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2022 American Indian and Alaskan Native Authored Leadership Books

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We created this list to promote leadership narratives written by people of American Indian and Alaskan Native Heritage. This list is meant to be a resource, not an official endorsement. The books are not ranked or listed in any particular order.

  1. Recovering the Sacred: The power of naming and claiming by Winona LaDuke
  2. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the teachings of plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
  3. The Tao of Raven: An Alaska Native Memoir by Ernestine Hayes
  4. Black Indian: A memoir by Shonda Buchanan
  5. Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indian manifesto by Vine deLoria Jr. 
  6. Where White Men Fear to Tread: The Autobiography of Russell Means by Russell Means and Marvin J. Means
  7. Prison Writings: My life is my Sun Dance by Leonard Peltier
  8. The School Days of an Indian Girl, and an Indian Teacher Among Indians by Zitkala-Sa
  9. The Man Made of Words: Essays, stories, passages by N. Scott Momaday
  10. Muscogee Daughter: My Sojourn to the Miss America Pageant by Susan Supernaw 
  11. Life of Black Hawk, or Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak: Dictated by himself by Black Hawk
  12. Our History Is the Future: Standing Rock Versus the Dakota Access Pipeline, and the Long Tradition of Indigenous Resistance by Nick Estes
  13. Everything You Know About Indians is Wrong by Paul Chatt Smith
  14. Code Talker: The first and only memoir of the original Navajo Code Talkers of WWII by Chester Nez
  15. Abandon Me: Memoirs by Melissa Febos
  16. Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot
  17. As Long As Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice, from Colonization to Standing Rock by Dina Gilio-Whitaker
  18. Crazy Brave: A Memoir by Joy Harjo
  19. Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses by Robin Wall Kimmerer
  20. God is Red: A Native View of Religion by Vine deLoria Jr. 
  21. The Heartbeat of Wounded Knee by David Treuer
  22. The Inconvenient Indian: A Curious Account of Native People in North America by Thomas King
  23. Lakota Woman by Mary Brave Bird
  24. #Not Your Princess: Voices of Native American Women by Lisa Charleyboy and Mary Beth Leatherdale (editors)
  25. The Turquoise Ledge by Leslie Silko
  26. Men We Reaped: A Memoir by Jesmyn Ward 
  27. Dwellings: A Spiritual History of the Living World by Linda Hogan
  28. Bad Indians: a Tribal Memoir by Deborah Miranda 
  29. Night Flying Woman: An Ojibway Narrative by Ignatia Broker
  30. Dog Flowers: A Memoir by Danielle Geller
  31. Portage Lake: Memories of an Ojibwe Childhood by Maude Kegg
  32. Everything You Wanted to Know about Indians But Were Afraid to Ask by Anton Treuer
  33. The Assassination of Hole in the Day by Anton Treuer
  34. As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom Through Radical Resistance by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
  35. Nooping: The Cure for White Ladies by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
  36. The People and the Word: Reading Native Nonfiction by Robert Warrior
  37. Tribal Secrets: Recovering American Indian Intellectual Traditions by Robert Warrior
  38. Like a Loaded Weapon by Robert A. Williams Jr. 
  39. Bear Island: The War at Sugar Point by Gerald Vizenor
  40. The Third Space of Sovereignty by Kevin Bruyneel
  41. Navajo Courts and Navajo Common Law: A Tradition of Tribal Self-Governance by Raymond D. Austin
  42. Firsting and Lasting: Writing Indians out of Existence in New England by Jean O’Brien
  43. X-Marks by Scott Richard Lyons
  44. Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition by Glen Sean Coulthard
  45. The Queerness of Native American Literature by Lisa Tatonetti
  46. Speaking of Indigenous Politics: Conversations with Activists, Scholars, and Tribal Leaders by J. Kehaulani Kauanui and Robert Warrior
  47. Standing with Standing Rock: Voices from the #NoDAPL Movement by Nick Estes and Jaskiran Dhillon
  48. Hungry Listening: Resonant Theory for Indigenous Sound Studies by Dylan Robinson
  49. Written by the Body: Gender Expansiveness and Indigenous Non-Cis Masculinities by Lisa Tatonetti
  50. You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me by Sherman Alexie
  51. Remembering Our Intimacies: Mo’olelo, Aloha ‘Aina, and Ea by Jamaica Heolimeleikalani Osario
  52. Red Nation Rising: From Bordertown Violence to Native Liberation by Nick Estes, Melanie K. Yazzi, Jennifer Nez Denetdale, and David Correia
  53. Wiping the War Paint off the Lens: Native American Film and Video by Beverly Singer
  54. The People Shall Continue by Simon Ortiz
  55. Poet Warrior: A Memoir by Joy Harjo
  56. The Four Hills of Life: Ojibwe Wisdom by Thomas Peacock and Marlene Wisuri
  57. The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions by Paula Gunn Allen
  58. Critically Sovereign: Indigenous Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies by Joanne Barker
  59. For Indigenous Eyes Only: A Decolonization Handbook by Waziyatawin and Michael Yellow Bird
  60. Mark My Words: Native Women Mapping Our Nations by Mishuana Goeman
  61. The Beginning and End of Race: Confronting Sexual Violence in Native America by Sarah Deer
  62. When My Brother Was an Aztec by Natalie Diaz
  63. A History of my Brief Body by Billy-Ray Belcourt
  64. Starvation Mode by Elissa Washuta
  65. The Roots of Ticasuk by Ticasuk (Emily Ivanoff Brown)
  66. Native American DNA by Kim TallBear
  67. Fresh Banana Leaves: Healing Indigenous Landscapes Through Indigenous Science by Jessica Hernandez, PhD
  68.  Pollution is Colonialism by Max Libioron
  69. Making Love with the Land by Joshua Whitehead
  70. Nulato: An Indian Life on the Yukon by Poldine Carlo
  71. Cold River Spirits: Whispers from a Family’s Forgotten Past by Jan Harper-Haines
  72. Two Old Women: An Alaska Legend of Betrayal, Courage and Survival by Velma Wallis 
  73. Bad Girl and the Man who Followed the Sun by Velma Wallis
  74. Raising Ourselves: A Gwitch’in Coming of Age Story from the Yukon River by Velma Wallis
  75. We Have Not Stopped Trembling Yet: Letters to my Filipino-Athabascan Family by E.J.R David 
  76. Qulirat Qanemcit-Ilu Kinguvarcimalriit: Stories for Future Generations by Paul John 
  77. Yuuyaraq: The Way of the Human Being by Harold Napoleon
  78. A Yupiaq Worldview: A Pathway to Ecology and Spirit by Anagyuqaq Kawagley
  79. Qanruyuteput IInruugut: Our Teachings Are Medicine by Alice Rearden
  80. Yupiit Qanruyutait: Yup’ik Words of Wisdom by Ann Fienup-Riordan
  81. Rock Piles Along the Eddy by Ishmael Hope
  82. Blonde Indian: An Alaska Native Memoir by Ernestine Hayes 
  83. Indian Stories: Ahtna India Stories from Cantwell, Alaska by Jake Tansy
  84. Cormorant Hunter’s Wife by Joan Naviyuk Kane
  85. Roughly for the North by Carrie Ayagduk Ojanen
  86. People of Kauwerak: Legends of the Northern Eskimo by William A. Oquilluk
  87. Takes of Ticasuk: Eskimo Legends and Stories by Ticasuk Emily Ivanoff Brown
  88. Fifty Miles from Tomorrow: A Memoir of Alaska and the Real People by William Iggiagruk Hensley
  89. Sand Talk: How Indigenous Thinking Can Save the World by Tyson Yunkaporta
  90. Red Paint: The Ancestral Autobiography of a Coast Salish Punk by Sasha Lapointe
  91. Black and Blue: A Memoir of Racism and Resilience by Veronica Gorrie
  92. Spílexm: A Weaving of Recovery, Resilience, and Resurgence by Nicola I. Campbell 
  93. Peyakow: Reclaiming Cree Dignity by Darrel McLeod
  94. White Magic Elissa Washuta 
  95. An Indian Among Los Indígenas: A Native Travel Memoir by Ursula Pike 
  96. Carry: A Memoir of Survival on Stolen Land by Toni Jensen
  97. A Mind Spread Out on the Ground by Alicia Elliott

Practice curiosity by reframing our expectations

“Picture Frames at Photo LA” by ricardodiaz11 is licensed under CC BY 2.0. To view a copy of this license, visit https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/?ref=openverse.

Changing my expectations of myself and of others is easy and hard at the same time. It’s easy because it doesn’t require any physical change or financial investment. Yet it is hard because it demands that I challenge my own beliefs.

I’ve developed a list of what I call “reframes,” that can help to spark our thinking and re-frame our expectations. A popular reframe is changing a thought from “I have to…” to “I get to…” 

Instead of seeing a task like picking up your kids from school as a burden that “you have to do,” you might think of it as an opportunity that “you get to do.” It is a way to shift our perspective, especially when we feel stuck.

We often think of things as “a glass half empty” or as “a glass half full” situations. The classic framing of an optimist would consider the glass half full.

While I’m an unapologetically optimistic person, I don’t use reframing to trick myself into thinking positively. Instead, I reframe to explore different possible interpretations for any given situation, while also acknowledging that how I feel in any given moment will be influenced by external factors beyond my control.

The glass can be half empty and half full simultaneously. There is no particular “right” interpretation, just different.

All of these reframes I offer are opportunities to practice curiosity and to ask ourselves, is there another way to understand this situation, to examine our own expectations?

Reframing reminds us of all the different, contradictory feelings and thoughts we can hold at the same time.

I’ve loosely categorized these reframes into three buckets that align with how we at CuriosityBased describe the three elements of practicing curiosity:

1) increasing self-awareness (getting curious about myself)

2) building relationships (getting curious about other people and let them get curious about me)

3) communicating clearly (listening and asking questions with curiosity)

Each reframe is a set of two to three different interpretations of the same thing, usually stated as questions, as written below.  Here they are:

Increase self-awareness (Get curious about myself)

  1. What should matter to me?/What does matter to me?
  2. What does success look like to me?/ What does success feel like to me?
  3. Am I not being heard?/ Am I not getting what I want?
  4. Am I Managing my energy /Am I managing my time?
  5. Is this a problem to solve?/Is this problem teaching me something?
  6. Is someone judging me/Am I judging myself?
  7. What will I achieve?/What will I learn?
  8. Am I feeling pain?/Am I feeling change?
  9. Do I own my possessions?/Do my possessions own me?
  10. Am I the victim?/Am I the persecutor?
  11. They made me feel bad/I made myself feel bad
  12. What should do in this situation?/What could do in this situation?/What would I do in this situation?

Building relationships (get curious about other people and let them get curious about me)

  1. Is someone judging me?/Am I judging someone?
  2. Am I waiting for an invitation?/Should I extend an invitation?
  3. Are they asking me for something?/Are they offering me something?
  4. Was I wrong?/Was I in the wrong?
  5. Do I feel superior to…?/Do I feel inferior to…?
  6. Does their behavior reflect disrespect?/ Does their behavior reflect a lack of respect?
  7. Am I anti-(fill in the blank)? Am I pro-(fill in the blank)
  8. Am I Code switching? Am I strategically adapting?
  9. You make me whole/I am already whole
  10. Was their intention good?/ Was their intention bad?/ What was their intention?
  11. Is someone making assumptions about me?/ Am I making an assumption about them?

Communicate clearly (listening and asking questions with curiosity)

  1. Do we have different perspectives?/ Do we have different approaches?
  2. Do we have different values?/ Do we have different priorities?
  3. What should we do?/ What could we do? What would we do? 
  4. Are we thinking of the present in this situation? Are we thinking of the future in this situation? Are we thinking of the past in this situation?
  5. Are we talking about a need?/ Are we talking about a want?
  6. What does success look like to us? What does success feel like to us?

Which of these reframes resonate with you? Do you have some reframes you’d like to share?

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This was originally published in Dr. Julie Pham’s Substack on Oct. 5, 2022 as “Practice curiosity by reframing our expectations

Simple, inexpensive vacation tips to help you rest and reconnect

My friends Joyce Zhou (left) and Louisa Lambert (right) with me in the center, near the Edmonds waterfront during my “Northern” tour.

When I decided to leave my executive job last year, I had to make a lot of personal budget cuts so I could self-fund my company.

These constraints forced me to be more creative and scrappy. “Vacations” used to mean trips far from here. I would use this time to travel to Vietnam, Burma, England, the East Coast, the mid-West or at least California. I now “vacation” by reconnecting with friends who live 10, 20, at most 40 miles away. 

Through these trips, I’ve deepened my appreciation for the natural beauty of local parks and waterfronts, as well as for the familiarity of long-time friendships. 

I’ve put together a list of easy, low-cost hyperlocal travel tips, including guest-room hopping (i.e., upscale couch surfing). I hope they help you both rest and reconnect with yourself and with your friends.

  1. Don’t over schedule/overbook
    My natural impulse is to try to do and see as many things with as many people as possible. I constantly have to remind myself that running to meet back-to-back visits is stressful. Also, leaving open space on my schedule allows for spontaneous activities. Recently, I went on a walk with a friend and then she asked me if I was available for dinner that night. And I was free! 
  2. Housesit for friends
    I recently house sat for a friend in her charming Columbia City home. It was a great way to change scenery for me, and I used it as an opportunity to visit with many of my friends in the area. She thought I was doing her a favor by watering her plants on a daily basis but I really felt like she was doing me the favor.
  3. Invite yourself over for a meal or coffee
    I contact friends who live in the area where I’ll be vacationing and I invite myself over. People often thank me for initiating and breaking us out of the cycle of saying, “we should get together sometime.” For more, read my essay on “Being a bit rude can deepen relationships.”
  4. Local sleepovers and guest room surfing
    My friend and website designer, Stacy Nguyen, and I have an annual summertime tradition of me coming over for a sleepover at her place in Lynnwood. I have since added more cities on this “Northern tour” of Washington by visiting friends in Edmonds and Marysville. I also do a 5-day long West Seattle trip so I can easily visit my friends out there. Fortunately, many of my friends have guest rooms, so I don’t have to couch surf. Bonus: Sleepovers allow for late night conversations. 
  5. Take walks
    I often suggest going for walks at local parks with friends whose neighborhood I’m visiting. It’s a free and healthy alternative to Happy Hour. I just discovered how delightful the illustrated Seattle Walk Report guides are. 

My hyperlocal vacations usually involve me asking for friends to pick me up or drop me off at the bus stop or at another friends’ place, to plan a meal, to host me. These are not just people I’m visiting, they are helping make my vacation possible.

Let me know which tips you found helpful! And please share with me your own tips.

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I originally posted this essay on Substack on Aug 22, 2022. You can also listen to me reading it. Please subscribe to my Substack newsletter.

2022 Authors with Disability Leadership Booklist

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We created this list to promote leadership narratives written by authors with disabilities. This list is meant to be a resource, not an official endorsement. The books are not ranked or listed in any particular order.

