“Love yourself so much that it makes it difficult for others not to respect and love you back.” - Vincent Brathwaite
Welcome to the Inspirational Leaders Series, a collection of short interviews with sharp, impactful leaders that I know and respect—because the business world needs more refreshing people like them.
Meet Vincent Brathwaite, Senior Program Manager for Design Operations at GitHub, a seasoned educator, and a speaker. He was previously the Director of the Design Leadership Forum at Invision. His mission is to design experiences that help leaders positively impact the world.
What has been a difficult but instrumental challenge that has shaped the kind of leader that you are?
Being a black designer who started out very early in this industry has been instrumental to where I am but also a challenge. I'll start with a statistic that explains why that has been a challenge. According to recent studies by the National Society of Black Engineers, black designers make up only 3% of the workforce. What this means is that for my entire design career, I have always been a minority. I remember the initial shock and discomfort that I felt walking into rooms with my design counterparts. These spaces were often board positions, client meetings, or design events. The challenge wasn't so much about me existing in those spaces as it was navigating the biases of others while in those spaces.
For example, I remember attending a fairly exclusive design conference in San Francisco. The speakers were from Airbnb, Dropbox, IBM, and all the big names, and they were sharing information that hadn't been made public just yet. I was one of a handful of black designers in the sea of hundreds of people. And for me, that was normal, and that was okay. But during one of the breaks, all of the attendees went to the area with the food to replenish to network and to stretch our legs. And while in the line, one of the attendees walked up to me and asked if I could check in the back on when they were going to bring out more of a particular food item. I looked down at my attendee lanyard which was similar to theirs. I looked back up at them and politely said, “I don't work here.”
And as though they had been awakened from a deep sleep, their eyes wide, they immediately responded, “Oh, I'm so sorry. I thought you did.” And then they walked away. I was left with a reminder that I was, in fact, the minority in the group and the biases that often come with that are still very much true even in that space, even while wearing an attendees lanyard and holding a laptop bag in one hand and a small plate of food in the other. I share this story because it best summarizes the challenge that I've often experienced, and that is not being recognized as an equal in the design space.
Now, being a minority in this space has also been advantageous because it means I stand out. And I've used that to my advantage in building relationships within the field. It's been instrumental in my career because it has made me more empathetic to those who might have similar experiences of feeling left out, which lends itself to my being a more inclusive designer and design leader, and advocating for other voices that aren't being considered when I'm in the room. And this doesn't mean advocating for only black people, but other people of color, disabled people, women, etc.
What's important about advocacy as a leader?
It's the responsibility that we have as a leader. It's not about dictating and telling others what to do. It's about setting an example and creating spaces. Advocacy is important because it utilizes the responsibility that we have as leaders to bring in the voices that aren't in the room—and to point out people that need to be pointed out in terms of their contribution, their intellect, and their uniqueness. That's important because it says, “Hey, don't just listen to me. Also, listen to John, listen to Sarah, listen to Dominique, who are here, or who also may not be here in this room, so that we can all move the dial together as it relates to the goal that we have established within the organization.”
I would hope that in our hiring practices, we're trying to get the best the brightest people into our spaces to help us achieve and accomplish the goals that we have set for the organization. When we are not advocating for the people that are in the rooms, or maybe not in the room, but in the part of the organization, we’re leaving smarts on the table. When we don’t create space as leaders for those people to show up, we're not really utilizing the investment that we have made in these people when we brought them into our organization. Then, what was the point? What was all of the energy and effort to find people, go through the interview process, hire them, and onboard them for if we then have them sit in a corner and exist in a space all by themselves?
What would you advise emerging minority leaders about navigating this reality?
I would advise them not to lose themselves and their identity in the process of developing leadership and navigating these spaces. It's really tempting to assimilate to how the majority may behave or think. But I believe what makes the industry really effective is all of us bringing our unique experiences to the conversations and into our work.
Early in my career, I thought I had to make myself as small as possible and not to take up too much space in a room, because I didn't want others to feel uncomfortable with my presence as a black man. And then I realized that being that way was actually stifling my creativity and my contribution to teams that I was a part of, and even my own growth. So I decided to embrace the fact that I grew up in a predominantly black neighborhood that was under-resourced, that was sometimes violent but also extremely collaborative. I didn't shy away from the fact that I had long dreads that weren't necessarily considered cool or professional at the time. I accepted, embraced, and nurtured my individualism, while still allowing others to be themselves, so that, together, we can accomplish our shared goals. I would encourage other young minority designers who are becoming design leaders to do the same. Love yourself so much that it makes it difficult for others not to respect and love you back.
For senior leaders, I would encourage them to advocate but also to create and make spaces more inclusive, where other people can show up as their authentic selves. Make it more possible for them to contribute to the conversations about the work that is being done.
It's easy to say, “Make space for people”, but what are some specific ways people can do that?
The challenge oftentimes is found within senior leadership themselves and how or if they look at themselves in the mirror. I know that that might be difficult to hear. What I've learned over the years working with other leaders on inclusive design leadership is that it's not as difficult as many make it out to be in terms of methodologies or practices. Sometimes the difficulty is the personal changes needed by senior leadership in order to create inclusive spaces. Practically speaking, that may mean assessing your own biases and contribution to a space that's not inclusive. It’s looking at how you're showing up as a leader.
Some questions that a leader could ask themselves to start to unravel their potential personal barriers are:
Why haven't I been looking into diverse recruiting resources? Am I looking at historically black colleges? Am I looking at local universities or institutions?
Why haven't I pointed out in rooms with other senior managers that there's a gap in who is represented in the room or who we are targeting for research? What am I afraid of losing by stepping into this space of discomfort, asking difficult questions, and pointing out things that may seem obvious but people aren't talking about? What’s the fear that's preventing me, and where does it come from?
How do I think I will be perceived if I start to challenge the way things are being done? Do I think that I’m going to be ostracized? Seen as someone who is too challenging? Am I afraid that’ll lead to losing my job? Why is that fear true for me? Why is that fear a barrier for me?
I would say start there before we get into any actual processes or frameworks. Be brutally honest with yourself. Because once you are able to answer those questions, it will start to point to the minor changes that a leader can make to help their work environment be more inclusive.
You're asking people to do the work of sitting with themselves and asking some tough and interesting questions about their relationship to diversity and inclusion, what their behavior has been, and fears they might have about showing up differently.
Going back to the word advocacy, sometimes to be an advocate for the members of your team you have to ask difficult questions of your peers and other senior leaders. That may require doing a self-assessment, first, to see what’s preventing you from creating a space where the members of your team feel comfortable enough to show up as their authentic selves. Because the rest of the team is going to take their cues from you as a leader. And if they're seeing that you're not creating an inclusive space, they're not going to step in front of you and say, “Well, I'll do it.” That's not typically going to happen. So, when, as a leader, you find an internal resistance or you see that there is a lack of the space that we keep talking about for other people to show up, then one has to do that honest and difficult work of assessing their perspective, how they see themselves, how they see their environment, and what is contributing to that.
There is an inherent respect that comes with being a leader because of experience and knowledge. It's up to each leader to tap into that respect and utilize their presence to shape and shift what is happening within these spaces.