to use that would guide my coaching stance. Up until then, I had been thinking about our work in a very technical way. I had spent years learning how to hold meetings with those I managed and felt strong in being able to facilitate them in a way where we all grew. But the thing about it was, I felt less connected from my technical expertise of skill-building and wanted to center the more spiritual, person-centered, & identity-affirming side of my coaching. I wanted to ensure that the women we coached felt not only like that were practicing to grow skills, but did it in a way where they knew they were seen fully. That question pushed me to conceptualize what we now call the Womanist Leadership Framework.
What if we looked at the ways of Black feminists as a leadership framework? How might this lens support leaders like me in growing and thriving within organizations? How might the strengthening of leadership practice through this lens benefit our organizations in general? These are the questions that inspire me to continue with co-creating experiences, processes, and tools for Black women in leadership because I want us to know that we are whole and powerful. We often work in spaces where we have to work actively to remind ourselves of who we are because the systems in which we operate were not made with us in mind. I envision a world where we don’t have to because what I am advocating for are organizational cultures and ways of being that center Black feminist perspectives.
i am not the problem. the system is.
I never thought of myself as a leader. This title was given to me after I decided I wanted a certain job and wanted to do very specific work. I have always found ways to achieve my goals and ultimately make things happen in alignment with those goals. I decided I wanted to go grad school, I did. I decided I wanted to be a founding school leader, I did that too. But understanding who I am as a leader is an ongoing journey for me.
While I have had leadership roles before actually having the job title, I want to share the story of the moment I went from teacher to a dean. As a part of this transition, I was expected to reflect on and take action on the results of a 360 feedback survey about my practice as a teacher leader. Because I love learning and absolutely might be on the side of being an over-thinker, I took this task very seriously. It led me to reading books and pouring over our organizations’ leadership competencies for hours. Highlighting what I thought were my strengths and noting all of the areas where I knew I could grow. To this day, the language of that framework is part of my leadership lexicon and I work to unlearn the ways that kind of reflection harmed how I viewed myself. But the point of me sharing this story is that, even with all of the effort I put into learning about myself, the essence of who I am as a Black woman was not to be found in the framework I had internalized. Not seeing myself in the vision for leadership I was working so diligently to realize, over time, just made me feel invisible and I eventually began to disappear.
When the thought came across my lips that I was losing my identity, I knew I wanted something different. As I started to create what that different would be, what was absolutely true is that I wanted to spend my time and energy leveraging my strengths in systems and community building towards ensuring that Black women in leadership positions never got to the place where they lost sight of who they were, sacrificed their well-being to achieve, or became invisible.
What if at the beginning of my journey, I had crafted my leadership identity towards competencies that were borne out of who I am and the legacy of leadership of Black women that had come before me? I imagine that not only would I have been able to found the community school of my dreams, I might have been able to do it in a way that centered the well-being of myself along with my community, as we worked to achieve liberatory outcomes. This framework is an important step towards what’s possible as we reimagine workplace systems.
reimagining leadership from within.
The leadership frameworks that I encounter reward distance over intersectionality; neutrality over truth-telling; and individualism over community actualization. I believe that connection to my identity is an essential ingredient to my strongest practice as a leader. Therefore, when existing models ask leaders to remove themselves from their own identities, it’s as if saying that leadership is only effective when it is stripped of humanity. For Black women, the consequence of this is that we are expected to leave parts of ourselves behind just to be seen as capable.
The leadership ideals that were a part of my early reflection; often centered individual achievement and depersonalized strategy. They rarely prompted me to ask myself: What do you need to be whole? What is the cost of success? Whose wisdom is missing from this decision-making table? In practice, this meant that I was evaluated by metrics that didn’t reflect my lived experiences and I held myself to standards that were never made with me in mind.
When leadership frameworks erase who we are, they may harm our sense of self and limit our impact. The result? Exhaustion. Disconnection. A slow forgetting of our power. That’s why I imagine something else; something rooted in Black feminisms.
When we lead from a place of self-love, grounded in our identities and our community’s wisdom, we expand what’s possible, not just for ourselves, but for the systems we touch. We model a different kind of leadership; one that is deeply rooted and accountable to collective thriving.
Our Womanist Leadership Framework invites us to imagine what becomes possible when the workplace no longer demands that we fragment or translate ourselves to be heard. It is a framework for building organizations that honor humanity, cultivate wholeness, and make it possible for us all to access liberatory power.
We don’t want to just endure systems. We want to remake them.
I am writing this because my hope is that it encourages you. Encourages you to reflect on how you lead. Encourages you to gather with those who see you clearly. Ultimately, I hope it encourages you to expand how you might see yourself and your leadership.
As Alice Walker writes, a womanist is “outrageous, audacious, courageous, or willful… committed to the survival and wholeness of entire people… loves music. Loves dance. Loves the moon. Loves the Spirit. Loves love and food and roundness. Loves struggle. Loves the Folk. Loves herself. Regardless.”
That’s the kind of leader I strive to be.
I lead because I believe that leadership should reflect the strength, the tenderness, the seriousness, and the spirit of Black womanhood.
This is not leadership as prescribed by the status quo. This is leadership, as purple is to lavender.
Whole. Powerful.
In solidarity,
Dr. LeAnna Majors
Jul 11
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