  1. Disarm Your Limits: The flight formula to lift you to success and propel you to the next horizon by Jessica Cox
  2. The White Album by Joan Didion
  3. Chef Interrupted by Trevis Gleason 
  4. Fall Down, Laughing: How Squiggy caught multiple sclerosis and didn’t tell nobody by David Lander
  5. Speedbumps: Flooring it through Hollywood by Teri Garr
  6. And Now We Are Going to Have a Party: Liner Notes to a Writer’s Early Life by Nicola Griffith
  7. To Know As We Are Known: Education as Spiritual Journey by Parker Palmer
  8. The World I Live In by Helen Keller
  9. Don’t Worry, He Won’t Get Far on Foot  by John Callahan
  10. Haben: The Deafblind Woman who Conquered Harvard Law by Haben Girma
  11. Exile and Pride: Disability, Queerness, and Liberation by Eli Clare
  12. Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher
  13. House of Prayer No. 2 by Mark Richard
  14. Resistance and Hope: Essays by Disabled People edited by Alice Wong
  15. Marbles: Mania, Depression Michelangelo, and Me by Ellen Forney
  16. Strangers Assume My Girlfriend Is My Nurse by Shane Burcaw
  17. I Am Schizophrenic: Poetry from a Beautiful Brain by Kerenza Ryan
  18. Apocalyptic Best Practices: A Unique approach to fear and change by Elisebeth VanderWeil
  19. You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me by Sherman Alexie
  20. Being Huemann: An Unrepentant Memoir of a Disability Rights Activist by Judith E. Heumann
  21. The Pretty One: On life, pop culture, disability, and other reasons to fall in love with me by Keah Brown
  22. Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary Resilient Diabled Body by Rebekah Taussig
  23. Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century by Alice Wong
  24. Nothing About Us Without Us: Disability Oppression and Empowerment by James I. Charlton
  25. I Am Not a Label by Cerrie Burnell
  26. Limitless: The Power of Hope and Resilience to Overcome Circumstances by Mallory Weggemann
  27. Care Work: Dreaming Disability Justice by Leah Lakshmi Piepzna-Samarasinha
  28. Life in the Mind Interrupted: Essays on Mental Health and Disability in Higher Education by Katie Rose Guest Pryal
  29. Rolling Warrior: The Incredible, Sometimes Awkward, True Story of a Rebel Girl on Wheels Who Helped Spark a Revolution by Judith Heumann
  30. The Disability Experience: Working Toward Belonging by Hannalora Leavitt
  31. When the Chant Comes by Kay Ulanday Barrett
  32. The Story of My Life by Helen Keller
  33. Look Me in the Eye: My Life with Asperger’s by John Elder Robison
  34. Be Different by John Elder Robison
  35. Switched On: A Memoir of Brain Change and Emotional Awakening by John Elder Robison
  36. Moving Violations: Warzones, Wheelchairs, and Declarations of Independence  by John Hockenberry
  37. Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability and Making Space by Amanda Leduc
  38. Thinking in Pictures: My Life with Autism by Temple Grandin
  39. Calling all Minds: How to Think and Create Like an Inventor by Temple Grandin
  40. The Way I See It: A Personal Look at Autism and Asperger’s by Temple Grandin
  41. Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships: Decoding social mysteries through autism’s unique perspectives by Temple Grandin
  42. Golem Girl by Riva Lehrer
  43. Find Another Dream by Maysoon Zayid
  44. Too Late to Die Young: Nearly True Tales from a Life by Harriet McBryde Johnson
  45. If at Birth You Don’t Succeed: My Adventures with Disaster and Destiny by Zach Anner
  46. Fading Scars: My Queer Disability History by Corbett O’Toole
  47. Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Literature by Rosemarie Garland-Thomson
  48. Staring: How We Look by Rosemarie Garland-Thomson
  49. Elegy for a Disease: A Personal and Cultural History of Polio by Anne Finger
  50. Waist-High in the World: A Life Among the Nondisabled by Nancy Mairs
  51. In the Province of God by Kenny Fries
  52. The History of My Shoes and the Evolution of Darwin’s Theory by Kenny Fries
  53. Body, Remember: A Memoir by Kenny Fries
  54. Mad at School: Rhetorics of Mental Disability and Academic Life by Margaret Price 
  55. The Obsessive Joy of Autism by Julia Bascom 
  56. Blind: A Memoir by Belo Cipriani 
  57. Count Us In: Growing Up with Down Syndrome by Jason Kingley and Mitchell Levitz
  58. Holding Change: The Way of Emergent Strategy Facilitation and Mediation by Adrienne Maree Brown
  59. Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good by Adrienne Maree Brown
  60. Brilliant Imperfection: Grappling with Cure by Eli Clare
  61. Feminist Queer Crip by Alison Kafer
  62. ASL Saved My Life…Until it Didn’t by Jenni Kleinman Berebitsky
  63. We Are Never Meeting in Real Life by Samantha Irby
  64. Disabled Leadership by Dr. Tom A. Wiggins
  65. Deaf Utopia: A Memoir – and a Love Letter to a Way of Life coauthored by Nyle DiMarco
  66. Demystifying Disability: What to Know, What to Say, and How to be an Ally by Emily Ladau
  67. Year of the Tiger: An Activist’s Life by Alice Wong
  68. What Doesn’t Kill You: A Life with Chronic Illness – Lessons from a Body in Revolt by Tessa Miller
  69. A Face for Picasso: Coming of Age with Crouzon Syndrome by Ariel Henley 
  70. Just Human: The Quest for Disability Wisdom, Respect, and Inclusion by Arielle Silverman, PhD
  71. Different, Not Less: A neurodivergent’s guide to embracing your true self and finding your happily ever after by Cholé Hayden
  72. How I See It: A Personal and Historical View of Disability by H Penny Mishkin
  73. Successful to Burnt Out: Experiences of Women on the Autism Spectrum by Karletta Abianac 
  74. Adult ADHD: How to Succeed as a Hunter in a Farmer’s World by Thom Hartmann
  75. More the Same than Different: What I Wish People Knew About Respecting and Including People with Disabilities by Lorraine Cannistra
  76. Not a Poster Child: Living Well with a Disability – A Memoir by Francine Falk-Allen
  77. My Body is Not a Prayer Request: Disability Justice in the Church by Amy Kenny
  78. The ADHD Advantage: What You Thought was a Diagnosis May Be Your Greatest Strength by Dale Archer, MD
  79. Black, Blind, & In Charge: A Story of Visionary Leadership and Overconing Adversity by David A. Paterson
  80. Unleash Different: Achieving Business Success Through Disability by Rich Donovan 
  81. Crazy, Who Me?: My Journey as a Leader Overcoming Depression by John Panigas

Learn From Your Cringe-Worthy Experiences, And Share Your Lessons

KUOW reporter Bill Radke, Julie Pham, and author Monica Guzman at a live, public talk on July 7, 2022 at McCaw Hall. This is an example of the public talk, but not the one I described in the essay.

There I was, presenting to a virtual audience of 100 people about my work, something I had talked about dozens of times before. I was excited. It was going to be my biggest audience yet.

Five minutes into my talk, an audience member asked why I was presenting on a topic that wasn’t relevant to the event’s theme. I explained. She pressed. I became defensive. Messages started to flow into the chat, criticizing the relevancy of my topic and flaws they perceived in my work. 

An audience member said my presentation was a waste of his time. I worked hard to maintain my composure. I thanked him and acknowledged that my work wasn’t going to be relevant and fit everyone’s needs. I tried to move into the planned activity and get people into breakout rooms. I said I wanted to give people time to process. In reality, I needed a break. Chat messages questioning my motives kept pouring in.

Finally, the session ended. I tried to hold on as long as I could. Then I turned off my camera and cried. I cried out of disappointment, shame, frustration and resentment.  And then I asked myself, “What did I learn?” 

I don’t regret what happened. If I’d been warned ahead of time about what would happen at that event, I would have still done it. When I share the story, some people try to reason what should have been done to prevent the negative reaction. I have to explain that I’m grateful for the experience. 

I learned more in that 75 minute session than I had in the dozens of times prior I presented on the topic. I wouldn’t change a single thing. Pain is a teacher. 

Whenever something like this happens, I process the pain by learning from it.

So, I talked about the experience a lot, with my team, with friends, acquaintances, and people I volunteer with. I even talked about it with clients and potential clients. 

When I share my pain, others learn too. I learn from their reactions and observations. I want to know their perspective. The learning spreads. And I model what it means to be willing to learn from my mistakes. 

Sharing this experience has also resulted in something surprising. Many shared their own related painful, shameful experiences. They implicitly said, “I’m going to let my pain be your teacher too.” They reciprocated. Our trust deepened.

We all have difficult, cringe-worthy, experiences we don’t want to talk about. 

What can happen when you share what you learned from the pain?

Others can learn from you, and you can learn from them. I’ve been doing this all my life.

It’s what allowed me to make rapid career changes. I went from being an academic to running a Vietnamese newspaper, to tech marketing, to nonprofit leadership, and then starting my own company last year.

My life has been a series of painful experiences that I rapidly learned from. My parents are an inspiration for me. As Vietnamese refugees, I watched them navigate America in their limited English. They had no choice but to get out and try and they knew that it wouldn’t be perfect, and they did it anyway. Over and over again.

When I was a grad student, I had to learn Vietnamese quickly. I didn’t grow up speaking it, so I had to learn as an adult. Within two years, I was volunteering to present in Vietnamese to Vietnamese researchers. I had a very heavy American accent and I’m sure that there are times when I made many grammatical mistakes. And I did it anyway.

I got my real-life MBA by returning to Seattle and running my family ‘s Vietnamese language newspaper. One of the things I had to learn was how to sell. So, I’d get on these calls with ad agencies, and they would ask me all of these questions and I just had to say, “I don’t know, I don’t know.” I remember after one particularly hard call, I told myself, “You are bad at this now, but you’re going to get really good in two years.” And I did get better.

I decided to leave the best job I ever had in the middle of the pandemic to start my own company called CuriosityBased. With my own team, I’m constantly taking risks to push our own learning. Here are two examples: 

Whenever we are about to go into a workshop with new exercises, I remind the team, “Even though we’ve rehearsed this a lot, we’re going to make some mistakes. And when they happen, we just need to roll with it. We will learn.” 

When I created my first digital course, we opted for speed over quality. We created a course in two weeks, which usually takes three months to do. Some early testers criticized the video quality as unprofessional. And yet I put it out in the world because I wanted to start the learning process. I wanted to hear thoughts and reactions. 

One of the things that I’m most proud of is that I share what I learn with others and in doing so, I model learning in public.

People often ask, “What am I going to achieve?” 

I ask, “What am I going to learn?”

Some people are motivated by the impact that they’re going to have on the world. My motivations are much more selfish. I’m motivated by what I’m going to learn and sharing what I learned with others in hopes that they will share with me their perspectives and what they’ve learned. I’m motivated to create a space for people to practice curiosity.

I want to return to the event I described earlier. Here’s some of my lessons:

  • I didn’t manage the audience’s expectations.
  • I didn’t think enough about what the audience wanted to learn
  • I was warned before the talk and brushed off other people’s concerns. I was naïve. 
  • When confronted with questions about the relevancy of my topic, I got defensive. 
  • I feared engaging in conflict in front of a live audience, so I retreated to the agenda

All of these mistakes have since made me a much better presenter and facilitator.

It’s not just about getting better and changing; it’s about getting clearer.

I learned to lean into what I do and what I don’t do. From the pain came clarity. 

Not only did I learn what I can change, I also learned what I’m not willing to change because it’s core to who I am. There are some things I won’t apologize for.

And remember, pain is a teacher. You don’t have to experience learning alone.

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This post was based on my Substack post, Pain is a teacher: Learn from your cringe-worthy experiences, and share your lessons, which was originally posted on July 13, 2022. You can listen to me reading the original essay. Please subscribe.

7 Ways Team Leaders Can Practice Curiosity

The author sits with two leaders who constantly inspire her with how they practice curiosity: Robert Britten (left), executive director of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) at Lake Washington Institute of Technology, and Dr. Suzy Ames, president of Peninsula College (right).
The author sits with two leaders who constantly inspire her with how they practice curiosity: Robert Britten (left), executive director of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion (EDI) at Lake Washington Institute of Technology, and Dr. Suzy Ames, president of Peninsula College (right).

I liken practicing curiosity to meditation – it looks easy, but it’s really hard. There are some days it’s easier to practice curiosity than other days. And yet when leaders practice curiosity, we can set the conditions for creativity, innovation, resourcefulness, resilience, and empathy for our teams.

I’ve worked in and with companies that ranged from three employees to more than 100,000. Something that any size company has in common is that culture is set from the top. Those in power determine what’s acceptable behavior. Leaders, keep in mind that your team members are watching what you do. They will follow what you do, not what you say you do.

Here are some tips on how leaders can practice curiosity themselves, which will have ripple effects in your organization. These tips are based on mistakes I have made, things I’ve learned in meetings and in everyday interactions.

1. Speak last in meetings

Often a leader’s opinion can have outsized impact, and can influence what other people feel comfortable sharing. I often declare that I’m going to give my opinion last, so that others can share theirs first, especially when we are brainstorming or giving feedback.

2. Let other people facilitate team meetings

There is an expectation that the team leader always has to run the meetings. By accident, I flipped this my first year in business because someone on my team wanted to practice facilitation. I said that she could set the agenda and facilitate our weekly team syncs. Having someone else set the agenda will encourage them to talk to other people on the team to find out what should be discussed. And they get an opportunity to shine. There are actually many meetings I don’t facilitate at all, when I don’t have a discussion topic to lead. I love this! Another approach is rotating the facilitator role, especially among those who might not be in leadership positions.

3. Admit when you’re wrong

When I make a bad decision or mistake, I own up to it. I had to do that recently because a team member wanted to institute a new project management tool. Because I didn’t want to learn a new tech tool, I said I wouldn’t use it but everyone else could. Five months later, only half the team was using the tool. I realized my resistance undermined my colleague’s efforts to streamline work processes. I apologized to her and I committed to using the tool. I could tell she was appreciative that I admitted I was wrong.

4. Show what you don’t know

Leaders don’t have to pretend to have all the answers because, in reality, we don’t. I often get asked, “What should we do?” and I reply, “I’m not sure. What do you think we should do?” Early on in my career, I thought I needed to have all the answers. I was so relieved when a boss modeled for me he didn’t always know and he would ask me to suggest solutions. Asking clarifying questions is also a way for leaders to model that it’s okay not to know the answers. I often ask “Can you give me an example of that?” “What does that word mean?” When you think others don’t know a concept, even if you do, ask for an explanation so that it benefits everyone.

5. Be aware of the possible impact of your questions

Power dynamics means that sometimes people see questions from leaders as directives. A friend of mine told me she serves on a nonprofit board. She described when she asked the executive director (ED) of that nonprofit some questions, that ED responded defensively. I pointed out to her that the ED may have interpreted the question as an order because she as a board member is technically her boss. It can be helpful to preface a question with, “I’m asking this to understand, not because I want you to change anything or do something different.”

6. Make time to care

I talked about this in an earlier essay about managing my energy vs. my time. At the beginning of every meeting, our team members share our personal highs and lows. We get to be curious about others and let them be curious about us; this reciprocity is critical to relationship building. I’ve shared my struggles with maintaining a prediabetic diet, how I miss my late father, and other things that are pulling me down. Studies even show that teams that share their personal lows are able to be more honest with one another when it comes to the work.

7. Ask questions when you’re upset

Feeling anger, resentment, fear, annoyance can become curiosity killers. I have to be extra intentional about asking questions when I’ve got those feelings, because my gut reaction is to assume bad intentions. A friend told me that he was upset with someone on his team for not following his directions. He felt deeply disrespected. I suggested he ask that colleague, “What’s your process for your work?” to understand how they approach work. Then follow up with, “What do you think about the process I’m asking you to do?” Curiosity can be the antidote to assuming bad intentions just perpetuates.

I hope you’ll try some of these tips. Let me know how it goes.

Watch the Explainer Video

This post was based on my LinkedIn Newsletter post, 7 ways team leaders can practice curiosity, which was originally posted on August 23, 2022. Please subscribe.

Tips on Deepening Relationships Remotely

My 2021 Valentine Card concept. To capture the spirit of 2020, the theme was “silver linings.” The front of the card is a Zoom frame and the right square is black. I personalized each card by writing the recipient’s name in with white ink. The inside had the design of a Zoom chat window with a standard message sharing some silver linings I experienced in 2020. Below the fold was space for me to handwrite a personal message. I sent the card in a white envelope lined in silver, to add to the “silver lining” theme.

I get energy from interacting with other people. I organize social gatherings. I love meeting new people. In many ways, I’m a classic extrovert. When the quarantine started, I wondered how I would survive. 

My social schedule went from 4-8 in-person meetings on any given day to none. For the first 5 month, because I lived alone, I didn’t see anyone, not my family, not my boyfriend through June. What surprised me was how some of my more introverted friends went stir crazy from the lack of human interaction and I was actually doing pretty okay. 

I thought I’d be the one feeling super isolated. It has been the opposite. I do acknowledge that my lowest-scoring Love Language is touch, so I don’t actually need to physically be with people to feel connected to them. 

While the rate of making new relationships has dropped a lot, I have deepened existing relationships exponentially.

There are many friends I would only see 1-2x a year who I now talk to regularly on the phone. 

Although I appreciate large gatherings to increase the chances of meeting a stranger who might become a lifelong friend, my favorite form of connecting is 1:1 conversations, which I am still able to have virtually. And because I don’t have to worry about commute time, I’m actually able to connect socially with more people 1:1 on any given day than ever before.

So here are some tips for deepening relationships remotely. The quarantine amplified their impact. 

  1. Text message. I send a text to at least 5 acquaintances/casual friends a week. Send a text to say  “happy birthday” or a “checking in…how are you?” I use Facebook to get reminders of people’s birthdays and updates on their lives. When I see a reminder, I check to see if I have that person’s phone number and if I do, I text message a happy birthday wish or a congratulations because it is so much more personal. It has sometimes led to long text exchange or even phone conversations to catch up. Most of the time, it just reminds people, “Someone is thinking about you.” 
  1. Email update. Once a year, I send out a long email update that I personalize with mail merge. My rule of thumb is if I can’t refer to a specific detail about that person’s life or the last time we interacted, I shouldn’t be emailing them. And to be real in the email, I include the happy and the hard stuff. I will usually include a small request, like check out a free workshop I’m piloting or an essay I just wrote to give me feedback. It’s my way of asking people to be part of my journey. I have gotten detailed responses from people, telling me about their lives.
  1. Phone calls. I have regular weekly,  monthly, and quarterly phone calls with friends now. I often take calls while I’m stretching or walking. I am on video conferencing so much that I love an old fashioned phone call and I know others often appreciate it too. I’ve said to people,  “Hey, want to make this a regular thing?” Many are also ad hoc phone calls. There are some days I can reconnect with 4-7 different friends and acquaintances this way. I have one friend who I only met 2-3 times over two years before the quarantine and now we talk once a month. Another friend refers to our now monthly calls as “therapy.” 
  1. Send cards when people don’t expect them. Most people send their cards out in December. Since I was in high school, I have sent out Valentine cards because most adults don’t get Valentines. I express appreciation for friends who supported me during the previous year. I design each year’s card to recap the theme of the previous year and I’m particularly proud of this year’s concept. I still write at least 3-5 lines of a personal message in each card. Since I started using EE Printing ten years ago, I can send out about a 100 a year, limited by my ability to write personal messages.  These have been great ways to reconnect with people. 

I heard a great interview with Morra Aarons-Mele of Women Online by Guy Raz with more tips. 

This post was based on “Tips on Deepening Relationships Remotely,” which was originally posted on Feb. 21, 2022.

2022 Hispanic/Latino/Latinx Leadership Booklist

We created this list to promote leadership narratives written by the Hispanic/Latino/Latinx community. This list is meant to be a resource, not an official endorsement. The books are not ranked or listed in any particular order.

2022-HispanicLatinx-Leadership-Books-V1-1Download
  1. Me by Ricky Martin
  2. And A Voice to Sing With: A Memoir by Joan Baez
  3. The Gloria Anzaldúa Reader (Latin America Otherwise) by Gloria Anzaldúa
  4. Borderlands / La Frontera: The New Mestiza by Gloria Anzaldúa
  5. Almost a Woman by Esmeralda Santiago
  6. In the Time of the Butterflies by Julie Alvarez
  7. Farmworker’s Daughter: Growing up Mexican American by Rose Castillo Guilbault
  8. The Power of Latino Leadership: Culture, Inclusion, and Contribution by Juana Bordas
  9. When I was Puerto Rican by Esmeralda Santiago
  10. Salsa, Soul, and Spirit: Leadership for a Multicultural Age by Juana Bordas
  11. Autentíco: The definitive guide to Latino Career Success by Robert Rodriguez
  12. Brown Church: Five Centuries of Latina/o Social Justice, Theology, and Identity by Robert Chao Romero
  13. Hermanas: Deepening Our Identity and Growing Our Influence by Natalia Kohn Rivera
  14. Isabel’s Hand-Me-Down Dreams by Isabel Lopez
  15. Leaving Little Havana: A Memoir of Miami’s Cuban Ghetto by Cecilia M. Fernandez
  16. Gmorning, Gnight!: Little Pep Talks for Me & You by Lin-Manuel Miranda
  17. [Un]framing the “Bad Woman”:Sor Juana, Malinche, Coylxauhqui, and other rebels with a cause by Alicia Gaspar de Alba
  18. Always Running: La Vida Loca – Gang Days in L.A. by Luis J. Rodriguez
  19. Cruz: A Cross-Border Memoir by Jean Guerrero
  20. Dear America: Notes of an Undocumented Citizen by Jose Antonio Vargas
  21. Undocumented: A Dominican Boy’s Odyssey from a Homeless Shelter to the Ivy League by Dan-el Padilla Peralta
  22. The Far Away Brothers: Two Young Migrants and the Making of an American Life by Lauren Markham
  23. My Beloved World by Sonia Sotomayor
  24. Latina Empowerment Through Leadership: Mindful Stories from Inspiring Women by Catherine Munos Garces, Monica Rivera, et al
  25. An Organizer’s Tale by Cesar Chavez
  26. My Time to Speak: Reclaiming Ancestry and Confronting Race by Ilia Calederon
  27. Rita Moreno: A Memoir by Rita Moreno
  28. American Poison: How Racial Hostility Destroyed Our Promise by Eduardo Porter
  29. My (Underground) American Dream: My True Story as an Undocumented Immigrant Who Became a Wall Street Executive by Julissa Arce
  30. The Virtuous Circle: Restore Your Confidence, Bounce Back, and Emerge Stronger by Gaby Natale
  31. Self Made: Become Empowered, Self Reliant and Rich in Every Way by Nely Galán
  32. Latino Leaders Speak: Personal Stories of Struggle and Triumph edited by Micky Ibarra and Maria Pérez-Brown
  33. Leapfrog: The New Revolution for Women Entrepreneurs by Nathalie Molina Niño
  34. The Soul of a Woman by Isabel Allende
  35. In the Dream House: A Memoir by Carmen Maria Machado
  36. Once I was You: A Memoir of Love and Hate in a Torn America by María Hinojosa
  37. More than Ready: Be Strong and Be You…and Other Lessons for Women of Color on the Rise by Cecilia Muñoz
  38. Perfectly You: Embracing the Power of Being Real by Mariana Atencio
  39. Take Charge of Your Brand: Quick and Simple Techniques to Help You Own and Manage Your Personal Brand for Professional and Personal Success by Guisselle Nuñez
  40. In the Country We Love: My Family Divided by Diane Guerrero
  41. Frida by Barbara Mujica
  42. Finding Latinx: In Search of the Voices Redefining Latino Identity by Paolo Ramos
  43. The Undocumented Americans by Karla Conejo Villavicenci
  44. AOC: The Fearless Rise and Powerful Resonance of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes by Lynda Lopez
  45. Latinx: The New Force in American Politics by Ed Morales
  46. Mexican Enough: My Life Between the Borderlines by Stephanie Elizondo Griest
  47. Being Brown: Sonia Sotomayer and the Latino Question by Lázaro Lima
  48. An Unlikely Journey: Waking up from My American Dream by Julián Castro
  49. Hispanic Women Seeking Higher Leadership Roles in Business by Sylvia C. Motta, PhD
  50. Wild Tongues Can’t be Tamed: 15 Voices from the Latinx Diaspora edited by Saraciea J. Fennell
  51. The Leadership Shift: The Strategic Positioning of Latino Business Leaders by Dr. Nilda Perez
  52. ¡Rise up, Mi Gente! A Roadmap for Latinos to Achieve Success in Corporate America by Jesse A Mejia
  53. Inventing Latinos: A New Story of American Racism by Laura E. Gómez
  54. The 5 Disciplines of Inclusive Leaders: Unleashing the Power of Us All coauthored by Andrés Tapia
  55. When We Make It by Elisabeth Velasquez
  56. I am Not Your Perfect Mexican Daughter by Erika L. Sanchéz
  57. Latino Talent: Effective Strategies to Recruit, Retain, and Develop Hispanic Professionals by Robert Rodriguez
  58. Silencing Gender, Age, Ethnicity, and Cultural Biases in Leadership by Camilla A. Montoya, Julieta V. García. et al.
  59. Inclusion Revolution: The Essential Guide to Dismantling Racial Inequity in the Workplace by Daisy Auger-Dominguez
  60. Latinas Rising Up in HR: Inspirational Stories of Human Resources Professional Leading, Thriving, and Breaking Barriers by Priscilla Guasso
  61. The Secret Principles of Genius: The Key to Unlocking Your Hidden Genius Potential by I.C. Robledo
  62. I Got This: To Gold and Beyond by Lauren Hernandez
  63. The Engine of America: The Secrets to Small Business Success from Entrepreneurs Who Have Made It by Jane Delgado
  64. The Latina Guide to Health: Consejos and Caring Answers by Jane Delgado
  65. Field Mice: Memoirs of a Migrant Child by Emma Gonzalez
  66. Los Amos del Mundo Están al Acecho by Cristina Martin Jimenez
  67. Growing American Roots by Bob Menendez
  68. Dream in Color: How the Sánchez Sisters are Making History in Congress by Linda Sánchez
  69. Healing Journey: Surviving Domestic Violence by Lupe Valdez
  70. La Nueva California: Latinos from Pioneers to Post-Millennials by David Hayes-Bautista
  71. El Cinco de Mayo: An American Tradition by David Hayes-Bautista
  72. Latinas in Aviation by Jacqueline S. Ruiz
  73. Becoming Dr. Q: My Journey from a Migrant Farm Worker to brain Surgeon by Alfredo Quinones-Hinjosa
  74. The Universal Tone: Bringing My Story to Light by Carlos Santana
  75. Take a Stand: Lessons from Rebels by Jorge Ramos
  76. The Injustice Never Leaves You: Anti-Mexican Violence in Texas by Monica Muñoz Martinez
  77. Powerhouse Principles: The Ultimate Blueprint for Real Estate Success in an Ever-Changing Market by Jorge Perez
  78. The Buena Salud Guide to Understanding Depression and Enjoying Life by Jane Delgado
  79. Leadership Lessons of the White House Fellows: Learn How to Inspire Others, Achieve Greatness , and Find Success in Any Organization by Charles P. Garcia
  80. Persevere with Power: What Heaven Starts, Hell Cannot Stop by Samuel Rodriguez
  81. In Defense of Our America: The Fight for Civil Liberties in the Age of Terror by Anthony D. Romero
  82. One Vote Away: How a Single Supreme Court Seat Can Change History by Ted Cruz
  83. Still Dreaming: My Journey from the Barrio to Capitol Hill by Luis Gutiérrez
  84. An American Son: A Memoir by Marco Rubio
  85. The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio
  86. A House of My Own: Stories from My Life by Sandra Cisneros
  87. Spirit Run: A 6000 Mile Marathon Through America’s Stolen Land by Noe Alvarez
  88. Dirty Girls Social Club by Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez
  89. Woven in Moonlight by Isabel Ibañez
  90. The Latino Advantage in the Workplace by Mariela Dabbah and Arturo Poiré
  91. Dream Big by Deborah Rosado Shaw
  92. Youth, Identity, Power: The Chicano Movement by Carlos Munoz Jr.
  93. Mean by Myriam Gurba
  94. Presumed Incompetent: The Intersections of Race and Class for Women in Academia by Gabriella Gutiérrez y Muhs, Yolanda Flores Niemann, and Carmen G. González
  95. Enrique’s Journey: The Story of a Boy’s Dangerous Odyssey to Reunite with his Mother by Sonia Nazarrio
  96. A Passion for Politics (Mission Bells) by Anita Perez Ferguson
  97. Latinos in American Society: Families and Communities in Transition by Dr. Ruth Enid Zambrana
  98. Journey to the Future: A Roadmap for Success for Youth by Ltc. Consuelo Castillo Kickbusch
  99. Homeless my Choice by Roy Juarez Jr.
  100. The Story of Latinos and Education in American History by Dr. Abdín Noboa-Ríos
  101. A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende
  102. The Deepest Roots: Finding Food and Community on a Pacific Northwest Island by Kathleen Alcalá
  103. Más Allá de la Justicia by Maria de lourdes Victoria
  104. The Likeability Trap: How to Break Free and Succeed as You Are by Alicia Menendez
  105. Ready, Set, Manifest!: A Handbook for the In-betweens and Leaps in Life by Debbie Lacey
  106. Hurdles in the Dark by Elvira K. Gonzalez
  107. In the Shadow of the Mountain: A Memoir of Courage by Silvia Vasquez-Lavado
  108. Through the Dark by Yolanda Nava
  109. Thriving in the Fight: A Survival Manual for Latinas on the Front Lines of Change by Denise Padin Collazo
  110. Justice & Space Matter in a Strong, Unified Latino Community by Kathy Bussert-Web, Maria Eugenia Diaz, Krystal A Yanez
  111. Breaking Ground and Barriers: Hispanic Women Developing Effective Leadership by Gloria Bonilla-Santiago, Ph.D.
  112. Latinization and the Latino Leader: How to Value, Develop, and Advance Latino Professionals by Cristina Benitez & Marlene Gonzalez
  113. Latino and Latina Leaders of the 21st Century: Ordinary Beginnings, Extraordinary Outcomes by Kay (Kayla) S. Garcia
  114. Latina Empowerment Through Leadership: Mindful Stories from Inspiring Women by Catherine Munoz-Garces, Monica Rivera, Lizza Monet Morales, Celia Garcia, Veronica Corona, Maggie Antillon Mathews, Roxana Damas, and Jennifer Ibarra
  115. The More or Less Definitive Guide to Self Care by Anna Borges
  116. Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader by Hermina Ibarra
  117. You Don’t Have to Like Me: Essays on Growing Up, Speaking Out, and Finding Feminism by Alida Nugent

2022 LGBTQ+ AUTHORED LEADERSHIP BOOKS

We created this list to promote leadership narratives written by those who identify as LGBTQ+. This list is meant to be a resource, not an official endorsement. The books are not ranked or listed in any particular order. 
2022-LGBTQ-Authored-Leadership-Books-V1Download
  1. The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin
  2. Entrepreneurial You: Monetize Your Expertise, Create Multiple Income Streams, and Thrive by Dorie Clark
  3. Seriously…I’m Kidding by Ellen Degeneres
  4. Shut Up, I’m Talking!: Coming Out in Hollywood and Making It to the Middle by Jason Stuart
  5. All In: An Autobiography by Billie Jean King
  6. An Archive of Hope: Harvey Milk’s Speeches and Writings by Harvey Milk
  7. Rainbow Warrior: My Life in Color by Gilbert Baker
  8. The Normal Heart by Larry Kramer
  9. Freddie Mercury: A Life, In His Own Words by Freddie Mercury
  10. GuRu by RuPaul
  11. The Rainbow Comes and Goes: A Mother and Son on Life, Love, and Loss by Anderson Cooper & his mom Gloria Vanderbilt
  12. Redefining Realness: My Path to Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More by Janet Mock
  13. Untamed by Glennon Doyle
  14. Punch Me Up to the Gods: A Memoir by Brian Broome
  15. Leaving Isn’t the Hardest Thing: Essays by Lauren Hough
  16. Pride Leadership: Strategies for the LGBTQ+ Leader to be the King or Queen of Their Jungle by Steven Yacovelli
  17. Fit to Serve: Reflections on a Secret Life, Private Struggle, and Public Battle to Become the First Openly Gay U.S. Ambassador by James C. Hormel & Erin Martin
  18. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde
  19. In Defense of Our America: The Fight for Civil Liberties in the Age of Terror by Anthony D. Romero
  20. Beautiful on the Outside: A Memoir by Adam Rippon
  21. Tim Cook: The Genius Who Took Apple to the Next Level by Leander Kahney
  22. The Path Forward: Rethinking Federal Marijuana Policy by Rep. Earl Blumenauer and Rep. Jared Polis
  23. Forever Young: The Story of Troye Sivan by Alana Wulff
  24. The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin by Masha Gessen
  25. Surviving Autocracy by Masha Gessen
  26. Raf Simons by Sunny Chanday
  27. Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay
  28. Everybody’s Got Something by Robin Roberts & Veronica Chambers
  29. Dear White People by Justin Simien
  30. Michael Kors by Sunny Chanday
  31. This is the Fire: What I say to My Friends About Racism by Don Lemon
  32. Binge by Tyler Oakley
  33. Tom Ford by Tom Ford
  34. On the Other Side of Freedom: The Case for Hope by DeRay Mckesson
  35. Blood, Bones, & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef by Gabrielle Hamilton
  36. White Girls by Hilton Als
  37. Oh Myyy!: There Goes the Internet by George Takei
  38. They Called Us Enemy: Expanded Edition by George Takei
  39. The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom: Practical and Spiritual Steps to You Can Stop Worrying by Suze Orman
  40. Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel & Blake Masters
  41. Trust: America’s Best Chance by Pete Buttigieg
  42. Shortest Way Home: One Mayor’s Challenge and a Model for America’s Future by Pete Buttigieg
  43. Nothing Personal by James Baldwin
  44. Revelations: The Autobiography of Alvin Ailey by Alvin Ailey & A. Peter Bailey
  45. In the Shadow of the Eagle: A Tribal Representative in Maine by Donna M. Loring
  46. Me by Ricky Martin
  47. And a Voice to Sing With: A Memoir by Joan Baez
  48. The Holly Woodlawn Story: A Low Life in High Heels by Holly Woodlawn
  49. The Gloria Anzaldúa Reader (Latin America Otherwise) by Gloria Anzaldúa
  50. I’m the One That I Want by Margaret Cho
  51. WOLFPACK: How to Come Together, Unleash Our Power, and Change the Game by Abby Wambach
  52. A Room of One’s Own by Virginia Woolf
  53. Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds edited by Adrienne Maree Brown
  54. We Will Not Cancel Us edited by Adrienne Maree Brown
  55. Love and Rage by Lama Rod Owens
  56. I Hope We Choose Love: A Trans Girl’s Notes from the End of the World by Kai Cheng Thom
  57. Martina by Martina Navratilova
  58. Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good edited by Adrienne Maree Brown
  59. Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction from Social Justice Movements edited by Adrienne Maree Brown
  60. How to Get Stupid White Men Out of Office: The Anti-Politics, Un-Boring Guide to Power edited by Adrienne Maree Brown
  61. The Children of Harvey Milk: How LGBTQ Politicians Changed the World by Andrew Reynolds
  62. Representation Matters: How Victory Fund, Victory Institute, and LGBT Leaders are Transforming America by Karen Ocamb
  63. Serving in Silence by Margarethe Cammermeyer
  64. Frank: A Life in Politics from the Great Society to Same-Sex Marriage by Barney Frank
  65. Pressure is a Privilege: Lessons I’ve Learned from Life and the Battle of the Sexes by Billie Jean King
  66. Gunn’s Golden Rules: Life’s Little Lessons for Making it Work by Tim Gunn
  67. Queer Eye: Love Yourself, Love Your Life by Antoni Porowski, Tan France, Jonathan Van Ness, Bobby Berk & Karamo Brown
  68. My Story of Embracing Purpose, Healing, and Hope by Karamo Brown
  69. Naturally Tan by Tan France
  70. Over The Top by Jonathan Van Ness
  71. 71. One life by Megan Rapinoe & Emma Brockes
  72. It’s About Damn Time by Arlan Hamilton
  73. Inclusion: Diversity, the New Workplace, & The Will to Change by Jennifer Brown
  74. Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story by Jacob Tobia
  75. Borderlands/ La Frontera: The New Mestiza by Gloria Anzaldúa
  76. Ma and Me: A Memoir by Putsata Reang
  77. In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist prose by Alice Walker
  78. Eat, Pray, Love: One woman’s search for everything across Italy, India, and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert
  79. Truth or Dare: Encounters with power, authority, and mystery by Starhawk
  80. Stand Out: How to find your breakthrough idea and build a following around it by Dorie Clark
  81. Feeling Power: Emotions and education by Megan Boler
  82. And Now We Are Going to Have a Party by Nichola Griffith
  83. Marbles: Mania, Depression, Michelangelo, and Me by Ellen Forney
  84. All Boys Aren’t Blue: A Memoir-Manifesto by George M. Johnson
  85. Fairest: A Memoir by Meredith Talusan
  86. Hola Papi: How to Come Out in a Walmart Parking Lot and Other Life Lessons by John Paul Brammer
  87. Long Live the Tribe of Fatherless Girls: A Memoir by T Kira Madden
  88. People Change by Vivek Shraya
  89. I’m Afraid of Men by Vivek Shraya
  90. We Have Always Been Here: A Queer Muslim Memoir by Samra Habib
  91. Boy Erased: A Memoir of Identity, Faith, and Family by Garrard Conley
  92. Surpassing Certainty: What My Twenties Taught Me by Janet Mock
  93. Warrior Princess: A US Navy SEAL’s Journey to Coming Out Transgender by Kristen Beck & Anne Speckhard
  94. Virtually Human by Martine Rothblatt, PhD
  95. Zami: A New Spelling of My Name: A Biomythography by Audre Lorde
  96. I Can’t Date Jesus: Love, Sex, Family, Race, and Other Reasons I’ve Put My Faith in Beyonce by Michael Arceneaux
  97. I Don’t Want to Die Poor: Essays by Michael Arceneaux
  98. Unapologetic: A Black, Queer, and Feminist Mandate by Charlene Carruthers
  99. The Queer Advantage: Conversations with LGBTQ+ Leaders on Power of Identityby Andrew Gelwicks
  100. The G Quotient: Why Gay Executives are Excelling as Leaders… and What Every Manager Needs to Know by Kirk Snyder
  101. Gender Outlaw: On Men, Women, and the Rest of Us by Kate Bornstein
  102. No Ashes in the Fire: Coming of Age Black & Free in America by Darnell L Moore
  103. All The Things She Said: Everything I Know About Modern Lesbian and Bi Culture by Daisy Jones
  104. The Queering of Corporate America by Carlos A. Ball

Being Rude Can Help Deepen Relationships

rude

Even before the pandemic, I heard people complain about how difficult it is to develop new friendships or deepen existing ones, especially as an adult. People can act as if others are withholding friendship from them.

If you’re struggling to build or deepen relationships, it might be because you’re too polite.

Relationship building requires risk-taking. One person must initiate. You can wait around for other people, or do it yourself. I prefer to initiate. Sometimes my actions might be interpreted as rude. I’d rather take the risk that someone will perceive me as rude than do nothing at all. I’ve been turned down before, and I’m grateful I found out sooner rather than later that the person didn’t want to reciprocate.

Here are some tips that can help you deepen your relationships. Warning: They might be perceived as rude.

Just say “no” (instead of saying nothing of all)

It can be hard to say “no.” But there is something worse. And that’s not saying anything at all. 

Think about how you feel when someone doesn’t respond to an invitation or request. I’ve sometimes asked for something from someone I know, and that person said nothing, even after a reminder. I wondered, did he or she think less of me? Did I ask too much? Did I cross a line? Some people think saying no is rude. I think it’s ruder to ignore someone.

That’s why when I can’t say “yes” to an invitation, I strive to decline as soon as possible. I don’t want to keep anyone waiting or guessing. Whenever someone says no to me, I immediately thank the person.

Yes, we’re all busy. That is not an excuse. Some of the best examples of a quick, firm, and kind decline came from some seriously busy people, including a Fortune 500 CEO and a county court judge. If they can take the time to say no, so can I. And the way they said no made me feel safe, as if I could still ask for something later, which I did and received a yes. “No” just means “not this time.” Silence often implies I shouldn’t have asked.

Takeaway: The next time a friend or an acquaintance asks you for something, and you know you can’t help, send a quick and kind decline instead of silence or pushing it off.

Ask for help (don’t just offer it)

It’s easy to offer help. It probably makes you feel good or helpful. When you are the one offering help, you have power. You determine how you will help. Most people often feel good about being asked for help.

Think about how you feel when you ask for help. If you are like most people I’ve talked to, you don’t like asking for help. You might even think it’s rude.

And yet asking for help is more likely to make someone feel connected to you than offering help. For example, I have developed deep friendships with people I asked for a ride to or from an event when they never offered.

Asking for something signals you want to continue the conversation with this person. I’m really testing to see how this person responds—will it be yes, no, or nothing at all? When the person doesn’t reply or deflects, even after I nudge a few times, then I’ve discovered an unspoken boundary.

When you attempt to deepen a relationship by asking for help, you may quickly learn the other person’s limits. At least you gave him or her a chance and now you know.

Takeaway: Think of what you can ask for from others. Try asking someone you want to have a deeper relationship with.

Ask that overly personal question (skip the small talk)

I hate small talk, especially if the conversation never moves beyond it.

If you like small talk, and it works for you, you might want to skip this tip.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about class-based assumptions (I’ve done a lot of research on assumptions). A meeting I planned to attend was canceled at the last minute. I decided to email the other person who I knew was attending. I asked to connect by phone so we could use the time we had already set aside. He sent me his number and I called him. After about five minutes, I decided to cut off the small talk and take a risk. I asked him how he would feel talking about his class background. As a result, we got into a deep conversation on a topic that he told me he hadn’t really talked about before, and we did become closer.

I tried the same question on another acquaintance a few months earlier. Once she realized I was asking her what she personally thought about class, she mumbled an answer and then told me she had to get off the phone to deal with an emergency. I suspect she thought I was rude.

In both cases, I took a risk with an acquaintance. Deepening one out of two relationships is pretty good odds. It was worthwhile to test my limits.

Takeaway: Try skipping the small talk and ask something that’s mildly overpersonal and see how the other person responds.

Invite yourself over

You’ve probably heard people say, “I’ll have to have you over some time.” You may have even said it yourself.

Consider inviting yourself as a way to take someone up on their explicit or implicit offer.

The other day, I decided to invite myself to a friend’s house. Once when we were at an Indian restaurant, he mentioned he makes good paneer and casually said I should come over sometime to try it out. So, I text messaged him, “My boyfriend and I would love to come over for that homemade paneer you mentioned.” He immediately asked me when I was free and set a date. We ended up having a great three-hour conversation, and he said we should get together again.

When you invite yourself, it signals, “I believe your offer was sincere, and I want to spend time with you.” It’s a bold move, some might even say rude. I’ve done this with people who have offered and even those who haven’t. For example, I asked a friend who I know often hosts friends and family from out of state if I could have a “staycation” with her for a few nights. She agreed and we talked late into the night about many things we usually can’t squeeze into our regular phone calls. She offered to host again.

If you invite yourself and the person hesitates or deflects your invitation, you might realize it was just a polite but superficial offer to begin with. You can gently retract by not pushing the issue further.

Takeaway: Think about someone who has offered hospitality to you that you genuinely want to get to know better. Try inviting yourself over.

What some people consider rude, I see as taking a risk. And if someone really wants to reciprocate and deepen a relationship with you, he or she will recognize your effort.

So, risk getting rude. Let me know how it goes.

Watch the Video

This post was based on my LinkedIn Newsletter, “Being a bit rude can help deepen relationships,” which was originally posted on April 8, 2022. Please subscribe.

rude

Diversify both the writers and performers of our leadership narratives

Amazon Top 100 Leadership Books Statistics

Many companies claim they support diversity and want to increase the number of women and people of color in their leadership ranks. 

Saying is easy. Doing is hard. 

Imagine hearing an all-white, mostly male executive team espouse the value of diversity. Yet, no one on the team voluntarily gave up their seat to make room for a more “diverse” candidate? In many cases, diversification requires structural and organizational change and financial investment. It can mean replacing the people who fill a limited number of roles.

Meanwhile, most of the top ranked leadership and management books are written by white men. Of Amazon’s top 100 recommended books on leadership, only 12 were written by a woman or person of color. Only 18% of business books are written by women. Society is demanding a change in representation, yet the leadership playbooks haven’t kept up. 

Amazon Top 100 Leadership Books Statistics
Amazon Top 100 Leadership Books Statistics

I’ll liken this to movies and plays. While the actors are changing, they are still performing the same scripts. We’re not diversifying the pool of the screenwriters and plays. 

We don’t have to wait for the infrastructure change required to increase diverse representation before we start exposing ourselves to underrepresented leadership perspectives. 

These are parallel and complementary efforts. The former requires structurally making space for new people. The latter asks people to expand their minds. You can still read Adam Grant and Patrick Lencioni. You can also read Adrienne Maree Brown and Dr. Laura Huang. The virtual bookshelf and podcast library aren’t limited in the way seats on a corporate board or executive team may be.

There are issues on the supply side. Dr. Richard Jean So and Gus Wezerek found that most books since 1950, both fiction and nonfiction, are written by white people. They attributed this to structural barriers in traditional publishing. Not surprising that leadership narratives largely reflect a white male experience. 

Here’s the thing—leadership books by underrepresented authors exist though they rarely make it to the recommended book lists. My company started to create lists of books authored by different communities: women, Black Americans, LGBTQ, authors with disabilities, etc. Based on our research, we compiled 100+ books per group, and we know there are many missing. Many of the books on these lists were self-published. The lists include memoirs and social commentary. We expand what “leadership narrative” means.

On the demand side, we, as the readers, the audience, and consumers, have influence. 

We can consult existing leadership narratives written by underrepresented authors and find ways to integrate relevant philosophies that align with and support our mission. Many authors, like Ruchika Tulyshan, Mikaela Kiner, Cindi Bright, and Dr. Marie Gervais, share useful strategies and tactics to foster inclusion at work. We can also validate those authors by promoting their work. 

Clearly, books by underrepresented authors are not always about race and diversity. Some books address race and gender; most do not. It shows that books by underrepresented authors don’t just have to focus on their identity. 

Women and people of color who are in leadership roles were hired for their expertise. Their diverse perspectives are a bonus. That’s how we should approach leadership books. Just as we don’t expect white male authors to write about their race and gender, underrepresented leadership authors shouldn’t need to focus on their race and gender.

Designers use a concept called the curb cut effect: if you design something for those with special needs, it may actually end up benefiting more people. A common example of this is when curb cuts were made into sidewalks for wheelchair users and ended up helping many others, like those with baby strollers and luggage. The idea here is when someone writes from a minority perspective, that perspective will end up helping and benefiting others too. 

An excellent example of this is Stacey Abram’s book, Lead from the Outside, which was originally titled Minority Leader. Each chapter has practical worksheets and frameworks that everyone, including white men who are not in the minority, would also find helpful. 

As consumers, we should evaluate our expectations for what counts as credible. Many popular leadership books are written by academics or those with corporate experience. White men dominate both academia and the corporate world, so leadership books also follow suit. It’s a vicious cycle. We think we need authors to have those credentials, so publishers only publish authors with those credentials, which reinforces the belief that we should only read those with these credentials.

Large corporation CEOs already author many books. Many fewer books are written by small business owners, who also are much more diverse. Moreover, small businesses account for nearly 99.75% of all companies, and they are responsible for 66% of new job creation. So why are we looking for the small minority of leaders at large companies to teach us? How is their experience more applicable or relevant?

When I read leadership books by white men, especially in business, they often cite their leadership roles in major organizations and relationships with billionaires. I just can’t relate. 

We lament the lack of diversity in leadership as a way to advocate for systemic change. 

As individuals, we may not have the power, position, or capacity to influence who is represented in our boardroom and executive teams. 

We do have the choice to start reading, supporting, and consuming leadership narratives by underrepresented authors.

This post was based on my LinkedIn Newsletter post, “Enrich how you lead by expanding who you read,” which was originally posted on June 2, 2022. Please subscribe.

2022 AAPI-Authored Leadership Books

We created this list to promote leadership narratives written by Americans of Asian Pacific Islander (API) heritage. This list is meant to be a resource, not an official endorsement. The books are not ranked or listed in any particular order. 

2022-AAPI-Authored-Leadership-Books-V2.Download
  1. This Is One Way to Dance by Sejal Shah
  2. My Unforgotten Seattle by Ron Chew
  3. Sigh, Gone: A Misfits Memoir of Great Books, Punk Rock, and the Fight to Fit In by Phuc Tran
  4. Crying in H Mart: A Memoir by Michelle Zauner
  5. Living for Change by Grace Boggs
  6. Where the Past Begins: Memory & Imagination by Amy Tan
  7. Fresh Off the Boat: A Memoir by Eddie Huang
  8. The Cooked Seed: A Memoir by Anchee Min
  9. Out of the Gobi: My Story of China & America by Weijian Shan
  10. Love, Loss, and What We Ate: A Memoir by Padma Lakshmi
  11. Mixed Plate: Chronicles of an All-American Combo by Jo Koy
  12. An American Family: A Memoir of Hope & Sacrifice by Khizr Khan
  13. Brotherhood: Dharma, Destiny, and the American Dream by Deepak Chopra & Sanjiv Chopra
  14. Hawaii’s Story by Liliuokalani
  15. Nisei Radicals: The Feminist Poetics and Transformative Ministry of Mitsuye Yamada and Michael Yasutake by Diane C. Fujino
  16. See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love by Valarie Kaur
  17. Heart of Fire: An Immigrant Daughter’s Story by Mazie K. Hirono
  18. How to Raise a Feminist Son: Motherhood, Masculinity, and the Making of my Family by Sonora Jha
  19. Empress: The Astonishing Reign of Nur Jahan by Ruby Lal
  20. The Souls of Yellow Folk: Essays by Wesley Yang
  21. Dear Girls: Intimate Tales, Untold Secrets, & Advice for Living Your Best Life by Ali Wong
  22. Fault Lines: A Memoir by Meena Alexander
  23. Eat a Peach: A Memoir by David Chang
  24. Reset: My Fight for Inclusion and Lasting Change by Ellen Pao
  25. Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance by Angela Duckworth
  26. The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere (TED Books) by Pico Iyer
  27. The Art of Strategy: A Game Theorist’s Guide to Success in Business and Life by Avinash K. Dixit
  28. The Art of the Start 2.0: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything by Guy Kawasaki
  29. The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success: A Practical Guide to the Fulfillment of Your Dreams by Deepak Chopra
  30. The Checklist Manifesto: How to Get Things Right by Atul Gawande
  31. Limitless: Upgrade Your Brain, Learn Anything Faster, and Unlock Your Exceptional Life by Jim Kwik
  32. Postcolonial Leadership, A: Asian Immigrant Christian Leadership and Its Challenges by Hee An Choi
  33. Enough About Me: The Unexpected Power of Selflessness by Richard Lui
  34. Legal Heroes in the Trump Era: Be Inspired, Expand Your Impact, Change the World by Tahima Watson
  35. Hit Refresh: The Quest to Rediscover Microsoft’s Soul and Imagine a Better Future for Everyone by Satya Nadella
  36. All In by Jerry Yang
  37. Radical: Fighting to Put Students First by Michelle Rhee
  38. My Life in Full: Work, Family, and Our Future by Indra Nooyi
  39. Unprecedented: The Masters and Me by Tiger Woods
  40. Delivering Happiness by Tony Hsieh
  41. Be Water, My Friend: The Teachings of Bruce Lee by Sharon Lee
  42. Unsung Hero: The Col. Young O. Kim Story by Woo Sung Han
  43. You’re More Powerful Than You Think: A Citizen’s Guide to Making Change Happen by Eric Liu
  44. Holding Serve: Preserving on and Off the Court by Michael Chang
  45. Great Asian Americans: Michelle Kwan by Stephanie Cham
  46. Great Asian Americans: Ellison Onizuka by Stephanie Cham
  47. Great Asian Americans: Tammy Duckworth by Stephanie Cham
  48. Great Asian Americans: Patsy Mink by Stephanie Cham
  49. Great Asian Americans: Yo-Yo Ma by Stephanie Cham
  50. To The Stars: The Autobiography of George Takei by George Takei
  51. Big Little Man: In Search of My Asian Self by Alex Tizon
  52. I love a Broad Margin to My Life by Maxine Hong Kingston
  53. Dat: Tackling Life and the NFL by Dat Nguyen
  54. Courage: The backbone of Leadership by Gus Lee and Diane Elliott-Lee
  55. Madame Wu Chien-shiung: The First lady of Physics Research by Tsai-chien Chiang
  56. It Takes Moxie by Maureen Francisco
  57. Finding the Edge: My Life On The Ice by Karen Chen
  58. Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money That the Poor and Middle Class Do Not! by Robert T. Kiyosaki
  59. Still Life with Rice by Helie Lee
  60. I’m the One That I Want by Margaret Cho
  61. When Invisible Children Sing by Chi Cheng Huang
  62. Creating the Digital Future: The Secrets of Consistent Innovation at Intel by Albert T.c. Yu
  63. Boundaries by Maya Lin
  64. The War on Normal People by Andrew Yang
  65. Blue Ocean Strategy: How to Create Uncontested Market Space and Make the Competition Irrelevant by W. Chan Kim
  66. Leadership and Crisis by Bobby Jindal
  67. Enduring Conviction: Fred Korematsu and His Quest for Justice by Lorraine K. Bannai
  68. A Principled Stand: The Story of Hirabayashi v. United States by Gordon K. Hirabayashi
  69. Growing Up Brown: Memoirs of a Filipino American by Peter M. Jamero
  70. The Silent Master: Awakening the Power Within by Tae Yun Kim
  71. The Black Widow’s Guide to Killer Pool: Become the Player to Beat by Jeanette Lee
  72. My Forty years as a Diplomat by Feng-Shan Ho
  73. You Can’t Be Serious by Kal Penn
  74. Behind Deep Blue: Building the Computer that Defeated the World Chess Champion by Feng-Hsiung Hsu
  75. Not Nice: Stop People Pleasing, Staying Silent, & Feeling Guilty…And Start Speaking Up, Saying No, Asking Boldly, & Unapologetically Being Yourself by Dr. Aziz Gazupura
  76. The Truths We Hold: An American Journey by Kamala Harris
  77. Impressive First Impressions: A Guide to the Most Important 30 Seconds (And 30 Years) of Your Career by Vu H. Pham
  78. With Schwarzkopf: Life Lessons of the Bear by Gus Lee
  79. Purpose Mindset by Akhtar Badshah
  80. You Are A Mogul: How to Do the Impossible, Do It Yourself, and Do it Now by Tiffany Pham
  81. The Diversity Advantage: Fixing Gender Inequality in the Workplace by Ruchika Tulshyan
  82. Shorter: Work Better, Smarter, and Less – Here’s How by Alex Soojung-Kim Pang
  83. Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong
  84. Come into my Office: Stories from an HR Leader in Silicon Valley by Mai Ton
  85. AugmentAsian: Strategies and Tools for Asian Pacific American Professional & Leadership Success by Asian Upward & Elevate Teams
  86. Edge: Turning Adversity Into Advantage by Laura Huang
  87. American Dreamer: How I Escaped Communist Vietnam and Built a Successful Life in America by Tim Tran
  88. Glue: How Project Leaders Create Cohesive, Engaged, High-Performing Teams by Anh Dao Pham
  89. Thick Face, Black Heart: The Warrior Philosophy for Conquering The Challenges of Business and Life by Chin-Ning Chu
  90. Uplifted: Journeys of Abundance, Community, and Identity by Geena Chen
  91. Sheer Determination: Swimming Upstream in a Downstream World by Kay Hire
  92. Reflections of Seattle’s Chinese Americans: The First 100 Years by Ron Chew
  93. Show Your Worth: 8 Intentional Strategies for Women to Emerge as Leaders at Work by Shelmina Babai Abri
  94. Inclusion on Purpose: An Intersectional Approach to Create a Culture of Belonging at Work by Ruchika Tulshyan
  95. Invitation to Lead: Guidance for Emerging Asian American Leaders by Paul Tokunaga
  96. The Making of Asian America: A History by Erika Lee
  97. World of Wonders: In Praise of Fireflies, Whale Sharks, and Other Astonishments by Aime Nezhukamatahil
  98. The Visibility Mindset: How Asian American Leaders Create Opportunities and Push Past Barriers by Bernice M Chao & Jessalin Lam
  99. This is Not a T-Shirt: A Brand, A Culture, A Community – A Life in Streetwear by Bobby Hundreds
  100. It’s Always Sunny Above the Clouds: Getting the Next Generation Into the Cockpit by Nick Tran
  101. Journey for Justice: The Life of Larry Itliong by Dawn B. Mabalon, PhD & Gayle Romas 
  102. Lions and Tigers and Bears: The Internet Strikes Back (Oh Myyy!) by George Takei
  103. Every Day is a Gift: A Memoir by Tammy Duckworth
  104. Fierce and Fearless: Patsy Takemoto Mink, First Woman of Color in Congress by Judy Tzu-hun Wu & Gwendolyn Mink
  105. The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century by Grace Lee Boggs
  106. 7 Forms of Respect: A Guide to Transforming Your Communication and Relationships at Work by Julie Pham, PhD
  107. The Death of Truth: Notes on Falsehoods in the Age of Trump by Michiko Kakutani
  108. The Woman Warrior: Memoirs of a Girlhood Among Ghosts by Maxine Hong Kingston
  109. America for Americans: A History of Xenophobia in the United States by Erika Lee
  110. Somewhere Inside: One Sister’s Captivity In North Korea and the Other’s Fight to Bring Her Home by Laura Ling & Lisa Ling
  111. Power Your Purpose: A Leader’s Guide to Creating a Better Life and a Better World by Shian Chuan 
  112. The Asian American Achievement Paradox by Jennifer Lee & Min Zhou 
  113. I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For: Now What? 21 Days to Confidence and Clarity by Dr. Sweta Chawla 
  114. Energize: Make the Most of Every Moment by Simon Alexander Ong 
  115. The Art of Gathering: How We Come Together and Why it Matters by Priya Parker 
  116. Breaking the Bamboo Ceiling: Career Strategies for Asians by Jane Hyun 
  117. Perfect Enough: How to Be Happier and More Productive by Letting Go of Perfectionism by Judy t. Dang
  118. The Wake Up: Closing the Gap Between Good Intentions and Real Change by Michelle MiJung Kim 
  119. The Loneliest Americans by Jay Caspian Kang 
  120. Why Not Me? By Mindy Kaling
  121. Healing Resistance: A RAdically Different Response to Harm by Kazu Haga 
  122. The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down by Haemin Sunim 
  123. Love For Imperfect Things: How to Accept Yourself in a World Striving for Perfectionism by Haemin Sunim 
  124. Being Mortal: Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande
  125. When Breath Becomes Air by Paul Kalanithi
  126. Bitter Fruit: The Politics of Korean-Black Conflict in New York City by Claire Jean Kim 
  127. Racial Melancholia, Racial Dissociation: On the Social and Psychic Liv es of Asian Americans by David Eng 
  128. Authentic Inclusion: Drives Disruptive Innovation by Frances West
  129. Innovation Starts with I: Increase Your Influence. Ignite Your Impact. By Saleema Vellani
  130. Talk it Up! A Guide to Successful Public Speaking by Mr. David Suk Brown
  131. Conquering the Chaos by Ravi Venkatesan
  132. Women Who Lead: Timeless Life, Career, and Business Secrets from Inspiring Women Around the World by Izdihar Jamil
  133. The Confidence of Yes: How to Harness the Energy of Opportunity by Izdihar Jamil

We are continually adding to this list. If you have any recommended additions please send us an email at info@curiositybased.com so we can add it here.

Interested in reading more? Check out our Leadership Books Authored by Women booklist! 

Check Out the List!

Read our other leadership booklists too!

Women in Political Leadership: Interview with Seattle City Councilmember Teresa Mosqueda

What sparked your interest in serving in public office?

I come from a public health advocate perspective and have a history in public health. Social determinants of health predict healthy, safe communities. Ninety-five percent (95%) of things that make people healthy is having stable housing, healthy workplaces, living in toxic free communities, and people being able take leave when they need it. All of those social determinants of health take place in public policy. 

What is it like being a woman in public office? What are some strengths and challenges you experience that might be unique for women in policy making spaces?

Many. Women are often criticized as candidates/elected officials by some who are defining what a woman should be doing if they don’t present with an approachable demeanor. If we’re critical on something or questioning a policy, that approach is not often seen in the same light as a male colleague. There’s a different level of expectation and it’s unfair and unjust. We are able to break away from that perspective more and more, but it’s still pervasive and is critical to policy. Often, you need to work twice as hard to prove yourself. 

Folks who identify as female can help other identifying females by being that support. Speak up, validate ideas, surround individuals and folks who identify as women with people who are lifting those good ideas. Those ideas, if repeated by a man, are given more attention. The anecdote to the sexism is to lift up and support other colleagues and community members who are just and valid in their perspectives and to make sure their voices are heard. 

From your perspective, what are the most pressing issues to our region?

Right now, the biggest pressing issue is lack of access to affordable housing, childcare, and economic instability (especially for sectors who have women/people of color/women of color in lower wage positions). The inequities in each of those categories has been exacerbated by COVID. This has been displayed as those in lower wage jobs were considered essential workers and had to continue to go to work, risking their exposure and family’s exposure to the virus… or pull themselves out of the workforce. There were not accessible places to go. The consequences have been hardest felt by women and women of color, who were disproportionately impacted. 

What are some policy solutions that you’re particularly passionate about?

Directly supporting workers in the childcare industry and making sure that childcare workers are paid living wages, have union representation, and have career ladder opportunities. This actually stabilizes other sectors too. American Rescue Plan dollars are currently being put towards childcare allotments and childcare providers to prop up the childcare sector. 

We also need to create more housing options across the city and region. Creating denser opportunities for people to live near work, places of worship, and community. We are working to have a walkable, livable city, with the majority of funding from the Jumpstart payroll tax. 

How does curiosity aid the policymaking and decision making process?

Curiosity stems from rejecting status quo explanations and recognizing when a public policy is not just. Just because a policy is on the books or hasn’t been addressed before does not make it right. Early in my term, I heard from a handful of workers who were not able to take family leave after the death of a child. These workers were grieving the loss of their child while they had to get paperwork and finances in order. We asked, “why can’t they use their leave?”. Paid family leave is not just for being sick or in need of care. We passed bereavement leave. This is a good example of asking the question “why?”. If I lost a child or parent, I would not be functionally able to go back to work. It’s harmful not only for workers and systems, it’s also bad for the health of women in our country which has a higher infant and maternal mortality rate than any other developed nation. We need to get to the root of that problem. This is how curiosity stems from diverse lived experience, and asking “why is this the status quo?” 

Continue reading our Women in Political Leadership Series:

Interested in learning more from women in leadership? Check out our Leadership Book List, where we have compiled 350+ books written by women in leadership.

Read the list!

Women in Political Leadership: Interview with Bellevue City Councilmember Janice Zahn

What sparked your interest in serving in public office? 

For me, it’s been a journey. I don’t know that I grew up thinking “I’ll be in public service.” Coming to the US as an immigrant from Hong Kong in the mid-70s, I always felt inherent gratitude that we were sponsored by my uncle to get education in college. In the mid-70s, Vietnamese refugees came to the US and one of my best friends in middle school was from Vietnam. The whole quest or interest in public service, whether volunteering or rolling up sleeves to solve problems, was always a part of me. 

I pivoted from working in private agencies after I left college to the Port of Seattle and it really opened my outlook into what public service looks like. The Port of Seattle is a public government agency that’s baked in economic development with a huge interest in creating an inclusive economy and not leaving people behind as we create opportunities in the region. Along the way, I went back to school and got a public service degree 20 years later from the UW Evans School of Public Administration.

[It sounds like achieving inclusion and belonging are strong motivations for you.]

As a Bellevue Councilmember, a sense of belonging very much resonates. Our motto is “Bellevue welcomes our world and diversity is our strength.” We need to be a place where people feel like they belong. For Asian Americans, if they don’t feel like they belong, they might always feel like a perpetual foreigner. 

What is it like being a woman in public office? What are some strengths and challenges you experience that might be unique for women in policy-making spaces? 

Public office brings challenges and joy as well.  For me, I have to wonder if it is only my perspective as a woman that I have a certain lived experience. Or is it because I am both a woman and person of color, an engineer, and in a biracial marriage? I wonder if it would be different if I was an elected male of color, versus an elected woman of color.  One of the challenges is that we can’t pull apart our identities. We can’t play the “what if” game. When I’m in spaces where there are predominantly men, whether it’s in policy or in my engineering management career, there are not really as many people who look like me. I do believe that women are still treated differently than men from the patriarchy standpoint. We can show up with similar mannerisms, the things we say and how we say them, and we are judged differently. If I say something and don’t get feedback and then have a male colleague who says exactly the same thing, they’re suddenly getting an interactive dialogue. In a way, that’s the most insidious part of the disparities. We may never be able to put our finger on it because bias is so subtle. Lastly, as an Asian, I also wonder if we’re really hard on ourselves because of the “model minority” stereotype and the idea that we don’t want to shame our parents because they sacrificed so much for us to live the American dream. We can show up with perfectionism and are more mindful of how much we lift up our voices. 

There are three different hierarchies: class, gender, and race. I think about the fact that the large parts of my career and ever since I came to the US, my dad had the belief that we need to speak English perfectly and lose our accents. The pathway to success meant to assimilate. When I think about the hierarchy, I find it to be very true. In the male dominated engineer space, I found that I had to put away a part of me to fit in. Later in my life, I shied away from conformity and began to really center the voices who weren’t being heard in public spaces and to lift the voices of women and minorities. It led to innovation with diverse thoughts and new ideas. 

In some regards, our society is a system of systems. The way it works is that if you fit inside the system, you don’t get kicked out as an outlier. It’s a delicate dance. We are trying to change the system from within the system that is kicking us to the curb. For me, I was never someone who felt comfortable being an activist, probably because my dad had the belief that we had to keep our head down and be humble and not make waves. He was born in China and back then if you were a government official or successful in business, you could be sent to a reeducation camp. My whole family fled. The lesson learned was “don’t make waves or bad things will happen to you.” Despite this, we have found a way to change the system from within the system to try and make changes. It can feel slow and frustrating. Often, you’re gas lit and left wondering if your lived experience is valid or not. We don’t talk openly about it enough. 

From your perspective, what are the most pressing issues to our region?

They’re all interrelated. Certainly in our region, in Bellevue and nationwide, affordable housing is huge. That leads to all kinds of various things, including homelessness, or lack of transportation choices for people. It leads to change of our environment and people who are most far from the resources living in spaces where there’s less green space and parks. Those system inequities also play into the broken, underfunded systems – like what we saw with COVID through healthcare access and economic opportunities. 

I believe in inclusive economies. Who is surviving during COVID? – The big companies. Small mom and pop shops are struggling. We’re also seeing a disparity in who has a voice at the table and who’s facilitating the meetings being held at those tables. 

Those pressing issues are grounded in who is in leadership that is willing to make the kind of changes needed to step away from the status quo and to step into that scale. Maybe we have done a little more with homelessness, transportation, economy, etc, but baby steps won’t get us into where we need to go anytime quickly. Instead, we are getting farther and farther behind. In Bellevue, the average price of a home is over $1 million. Rents in some of the smallest rentals are still at $2000. How much money do you need to make to survive on that kind of wage? 

Mental and behavioral health services are also underfunded and part of a broken system. As a society, we have continued to treat the non-profit, community-based organizations as though people should love the work they do so much that they don’t need to have a living wage. That is wrong and unsustainable. We have to reckon with the fact that the very people who are working in these broken systems are not making a living wage yet are doing the hardest work to meet community needs. If we don’t change the ways we think about funding these organizations, we will exacerbate challenges. When you get on an airplane, you put on your own oxygen mask before helping others. Nonprofits are not getting the oxygen masks that they need. 

What are some policy solutions that you’re particularly passionate about?

From a leadership standpoint, we need leaders who have the courage to speak truth to power and state what needs to change. At the same time, we need to give our community a voice and help to let them be advocates. We need more engagement with our youth. We need to lift community voices and organizations so that they understand how budgets are built, where the gaps are, where the changes are needed to make funding.

I’ve heard from others that we need to give people a place at the table. What we really need to do is bring people in to build a table together and engage in co-creation. We need to rethink the very way that government provides services and how we are grounded in “people first” to focus on what people need versus what we think they need. 

The other part is that when we talk about challenges around housing, transportation, environment, and economy – they don’t stop and city borders. We need to get as regional as possible to collaborate and find solutions together.

How does curiosity aid the policymaking and decision making process? 

If we want to have innovative solutions, curiosity is foundational. In addition to that, if we center things from a space of curiosity, it also creates a better entry point for conversation. I was trained as an engineer. I have a lot of curiosity and ask a lot of questions. Asking questions can be perceived as challenging someone’s work. Centering spaces with curiosity can lower the temperature in the room. We want to understand the thinking process behind policies. It’s about centering our ability to learn, versus a perception that we’re just criticizing someone’s sense work. 

I’m naturally curious and it helps me learn and understand. It makes the decisions better. I have to say that it took me a while to get to that space where as a curious person, I didn’t see that there were issues asking questions. Once I got into leadership, management, and then council, I had to start with the framing of natural curiosity so that I was being proactive in explaining the ‘why’ behind my questions. 

If we put out a policy that only addresses the ‘tip of the iceberg’ about what problem we’re trying to solve, you don’t get down to the root causes of the issue. The policy and solution you bring may make underlying causes worse. We can see it played out in homelessness policies. If we ask the ‘why’, it helps us to get more grounded in what problem we’re trying to solve.

Continue reading our Women in Political Leadership Series:

Interested in learning more from women in leadership? Check out our Leadership Book List, where we have compiled 350+ books written by women in leadership.

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Women in Political Leadership: Interview with Seattle Deputy Mayor Kendee Yamaguchi

What sparked your interest in serving in public office?

My interest in public service stems from my family’s experience being placed in a Japanese Internment camp during World War II. Early on in school, I felt that history may have looked different if it included the representation of policy decision makers at the table raising issues and concerns during critical moments of decision making. The impact policy decisions had on my community and the generations that followed fueled my passion to work in this area. I learned firsthand the importance of representation and how the absence of it impacts society. In memory of my grandparents and family, I have worked for over two decades in all levels of government to contribute my skills to building a better community, nation, and world.

What is it like being a woman in public office? What are some strengths and challenges you experience that might be unique for women in policy making spaces?

As the first person and woman in my family to go to college, I had many firsts in my personal and professional life. I was fortunate to become one of the youngest AAPI women to work at the White House, be appointed a state agency cabinet member, and serve on several executive management teams in government. Breaking through glass ceilings for others and paving paths for future generations helps give me the strength to face challenges. There are many challenges that come with breaking new ground, to name a few — gender bias, discrimination, age bias, etc. When I first started out in my career being one of the “firsts,” I had fail and learn as there was no  “manual” or role model to look up to in some situations. These experiences later in my life have been critical to my success as it ultimately prepared me to navigate situations. Without being forced to exercise this muscle, I would not have the foundation, resiliency, and confidence to take on almost anything. 

From your perspective, what are the most pressing issues to our region?

Public Safety, homelessness, COVID recovery, and a restoration of trust and belief in government.

In my position, I have a focus on supporting a robust and equitable recovery from the pandemic for our City’s small businesses and working families, arts and entertainment organizations, and communities across our City — helping rebuild and restore our City. We have an opportunity to come back from this pandemic stronger than ever, leading with innovation and equity, community voices and new ideas.

Just as important is the restoration of improving trust in our government. Mayor Harrell has made it a priority for the City of Seattle to get ‘back to the basics’ of good governance — serving the people and communities of our City well, and stressing what we have in common and instead of what separates us. Getting back to our residents, meeting their immediate needs, and showing the kind of action that leads to tangible, sustainable results in everyday neighbors’ lives. In my role, that means ensuring our government is a conduit for community organizations and small businesses to thrive — helping get support when they need it, attracting and putting on world class events, and uniting our City together to show what we can accomplish when we share our common values and goals.

What are some policy solutions that you’re particularly passionate about?

Our Office of Economic Development (OED) which is under new leadership is going to play a key role in getting recovery dollars out into the community for small businesses most impacted. I believe, as does the mayor, that we can supercharge our OED office to drive a new level of economic development and investment in our community. That means making it a hub for small businesses in need of support, a leader on workforce development, and a leader in supporting women and minority owned businesses.  

I also believe collaboration locally and regionally — public, private, and philanthropic — is going to be an important difference maker. For example, the mayor is building new systems to address the homelessness crisis that lead to a more coordinated and effective response. This includes a recently announced collaboration between the City, County, Regional Homelessness Authority, and major businesses and philanthropic leaders to address the homelessness crisis downtown. When we reduce silos and work together, we can do so much more — I have hope for our future given the potential opportunities to partner with organizations and community groups.

How does curiosity aid the policymaking and decision-making process?

Curiosity is critical to decision-making. Being able to raise questions, be creative, and innovative allow us to reach the best results. Having diverse opinions, representation and critical thinking brings about better policies. If we approach challenges in the same ways, we inevitably get the same results. Our present-day world requires us to be curious and creative to solve some of the complex problems that face us.  We need leaders that can think “out of the box” and collaborate with partners to achieve positive results for our City.

Continue reading our Women in Political Leadership Series:

Interested in learning more from women in leadership? Check out our Leadership Book List, where we have compiled 350+ books written by women in leadership.

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Women in Political Leadership: Interview with Redmond Mayor Angela Birney

Curiosity, Representation, and Leadership: A Conversation with a Redmond Councilmember

What Sparked Your Interest in Public Office

I’ve always been interested in politics, housing, and how local systems work. Running for office wasn’t something I had planned. In 2014, the mayor of Redmond asked if I had ever considered it. I said no—most people don’t. He encouraged me to follow the city council and see if it sparked my interest.

At that time, only one woman served on the seven-member council. That imbalance didn’t sit right with me, especially since there were no people of color either. As I began following council meetings, I realized I could contribute meaningfully. Local politics felt like the right place to make an impact. I decided to run—and I won.

Representation matters deeply to me. I believe people should see themselves reflected in their government, and that belief continues to motivate my public service.

Being a Woman in Public Office

When I first won my election, I attended Leadership Eastside’s mayor’s lunch. There was only one female mayor there—Amy Walen. That moment struck me as concerning. Now, years later, most Eastside mayors are women. The shift has been inspiring.

More women and people of color are running and winning seats. I’ve been fortunate to work alongside remarkable female leaders. I think of Patty Murray and Chris Gregoire—women who led with strength and vision. Their success motivates me to keep pushing for progress.

Women bring their lived experiences into policymaking. For instance, I used to teach middle-school science, and that background helps me relate to educators and families. Many of my colleagues do the same, applying lessons from their own lives to serve their communities.

The Most Pressing Issue: Affordable Housing

Affordable housing remains the most critical issue facing our region. Its absence affects nearly everything—commutes, family time, and community stability. As costs rise, people move farther from jobs and spend more hours traveling. The ripple effects are enormous.

We need to build denser, well-planned urban environments. That’s the only sustainable way to create homes people can actually afford. Continued collaboration and innovative policy are essential to reach that goal.

Policy Solutions and Collaboration

As the legislative session wraps up, several bills focus on affordable housing. I’m eager to work with lawmakers on effective solutions. My focus is on collaboration—cities, counties, and the state must align their efforts.

King County intersects with many others. While borders exist on paper, housing challenges cross them easily. By combining our different experiences, we can find smarter, lasting solutions. I often remind colleagues of the proverb: “To go fast, go alone. To go far, go together.” That’s how real progress happens.

The Role of Curiosity in Policymaking

Curiosity drives my leadership. I always want to understand how people arrive at decisions and what long-term impacts those choices may have. I ask questions such as: What don’t I know yet? Who else should I talk to? What are the unintended consequences?

That mindset helps me grow as a policymaker. I’m aware of what I know—and even more aware of what I don’t. Staying curious keeps me learning, connecting, and improving how I serve my community.

Continue reading our Women in Political Leadership Series:

Interested in learning more from women in leadership? Check out our Leadership Book List, where we have compiled 350+ books written by women in leadership.

Read the list!

Women in Political Leadership: Interview with Representative Debra Entenman

What sparked your interest in serving in public office? 

Teachers and educators were positive influences and were very encouraging to me as a child. Public policy came to me when I returned to college after a 10 +  year absence. I decided to take a few classes at Highline Community College.  I was considering teaching. In one of the classes we were talking about public policy around high stakes testing. I thought “that’s not what teaching is”. Teaching is helping students to learn something new, to see their reaction  when something clicks, and you know they understand. I began advocating for no high stakes testing and my teacher told me “I think you want to work in public policy.” I knew about policy as a theory, not as a career. I started volunteering with Children’s Alliance and changed my major to political science. 

What is it like being a woman in public office? What are some strengths and challenges you experience that might be unique for women in policy making spaces?

Running as a Black woman and white woman are two different things. I am not here to uphold systems that did not have me in mind when they were established.  I am here to make changes and be honest about the fundamental foundational changes that need to be made in public policy. Things happen differently for white women in this space than happens for me. Most of the time they come because they can afford to be part-time legislators, or to work on one issue that is a passion project for them. They have had the opportunity to be in leadership in a nonprofit and to do other things that some [Black women] haven’t had the opportunity to do. I have made significant sacrifices to become a legislator, significant decrease in family income, changes to how we do things at home and how my retirement fund would be smaller because I decided to leave my job with the federal government.

When running for office and I’m out in public people challenge me on how I look and the tone of voice I use. Consultants who are not used to working with Black women advised me to have a look. Sometimes I will wear my hair in braids or straighten my hair. I was told not to change my look so people will recognize me. I’m not going to behave that way.  

For me, the most challenging thing is that, just like in our society, some people have low expectations of what you want to do as a policy maker as a woman. They think you only want to work on issues for children or don’t want to be on the finance committee. You have to break those barriers and say to people “ Let’s learn together.” We have the capacity. 

From your perspective, what are the most pressing issues to our region? 

What we have learned from COVID is that people need a safe place to live, healthy food to eat,  and to feel like they are contributing to society. For some that means paid work, for others it’s volunteering, and for others it’s simply recognized. Older and younger people (seniors and children) want to be seen more than anything else. We have a society that is set up to value people who work and make money. If you don’t do that you are seen as less valuable. Employment should be fair and ethical, and as a society we should do more. What we don’t have are fundamental protections for shelter, food, healthcare, and education. In this country, those things should be available to everyone.  A lot of the unrest in our country comes from not having basic necessities. Not saying it’s perfect but it is a better living without being worried about food,  healthcare, access to education,  and housing. 

What are some policy solutions that you’re particularly passionate about?

I really think about what we do around support for families. Temporary Aid to Needy Families (TANF) should be reformed . We need to have fundamental changes in our system where we don’t view a person without money as a person without value.  We have fraud prevention measures that are not helpful for families. We need to change the ways we provide assistance to people who are in need. I have worked around TANF reform and not cutting people off from TANF. People often argue that TANF is supposed to be temporary. If I am a parent and have a child, that child will need one caring adult over a period of time. It doesn’t end when that child is 5yo and goes to kindergarten. That child and family still needs assistance. We do little for single men based on their gender. I think that’s wrong. Why prioritize a woman over a man? What if a man has a child?… Does he get the same benefit? We have to ask questions about the system and goals of the system. Are we here to help people from being in poverty, hungry, or houseless or are we here to punish them like it is a moral failing to be poor? In capitalism, we are all part of a system and part of that system says that some people need to be unemployed. Do we take those whom are unemployed and not make sure there’s a safety net? Does work make a person valuable? With COVID, a lot of people lost their jobs and they are no less valuable to society. 

How does curiosity aid the policymaking and decision making process? 

I know when I think about making policy, you usually come with a problem and try to find a solution. I try to ask the question “has somebody tried to solve this before?” As a legislator, there are many ideas that someone has tried to solve before. I ask: What happened? What was their roadblock? Is there more to the system that needs to change before we can have a positive impact? 

I’m always curious as to how we got to where we are now, who tried to change it, what their obstacles were, and if there were unintended consequences of policy. Advice I received  from Congressman Smith is: When you are a legislator, sometimes the goal is to prevent policy that would have a negative impact. Be curious about the impact of policy and ask what the undoing of the policy will mean for the institution and the person who is the beneficiary. 

As an example, I look at my work with police reform. Many people think that means we want to end policing. I am not a person who wants to end policing. I am a person who wants policing to be more effective and less impactive on the people who are interacting with police. I truly believe that an encounter with a police officer should not end in loss of life. We have to think about what is happening in policing now and policing policy. What is the goal of people living in society, the goal of police, and what is the goal of government? Most don’t come in contact with police at all. If they do, they should come out alive. We should all come out alive. Police officers work with prosecutors and have a relationship, biasing outcome. What does it mean for a person accused? Do we truly have independent investigations? What we have learned from doing this work, is as soon as a police officer is involved in a case where use of force occurred, it was all about protecting the police officer. Some people couldn’t see the bias in that. I think about why the incident occurred. Family members want to know what happened. We hear that over and over again.

We kept hearing from many people in policing that if people would comply there wouldn’t be negative outcomes. We have video evidence of people complying and still losing their life. We have to ask what happened in that occurrence, what are the policies and procedures, and what are the unintended consequences?

How did we get to policing to be this way in the first place? Policing came from patrolling and controlling enslaved people. At the foundation, we need to change policing in our country for the outcome to change.

Sometimes poor white people get killed by police but brown and black people are killed no matter their income level. This is an example of how curiosity led me to working on police-reform policy.

People still think that I personally don’t like the police, which is not true, what I want is for policing outcomes to be fair for everyone.

Continue reading our Women in Political Leadership Series:

Interested in learning more from women in leadership? Check out our Leadership Book List, where we have compiled 350+ books written by women in leadership.

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Women in Political Leadership: Interview with Senator Yasmin Trudeau

What sparked your interest in serving in public office? 

What inspired me more broadly is my culmination of lived experience, which made me want to pursue law and policy. I served almost 4 years representing the Office of the Attorney General as legislative director. Roles and openings in the Senate usually only come up every 20 years and there was a surprise announcement that a Senator was retiring. I wanted to take the opportunity to bring my lived experience more to the forefront and use my legal and advocacy experience inside the doors to engage with the public in a different way. My whole career has been focused on public service. 

What is it like being a woman in public office? What are some strengths and challenges you experience that might be unique for women in policy making spaces?

“Mansplaining” happens. That’s being a woman in any setting, but particularly in professional settings, especially as a woman of color. I have a toddler and am also pregnant, so it’s a different culmination of experiences that also shows up. It depends on the day and depends on what takes the lead. I see those challenges as opportunities. Committee meetings happen at 8am and the virtual setting has been helpful. Sometimes my kid will jump on my lap during committee meetings. I have to manage that a lot while still paying attention. It’s also double the pressure. 

[How have you learned to manage those challenges?]

If you’ve grown up in the struggle, you have mastered the “code switch” and fake it ‘til you make it. I always reflect on a professor that I had in law school who was young and looked younger. I am younger than most legislatures and look younger than that.  I learned from her that if you let people speak, you actually find out a lot more than if you stop them. 

From your perspective, what are the most pressing issues to our region? 

Housing and Homelessness. The three committees I requested are: housing, human services, and law and justice (judiciary committee). In all of those, public safety issues are intertwined. Certainly in the minds of the public, there’s lots of confusion on how public safety influences homelessness. There’s also the matter of housing supply.  

What are some policy solutions that you’re particularly passionate about?

The ones that come before those committees – housing in particular. I’m currently working on policy to support low income folks in housing who are double-struggling at the moment and am focused on serving those most vulnerable. I’m also focused on public safety and reclaiming and centering a narrative about what’s really happening regarding public safety. 

How does curiosity aid the policymaking and decision making process? 

I think that all of us should be curious all the time. What I see happen in politics a lot is that people come in with fixed views about the world and other people based on their political party and identities. That interrupts our ability to get to know each other both in the ways that we are distinct and similar from one another. I bring curiosity into every conversation, even if we’re on different pages. I’m curious about what brought them into public service. Was it a call to duty? I think that curiosity is fundamental if you really want to connect beyond our polarized landscape. There’s one book in particular that I read that I bought one month before the appointment process: See No Stranger. It’s about recognizing that there are things in everybody to be curious about. 

Continue reading our Women in Political Leadership Series:

Interested in learning more from women in leadership? Check out our Leadership Book List, where we have compiled 350+ books written by women in leadership.

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Honoring Women in Political Leadership

In honor of Women’s History Month, CuriosityBased interviewed six local female leaders who hold public office in the Pacific Northwest. 

We asked about their motivations for pursuing work in policy and their experiences being women in their positions, about their perspectives on current challenges to our region, and about policy solutions that they’re passionate about. We also asked them how curiosity is used in their policymaking and decision-making processes.  

We interviewed:

The women highlighted here each hold a different title, but one that they all share is leader. You can read more about each leader by clicking on their name.

From the interviews, it’s clear that each woman brings a diversity of perspective to her role through an intersection of identities. One thought shared by all the leaders interviewed is that collaboration through diverse perspectives (using curiosity) only leads to better policies and outcomes. As the saying goes, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

Join us in honoring these women as they lead us towards their visions of a just and equitable region for the Pacific Northwest.

Interested in reading more? Check out our list of Leadership Books Authored by Women!

Check out the list!

2022 Leadership Books Authored by Women

In honor of Women’s History Month, we created this list of books authored by people who identify as women. This list is meant to be a resource, not an official endorsement. The books are not ranked and are listed alphabetically.

Leadership-Books-Authored-by-Women-V1-3Download
  1. [Un]framing the “Bad Woman”: Sor Juana, Malinche, Coyolxauhqui, and other rebels with a cause by Alicia Gaspar de Alba
  2. #Not Your Princess: Voices of Native American Women by Lisa Charleyboy & Mary Beth Leatherdale
  3. #Values by Dr. Betty Uribe
  4. 101 Reasons to Get Out of Bed by Natasha Mine 
  5. 50 Billion Dollar Boss: African American Women Sharing Stories of Success in Entrepreneurship and Leadership by Kathey Porter
  6. A House of My Own: Stories From My Life by Sandra Cisneros
  7. A Mythic Life: Learning to live our greater story by Jean Houston
  8. A Passion for the Possible: A guide to realizing your true potential by Jean Houston
  9. A to Z: Your Navigator to Success by Chin-Ning Chu
  10. Abandon Me: Memoirs by Melissa Febos
  11. Act Like a Leader, Think Like a Leader by Herminia Ibarra
  12. After the Rain: Gentle Reminders for Healing, Courage, and Self-Love by Alexandra Elle
  13. Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism by Bell Hooks
  14. All Bout Love by Bell Hooks
  15. All In: An Autobiography by Billie Jean King
  16. All the Leader You Can Be by Suzanne Bates
  17. Almost a Woman by Esmerelda Santiago
  18. American Indian Stories by Zitkala-Sa
  19. And A Voice to Sing With: A Memoir by Joan Baez
  20. And Now We Are Going to Have a Party: Liner Notes to a Writer’s Early Life by Nicola Griffith 
  21. Annapurna: A Woman’s place by Arlene Blum
  22. AOC: The Fearless Rise and Powerful Resonance of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortes by Lynda Lopez
  23. Apocalyptic Best Practices: A unique approach to fear and change by Dr. Elisebeth VanderWeil 
  24. As Long As Grass Grows: The Indigenous Fight for Environmental Justice, from Colonization to Standing Rock by Dina Gilio-Whitaker
  25. As We Have Always Done: Indigenous Freedom Through Radical Resistance by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
  26. Ask For It: How women can use the power of negotiation to get what they really want by Linda Babcock & Sara Aslchever
  27. ASL Saved My Life… Until it Didn’t by Jenni Kleinman Berebitsky 
  28. Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience by Brene Brown
  29. Awakening Compassion at Work by Jane Dutton & Monica Worline
  30. Bad Indians: A Tribal Memoir by Debora Miranda
  31. Balancing Work and Life: The Nia Guide for Black Women by Sheryl Huggins & Cherly Mayberry McKissack
  32. Bamboozled: How God Tricked Me into the Life of My Dreams by Yvonne Orji
  33. Be Water, My Friend: The Teachings of Bruce Lee by Sharon Lee
  34. Becoming by Michelle Obama
  35. Believe Bigger: Discover the Path to Your Life Purpose by Marshawn Evans Daniels
  36. Being Heumann: an unrepentant memoir of a disability rights activist by Judith E. Heumann
  37. Biased: Uncovering the hidden prejudice that shapes what we see, think, and do by Jennifer Eberhardt
  38. Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear by Elizabeth Gilbert
  39. Bird of Paradise: How I became a Latina by Raquel Cepeda
  40. Black Futures by Kimberly Drew, Jenna Wortham
  41. Black Indian: A memoir by Shonda Buchanan
  42. Black Power Inc.: The New Voices of Success by Cora Daniels
  43. Blaze Your Own Trail: An Interactive Guide to Navigating Life with Confidence, Solidarity, and Compassion by Rebekah Bastian
  44. Blood, Bones & Butter: The Inadvertent Education of a Reluctant Chef by Gabrielle Hamilton
  45. Blue Ocean Strategy by Renee Mauborgne
  46. Borderlands / La Frontera: The New Mestiz by Gloria Anzaldúa
  47. Boss Bride: The Powerful Woman’s Playbook for Love and Success by Charreah Jackson
  48. Boundaries by Maya Lin 
  49. Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous wisdom, scientific knowledge, and the teachings of plants by Robin Wall Kimmerer
  50. Branding Pays by Karen Kang
  51. Bridge Builders by Maria Keckler
  52. Bridges to Heal US: Stories and Strategies for Racial Healing by Erin Jones
  53. Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boy’s Club of Silicon Valley by Emily Chang
  54. Business as Unusual by Anita Roddick
  55. Caring: A feminine approach to ethics and moral education by Nel Noddings
  56. Climb: Taking Every Step with Conviction,Courage, and Calculated Risk to Achieve a Thriving Career and a Successful Life by Michelle Gadsden-Williams & Carolyn M. Brown
  57. Come into My Office: Stories from an HR Leader in Silicon Valley by Mai Ton
  58. Common Fire: Leading lives of commitment in a complex world by Sharon Parks, et. al.
  59. Confidence by Rosabeth Moss Kanter
  60. Courage: The Backbone of Leadership by Gus Lee & Diane Elliott-Lee
  61. Crazy Brave: A Memoir by Joy Harjo
  62. Critically Sovereign: Indigenous Gender, Sexuality, and Feminist Studies by Joanne Barker
  63. Crux: A cross-border memoir by Jean Guerrero
  64. Crying in H Mart: A Memoir by Michelle Zauner
  65. Dancing at the Edge of the World: thoughts on words, women, place by Ursula LeGuin
  66. Dare to Lead: Brave Work. Tough Conversations. Whole Hearts. by Brene Brown
  67. Darling, You Can’t Do Both by Janet Kestin & Nancy Vonk
  68. Dear Female Founder: 66 Letters of Advice from Women Entrepreneurs Who Have Made $1 Billion in Revenue by Lu Li
  69. Dear Girls: Intimate Tales, Untold Secrets & Advice for Living Your Best Life by Ali Wong
  70. Disability Visibility: First-Person Stories from the Twenty-First Century by Alice Wong
  71. Disarm Your Limits: The flight formula to lift you to success and propel you to the next horizon by Jessica Cox
  72. Dog Flowers: A Memoir by Danielle Geller
  73. Double Down: Bet on Yourself and Succeed on Your Own Terms by Antionette M. Clarke, Tricia Clarke-Stone
  74. Dream Big by Deborah Rosado Shaw
  75. Dream in Color: How the Sánchez Sisters are Making History in Congress by Linda Sánchez
  76. Driven by Intention: Own Your Purpose, Gain Power, and Pursue Your Passion as a Woman at Work by Michelle Gadsden-Williams
  77. Drop the Ball: Achieving more by doing less by Tiffany Dufu
  78. Dwellings: A Spiritual History of the Living World by Linda Hogan
  79. Eat, Pray, Love: One woman’s search for everything across Italy, India, and Indonesia by Elizabeth Gilbert
  80. Edge: Turning Adversity Into Advantage by Laura Huang
  81. Elegy for a Disease: A Personal and Cultural History of Polio by Anne Finger
  82. Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds by adrienne maree brown
  83. Empress: The Astonishing Reign of Nur Jahan by Ruby Lal
  84. Enduring Conviction: Fred Korematsu and His Quest for Justice by Lorraine K. Bannai
  85. Engaging Emergence: Turning Upheaval into Opportunity by Peggy Holman
  86. Entrepreneurial You: Monetize Your Expertise, Create Multiple Income Streams, and Thrive by Dorie Clark
  87. Everybody’s Got Something by Robin Roberts & Veronica Chambers
  88. Expect to Win: Proven Strategies for Success From a Wall Street Vet by Carla A. Harris
  89. Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring Physical Disability in American Culture and Literature by Rosemarie Garland-Thomson
  90. Farmworker’s Daughter: Growing up Mexican American by Rose Castillo Guilbault
  91. Fault Lines: A Memoir by Meena Alexander
  92. Feeling Power: Emotions and education by Megan Boler
  93. Female Firebrands: Stories and Techniques to Ignite Change, Take Control, and Succeed in the Workplace by Mikaela Kiner
  94. Feminist Queer Crip by Alison Kafer
  95. Field Mice: Memoirs of a Migrant Child by Emma Gonzalez
  96. Fierce Conversations: Achieving success at work & in life, one conversation at a time by Susan Scott
  97. Find Another Dream by Maysoon Zayid
  98. Finding Beauty in a Broken World by Terry Tempest Williams
  99. Finding Latinx: In Search of the Voices Redefining Latino Identity by Paola Ramos
  100. Finding Me: A Memoir by Viola Davis
  101. Finding My Voice: My Journey to the West Wing and the Path Forward by Valarie Jarret
  102. Finding Our Way: Leadership for uncertain times by Margaret Wheatley
  103. Finding the Edge: My Life on the Ice by Karen Chen (sports)
  104. Force Majeure: A Futurist’s Guide to Boldly Thriving on Your Terms in the Future of Work by Dr. Terri Horton
  105. Frida by Barbara Mujica
  106. FutureProofed: How to Navigate Disruptive Change, Find Calm in Chaos, and Succeed in Work & Life by Natalia Peart
  107. Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses by Robin Wall Kimmerer
  108. Girl Code: Unlocking the Secrets to Success, Sanity, and Happiness for the Female Entrepreneur by Cara Alwill Leyba
  109. God is Red: A Native View of Religion by Vine deLoria, Jr.
  110. Great Asian Americans: Ellison Onizuka by Stephanie Cham
  111. Great Asian Americans: Michelle Kwan by Stephanie Cham
  112. Great Asian Americans: Patsy Mink by Stephanie Cham
  113. Great Asian Americans: Tammy Duckworth by Stephanie Cham
  114. Great Asian Americans: Yo-Yo Ma by Stephanie Cham
  115. Grit: The power of passion and perseverance by Angela Duckworth
  116. Groundswell by Charlene Li
  117. Haben: The deafblind woman who conquered Harvard Law by Haben Girma
  118. Hawaii’s Story by Liliuokalani 
  119. Heart Berries by Terese Marie Mailhot
  120. Heart of Fire: An Immigrant Daughter’s Story by Mazie K. Hirono 
  121. Hermanas: Deepening our identity and growing our influence by Natialia Kohn Rivera
  122. Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly
  123. Hiding in the Bathroom: An Introvert’s Roadmap to Getting Out There by Morra Aarons-Mele
  124. Hispanic Women Seeking Higher Leadership Roles in Business by Syliva C. Motta, PhD
  125. Hood Feminist: Notes from the Women that a Movement Forgot by Mikki Kendall
  126. Hot Sports by Lynda Gratton
  127. How Remarkable Women Lead: The Breakthrough Model for Work and Life by Joanna Barsh
  128. How to Get Stupid White Men Out of Office: The Anti-Politics, Un-Boring Guide to Power by adrienne maree brown
  129. How to Raise a Feminist Son: Motherhood, Masculinity, and the Making of My Family by Sonora Jha
  130. How to Wow by Francsis Cole Jones
  131. How Women Rise: Break the 12 habits holding you back from your next raise, promotion, or job by Sally Helgesen (& Marshall Goldsmith)
  132. Humor, Seriously: Why Humor is a Secret Weapon in Business and Life by Jennifer Aaker & Naomi Bagdonas
  133. Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay
  134. I Am Schizophrenic: Poetry from a beautiful brain by Kerenza Ryan
  135. I Got This: To Gold and Beyond by Lauren Hernandez
  136. I Love a Broad Margin to My Life by Maxine Hong Kingston 
  137. I Shouldn’t Be Telling You This: How to Ask for the Money, Snag the Promotion, and Create the Career You Deserve by Kate White
  138. I’d Rather Be In Charge by Charlotte Beers
  139. I’m Judging You: The do-better manual by Luvvie Ajayi
  140. I’m the One That I Want by Margaret Cho 
  141. In a Different Voice: Psychological theory and women’s development by Carol Gilligan
  142. In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens: Womanist prose by Alice Walker
  143. In the Company of Women: Inspiration and Advice from over 100 Makers, Artists, and Entrepreneurs by Grace Bonney
  144. In the Country We Love: My Family Divided by Diane Guerrero
  145. In The Dream House: A Memoir by Carmen Maria Machado
  146. In the Shadow of the Eagle: A Tribal Representative in Maine by Donna M. Loring
  147. In-N-Out Burger: A Behind-the-Counter Look at the Fast-Food Chain That Breaks All the Rules by Stacy Perman
  148. Inclusion on Purpose: An Intersectional Approach to Creating of Culture of Belonging at Work by Ruchika Tulshyan
  149. Inclusion Revolution: The Essential Guide to Dismantling Racial Inequity in the Workplace by Daisy Auger-Dominguez
  150. Inclusion: Diversity, the New Workplace, & The Will To Change by Jennifer Brown
  151. Invent It, Sell It, Bank It!: Make Your Million-Dollar Idea into a Reality by Lori Greiner
  152. Inventing Latinos: A New Story of American Racism by Laura E. Gómez
  153. Isabel’s Hand-Me-Down Dreams by Isabel Lopez
  154. It Takes Moxie by Maureen Francisco
  155. It’s About Damn Time by Arlan Hamilton
  156. It’s About Time: The Art of Choosing the Meaningful Over the Urgent by Valorie Burton
  157. It’s Not Rocket Science: 7 Game Changing Traits for Uncommon Success by Mary Spio
  158. Journey to the Future: A Roadmap for Success for Youth by Ltc. Consuelo Castillo Kickbusch
  159. Just as I am by Cicely Tyson
  160. Key to Yourself by Dr. Venice Bloodworth
  161. Know What Makes Them Tick: How to successfully negotiate almost any situation by Shonda Rhimes
  162. Know Your Value: Women, Money, and Genting What You’re Worth by Mika Brzezinski
  163. Lakota Woman by Mary Brave Bird
  164. Latina Empowerment Through Leadership: Mindful Stories from Inspiring Women by Catherine Munos Garces, Monica Rivera, et al
  165. Latinas in Aviation by Jacqueline S. Ruiz
  166. Latinas Rising Up in HR: Inspirational Stories of Human Resources Professionals Leading, Thriving, and Breaking Barriers by Priscilla Guasso
  167. Latinos in American Society: Families and Communities in Transition by Dr. Ruth Enid Zambrana
  168. Lead from the Outside: How to Build Your Future and Make Real Change by Stacey Abrams
  169. Leadership and the new Science: Discovering Order in a Chaotic World by Margaret Wheatley
  170. Leadership the Eleanor Roosevelt Way: Timeless strategies from the first lady of courage by Robin Gerber
  171. Leading by My Ponytail by Karen M. Walker & Judy Ducharme
  172. Leading so People Will Follow by Erika Andersen
  173. Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead by Sheryl Sandberg
  174. Leapfrog: The New Revolution for Women Entrepreneurs by Nathalie Molina Niño
  175. Leaving Isn’t the Hardest Thing: Essays by Lauren Hough
  176. Leaving Little Havana: A memoir of Miami’s Cuban ghetto by Cecilia M. Fernandez
  177. Legal Heroes in the Trump Era: Be Inspired. Expand Your Impact. Change the World. by Tahmina Watson (lawyer, writer)
  178. Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina by Misty Copeland
  179. Limitless: The Power of Hope and Resilience to Overcome Circumstances by Mallory Weggemann
  180. Little Black Book: A Toolkit for Working Women by Otegha Uwagba 
  181. Living for Change by Grace Boggs
  182. Love, Loss, and What We Ate: A Memoir by Padma Lakshmi 
  183. Mad at School: Rhetorics of Mental Disability and Academic Life by Margaret Price
  184. Madame Wu Chien-shiung: The First Lady Of Physics Research by Tsai-chien Chiang
  185. Marbles: Mania, Depression Michelangelo, and Me by Ellen Forney
  186. Martina by Martina Navratilova
  187. Mean by Myriam Gurba
  188. Men Explain Things to Me by Rebecca Solnit
  189. Men We Reaped: A Memoir by Jesmyn Ward
  190. Mexican Enough: My Life Between the Borderlines by Stephanie Elizondo Griest
  191. Million Dollar Women: The Essential Guide for Female Entrepreneurs Who Want to Go Big by Julia Pimsleur
  192. Mindset: The new psychology of success by Carol Dweck
  193. Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong
  194. Miss Jessie’s: Creating a Successful Business From Scratch — Naturally by Micho Branch
  195. More Myself: A Journey by Alicia Keys
  196. More than Enough: Claiming Space for Who You Are (No Matter What They Say) by Elaine Welteroth
  197. More Than Pretty: Doing the Soul Work that Uncovers Your True Beauty by Erica Campbell
  198. More than Ready: Be Strong and Be You… and Other Lessons for Women of Color on the Rise by Cecilia Muñoz
  199. Multipliers: How the best leaders make everyone smarter by Liz Wiseman
  200. Muscogee Daughter: My sojourn to the Miss America Pageant by Susan Supernaw
  201. My (Underground) American Dream: My True Story as an Undocumented Immigrant Who Became a Wall Street Executive by Julissa Arce
  202. My Beloved World by Sonia Sotomayor
  203. My Life in Full: Work, Family, and Our Future by Indra Nooyi (business)
  204. My Life: Queen of the Court by Serena Williams
  205. My Own Words by Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Mary Hartnett, Wendy Williams
  206. My Time to Speak: Reclaiming Ancestry and Confronting Race by Ilia Calederon
  207. Nice Girls Don’t Get the Corner Office: Unconscious Mistakes Women Make that Sabotage Their Careers by Lois P. Frankel, PhD
  208. Night Flying Woman: An Ojibway Narrative by Ignatia Broker
  209. Nimble, Focused, Feisty: Organizational Cultures that Win in the New Era and How to Create Them by Sara Roberts
  210. Nisei Radicals: The Feminist Poetics and Transformative Ministry of Mitsuye Yamada and Michael Yasutake by Diane C. Fujino
  211. Nooping: The Cure for White Ladies by Leanne Betasamosake Simpson
  212. Notorious BIG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg by Irin Carmon & Shana Knizhnik
  213. Octavia’s Brood: Science Fiction from Social Justice Movements by adrienne maree brown
  214. Once I Was You: A Memoir of Love and Hate in a Torn America by María Hinojosa
  215. One Life by Megan Rapinoe & Emma Brockes 
  216. Open Leadership by Charlene Li
  217. Option B by Sheryl Sandberg
  218. Own It: The Power of Women at Work by Sallie Krawcheck
  219. Own Your Phenomenal Self: A Guide on Character, Success, & Leadership by Rita P. Mitchell
  220. Perfectly You: Embracing the Power of Being Real by Mariana Atencio
  221. Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good by adrienne maree brown
  222. Poet Warrior: A Memoir by Joy Harjo
  223. Portage Lake: Memories of an Ojibwe Childhood by Maude Kegg
  224. Postcolonial Leadership, A: Asian Immigrant Christian Leadership and Its Challenges by Hee An Choi
  225. Power Moves: How Women Can Pivot, Reboot, and Build a Career of Purpose by Lauren McGoodwin
  226. Presence: Bringing your boldest self to your biggest challenges by Amy Cuddy
  227. Pressure is a Privilege: Lessons I’ve Learned from Life and the Battle of the Sexes by Billie Jean King
  228. Presumed Incompetent: The Intersections of Race and Class for Women in Academia by Gabriella Gutiérrez y Muhs, Yolanda Flores Niemann, Carmen G. González
  229. Professional Troublemaker: The Fear-Fighter Manual by Luvvie Ajayi Jones
  230. Profit from the Positive by Senia Maymin & Margaret H. Greenberg
  231. Purpose Driven Leadership: Building and fostering effective teams by Brigette Tasha Hyacinth
  232. Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can’t Stop Talking by Susan Cain
  233. Radical : Fighting to Put Students First by Michelle Rhee 
  234. Radical Candor: Be a kick-ass boss without losing your humanity by Kim Scott
  235. Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love and Liberation by Rev Angel Kyodo Williams
  236. Reality Is Broken: Why games make us better and how they can change the world by Jane McGonigal
  237. Recovering the Sacred: The power of naming and claiming by Winona LaDuke
  238. Redefining Realness: My Path To Womanhood, Identity, Love & So Much More by Janet Mock
  239. Representation Matters: How Victory Fund, Victory Institute, and LGBT Leaders are Transforming America by Karen Ocamb
  240. Reset: My Fight for Inclusion and Lasting Change by Ellen Pao
  241. Resonate by Nancy Duarte
  242. Right Within: How to Heal From Racial Trauma in the Workplace by Minda Harts
  243. Rising Strong: How the ability to reset transforms the way we live, love, prent, and lead by Brene Brown
  244. Rising to the Challenge, My Leadership Journey by Carly Fiorina
  245. Rita Moreno: A Memoir by Rita Moreno
  246. ROAR: How to Build a Resilient Organization by Sandy Asch
  247. Rookie Smarts by Liz Wiseman
  248. Run: Lessons in Leadership for Women Changing the World by Stephanie Schriock & Christina Reynolds
  249. Salsa, Soul, and Spirit: Leadership for a multicultural age byJuana Bordas
  250. See No Stranger: A Memoir and Manifesto of Revolutionary Love by Valarie Kaur
  251. Self Made: Becoming Empowered, Self Reliant and Rich in Every Way by Nely Galán
  252. Seriously…I’m Kidding by Ellen Degeneres
  253. Serving in Silence by Margarethe Cammermeyer
  254. Show Your Work by Jane Bozarth
  255. Show Your Worth: 8 Intention Strategies for Women to Emerge as Leaders at Work by Shelmina Babai Abji
  256. Silencing Gender, Age, Ethnicity and Cultural Biases in Leadership by Camilla A. Montoya, Julieta V. García. et al.
  257. Sissy: A Coming-of-Gender Story by Jacob Tobia
  258. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde
  259. Sitting Pretty: The View from My Ordinary Resilient Disabled Body by Rebekah Taussig
  260. Slide-ology by Nancy Duarte
  261. Small Doses: Potent Truths for Everyday Use by Amanda Seales
  262. Small Victories: Spotting Improbable Moments of Grace by Anne Lamott
  263. So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo
  264. Speedbumps: Flooring it through Hollywood by Teri Garr
  265. Stand Out: How to find your breakthrough idea and build a following around it by Dorie Clark
  266. Staring: How We Look by Rosemarie Garland-Thomson
  267. Still Life with Rice by Helie Lee
  268. Strategize to Win: The New Way to Star Out, Step Up, or Start Over in Your Career by Carla Harris
  269. Successful Women Think Differently: 9 Habits to Make You Happier, Healthier & More Resilient by Valorie Burton
  270. Surviving Autocracy by Masha Gessen
  271. Swimming with Sharks in Dark Waters by Athene Brinson
  272. Take Charge of your Brand: Quick and simple techniques to help you own and manage your personal brand for professional and personal success by Guisselle Nuñez
  273. Teaching to Transgress: Education as the practice of freedom by Bell Hooks
  274. Thanks for the Feedback by Sheila Heen & Douglas Stone
  275. That’s What She Said: What Men Need to Know (And Women Need to Tell Them) About Working Together by Joanne Lipman
  276. The 100 Year Life by Lynda Gratton
  277. The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story by Nikole Hannah-Jones
  278. The 9 Steps to Financial Freedom: Practical and Spiritual Steps So You Can Stop Worrying by Suze Orman
  279. The Art of Gathering: How We Meet and Why it Matters by Priya Parker
  280. The Black Widow’s Guide to Killer Pool: Become the Player to Beat by Jeanette Lee 
  281. The Book of Awesome Black Americans: Scientific Pioneers Trailblazing Entrepreneurs, Barrier-Breaking Activists and AFro-Futurists by Monique jones
  282. The Buena Salud Guide to Understanding Depression and Enjoying Life by Jane Delgado
  283. The Change Masters by Rosabeth Moss Kanter
  284. The Confidence Code: The Science and Art of Self-Assurance – What Women Should Know by Katty Kay & Claire Shipman
  285. The Confidence Game by Maria Konnikova
  286. The Cooked Seed: A Memoir by Anchee Min
  287. The Disability Experience: Working Toward Belonging by Hannalora Leavitt
  288. The Diversity Advantage: Fixing Gender Inequality In The Workplace by Ruchika Tulshyan
  289. The Education of an Idealist: A Memoir by Samantha Power
  290. The End of Competitive Advantage by Rita Gunther McGrath
  291. The Far Away Brothers: Two young migrants and the making of an American life by Lauren Markham
  292. The Gloria Anzaldúa Reader (Latin America Otherwise) by Gloria Anzaldua
  293. The Hill We Climb by Amanda Gorman
  294. The Holly Woodlawn Story: A Low Life in High Heels by Holly Woodlawn
  295. The Holy Intimacy of Strangers by Sarah York
  296. The Injustice Never Leaves You: Anti-Mexican Violence in Texas by Monica Muñoz Martinez
  297. The Latina Guide to Health: Consejos and Caring Answers by Jane Delgado
  298. The Leadership Shift: The Strategic Positioning of Latino Business Leaders by Dr. Nilda Perez
  299. The Likeability Trap: How to Break Free and Succeed As You Are by Alicia Menendez
  300. The Little Black Book of Success: Laws of Leadership for Black Women by Elaine Meryl Brown; Marsha Haygood; Angela Burt-Murray
  301. The Making of a Manager: What to Do When Everyone Looks To You by Julie Zhuo
  302. The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin by Masha Gessen
  303. The Memo: What Women of Color Need to Know to Secure a Seat at the Table by Minda Harts
  304. The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl by Issa Rae
  305. The Moonshot Effect by Kate Purmal & Lisa Goldman
  306. The New IT: How Technology are Enabling Business Strategy in the Digital Age by Jill Dyche
  307. The New Social Learning by Marcia Conner
  308. The Next Generation of Women Leaders: What You Need to Lead but Won’t Learn in Business School by Selena Rezvani
  309. The No Club: Putting a Stop to Women’s Dead End-Work by Linda Babcock, Brenda Peyser, Lise Vesterlund, and Laurie Weingart
  310. The Obsessive Joy of Autism by Julia Bascom
  311. The One Week Budget by Tiffany Aliche
  312. The Power of Latino Leadership: Culture, inclusion, and contribution by Juana Bordas
  313. The pretty one: on life, pop culture, disability, and other reasons to fall in love with me by Keah Brown
  314. The Race Whisperer: Barack Obama and the political uses of race by Melanye Price
  315. The Road to Someplace Better: From the Segregated South to Harvard Business School and Beyond by Lillian Lincoln Lambert
  316. The Sacred Hoop: Recovering the Feminine in American Indian Traditions by Paula Gunn Allen
  317. The School Days of an Indian Girl, and an Indian Teacher Among Indians by Zitkala-Sa
  318. The Shift by Lynda Gratton
  319. The Signals are Talking by Amy Webb
  320. The Silent Master: Awakening the Power Within by Tae Yun Kim 
  321. The Soul of a Woman by Isabel Allende
  322. The Tao of Raven: An Alaska Native Memoir by Ernestine Hayes
  323. The Death and Life of Great American Cities by Jane Jacobs
  324. The Transformational Consumer: Fuel a lifelong love affair with your customers by helping them get healthier, wealthier, and wiser by Tara-Nicholle Nelson
  325. The Truths We Hold: An American Journey by Kamala Harris
  326. The Turquoise Ledge by Leslie Silko
  327. The Undocumented Americans by Karla Conejo Villavicencio
  328. The Virtuous Circle: Restore Your Confidence, Bounce Back, and Emerge Stronger by Gaby Natale
  329. The White Album by Joan Didion
  330. The World I Live In by Helen Keller
  331. Thick Face, Black Heart: The warrior philosophy for conquering the challenges of business and life by Chin-Ning Chu
  332. Think Like a Negotiator by Eldonna Lewis Fernandez
  333. Thrive: The Third Metric to Redefining Success and Creating a Life of Well-Being, Wisdom, and Wonder by Arianna Huffington
  334. Too Late to Die Young: Nearly True Tales from a Life by Harriet McBryde Johnson
  335. Truth or Dare: Encounters with power, authority, and mystery by Starhawk
  336. Unfinished Business by Anne-Marie Slaughter
  337. Unwritten Rules of Social Relationships: Decoding social mysteries through autism’s unique perspectives by Temple Grandin
  338. Upper Hand: The Future of Work for the Rest of Us by Sherrell Dorsey
  339. Waist-High in the World: A Life Among the Nondisabled by Nancy Mairs
  340. We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
  341. We Will Not Cancel Us by adrienne maree brown
  342. Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O’Neil
  343. Werk 101: Get Your Life Together Guide by Koereyelle DuBose
  344. What I Know for Sure by Oprah Winfrey
  345. What Will it Take to Make a Woman President? by Marianne Schnall
  346. When I Was Puerto Rican by Esmeralda Santiago
  347. When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron
  348. Where the Past Begins: Memory and Imagination by Amy Tan
  349. Whiteness Visible: The meaning of whiteness in American literature and culture by Valerie Babb
  350. Wiping the War Paint off the Lens: Native American Film and Video by Beverly Singer
  351. Wishful Drinking by Carrie Fisher
  352. WOLFPACK: How to Come Together, Unleash Our Power, and Change the Game by Abby Wambach
  353. Women and Leadership: Real Lives, Real Lessons by Julia Gillard & Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
  354. Women of Color in Tech: A Blueprint for Inspiring and Mentoring the Next Generation of Technology Innovators by Susanne Tedrick
  355. Women’s Ways of Knowing: The development of self, voice, and mind by Mary Field Belenky, et. al.
  356. Year of Yes: How to dance it out, stand in the sun, and be your own person by Shonda Rhimes
  357. You Are a Mogul: How to Do the Impossible, Do It Yourself, and Do It Now by Tiffany Pham
  358. Your Next Level Life: 7 Rules of Power, Confidence, and Opportunity for Black Women in America by Karen Arrington
  359. The Color of Courage: Crushing Racism in Corporate America by Cindi Bright
  360. The Extraordinary Power of Leader Humility: Thriving Organizations – Great Results by Marilyn Gist, PhD

Interested in learning more from women in leadership? Check out our Women in Political Leadership Series.

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2022 Black Authored Leadership Book List

In support of Black History Month, we’ve compiled a list of leadership books written by Black authors in the United States. This list is meant to be a resource, not an official endorsement. The books are not ranked in any particular order.

Black-Authored-Leadership-Books-1Download

Download the full list below.

  1. In Search of Our Mother’s Garden: Womanist Prose by Alice Walker 
  2. Purpose Driven Leadership: Building and fostering effective teams by Bridgette Tasha Hyacinth 
  3. The Transformational Consumer: Fuel a lifelong love affair with your customers by helping them get healthier, wealthier, and wiser by Tara-Nicholle Nelson 
  4. Haben: The Deafblind Woman Who Conquered Harvard Law by Haben Girma
  5. Unprecedented: The Masters and Me by Tiger Woods 
  6. The Truths We Hold: An American Journey by Kamala Harris 
  7. The Fire Next Time by James Baldwin 
  8. Sister Outsider: Essays and Speeches by Audre Lorde 
  9. Hunger: A Memoir of (My) Body by Roxane Gay 
  10. Everybody’s Got Something by Robin Roberts & Veronica Chambers 
  11. This is the Fire: What I say to My Friends About Racism by Don Lemon 
  12. On the Other Side of Freedom: The Case for Hope by DeRay Mckesson 
  13. White Girls by Holton Als 
  14. Nothing Personal by James Baldwin 
  15. Revelations: The Autobiography of Alvin Ailey by Alvin Aily & A. Peter Bailey
  16. Emergent Strategy: Shaping Change, Changing Worlds by Adrienne Maree Brown
  17. We Will Not Cancel Us by Adrienne Maree Brown
  18. Love and Rage by Lama Rod Owens
  19. Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good by Adrienne Maree Brown
  20. How to Get Stupid White Men Out of Office: The Anti-Politics, Un-Boring Guide to Power by Adrienne Maree Brown
  21. It’s About Damn Time by Arlan Hamilton
  22. My Story of Embracing Purpose, Healing & Hope by Kamaro Brown
  23. The Mentor Leader by Tony Dungy
  24. Uncommon: Finding Your Path to Significance by Tony Dungy
  25. The Secrets to Success: When you want to Succeed as Bad as You Want to Breath by Eric Thomas
  26. Produced by Faith: Enjoy real success without losing your true self by DeVon Franklin
  27. Super Rich: A guide to having it all by Russell Simmons
  28. It Worked for Me: In life and leadership by Colin Powell
  29. Reach: 40 Black men speak on living, leading, and succeeding by Ben Jealous & Trabian Shorters
  30. Black Faces in White Places: 10 game-changing strategies to achieve success and find greatness by Randal Pinkett & Jeffrey Robinson
  31. The Gatekeepers are Gone: Hustle + Technology = Success by Lamar Tyler 
  32. Know What Makes Them Tick: How to successfully negotiate almost any situation by Shonda Rhimes
  33. The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As told to Alex Haley by Malcolm X & Alex Haley
  34. What I Know for Sure by Oprah Winfrey
  35. Hidden Figures: The American Dream and the Untold Story of the Black Women Mathematicians Who Helped Win the Space Race by Margot Lee Shetterly
  36. The Misadvantures of Awkward Black Girl by Issa Rae
  37. The One Week Budget by Tiffany Aliche
  38. I’m Judging You: The do-better manual by Luvvie Ajayi
  39. We Should All Be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngoni Adichie
  40. The Awkward Thoughts of W. Kamau Bell by W. Kamau Bell
  41. Between the World and Me by Ta-Nehisi Coates
  42. My Bondage and My Freedom by Frederick Douglass
  43. Drop the Ball: Achieving more by doing less by Tiffany Dufu 
  44. Biased: Uncovering the hidden prejudice that shapes what we see, think and do by Jennifer Eberhardt
  45. Stamped from the Beginning: The definitive history of racist ideas in America by Ibram X. Kendi 
  46. Lovesong: Becoming a Jew by Julius Lester
  47. Becoming by Michelle Obama
  48. The Race Whisperer: Barack Obama and the political uses of race by Melayne Price
  49. A Promised Land by Barack Obama
  50. Strength to Love by Martin Luther King, Jr. 
  51. My Grandmother’s Hands: Racialized Trauma and the Pathway to Mending Our Hearts and Bodies by Resmaa Menakem
  52. Just As I Am by Cicely Tyson
  53. Black and White: The Way I See It by Richard Williams
  54. Uncomfortable Conversations With a Black Man by Emmanuel Acho
  55. A Way Out of No Way: A Memoir of Truth, Transformation, and the New American Story by Raphael Warnock
  56. Professional Troublemaker: The Fear Fighter Manual by Luvvie Jayi Jones
  57. Finding Me: A Memoir by Viola Davis 
  58. More than Enough: Claiming Space for Who Your Are (No Matter What They Say) by Elaine Welteroth 
  59. My Life: Queen of the Court by Serena Williams 
  60. Small Doses: Potent Truths for Everyday Use by Amanda Seales 
  61. Bamboozled: How God Tricked Me into the Life of My Dreams by Yvonne Orji 
  62. After the Rain: Gentle Reminders for Healing, Courage, and Self Love by Alexandra Elle
  63. The 1619 Project: A New Origin Story by Nikole Hannah-Jones 
  64. The Mind of a Winner by Steve Canal 
  65. All Bout Love by Bell Hooks 
  66. The Little Black Book of Success: Laws of Leadership for Black Women by Elaine Meryl Brown, Marsha Haygood & Angela Burt-Murray 
  67. Your Next Level Life: 7 Rules of Power, Confidence, and Opportunity for Black Women in America by Karen Arrington 
  68. Playing the Game Without a Coach: How Courage, Resilience and Forgiveness Helped One Man Seize the American Dream by Benjamin Raymond 
  69. The Wealth Choice: Secret Success of Black Millionaires by Dennis Kimbro 
  70. Beating the Odds: Eddie Brown’s Investing and Life Strategies by Eddie Brown 
  71. Strategize to Win: The New Way to Star Out, Step Up, or Start Over Your Career by Carla Harris 
  72. Rise and Grind: Outperform, Outwork, and Outhustle Your Way to a More Successful and Rewarding Life by Daymond John & Daniel Paisner 
  73. Life in Motion: An Unlikely Ballerina by Misty Copeland 
  74. The Work: Searching for a Life that Matters by Wes Moore 
  75. The Last Black Unicorn by Tiffany Haddish 
  76. Lead from the Outside: How to Build Your Future and Make Real Change by Stacey Abrams 
  77. 50 Billion Dollar Boss: African American Women Sharing Stories of Success in Entrepreneurship and Leadership by Kathey Porter 
  78. Black Business Secrets: 500 Tips, Strategies, and Resources for the African American Entrepreneur by Dante Lee 
  79. Black Fortunes: The Story of the First Six African Americans Who Escaped Slavery and Became Millionaires by Shomari Wills 
  80. Black Power Inc.: The New Voices of Success by  Cora Daniels 
  81. Climb: Taking Every Step with Conviction, Courage, and Calculated Risk to Achieve a Thriving Career and a Successful Life by Michelle Gadsden-Williams, Carolyn M. Brown 
  82. Boss Bride: The Powerful Woman’s Playbook for Love and Success by Charreah Jackson 
  83. Conversations in Black: On Power, Politics, and Leadership by  Ed Gordon 
  84. Double Down: Bet on Yourself and Succeed on Your Own Terms by  Antionette M. Clarke & Tricia Clarke-Stone 
  85. Expect to Win: Proven Strategies for Success From a Wall Street Vet by  Carla A. Harris 
  86. It’s About Time: The Art of Choosing the Meaningful Over the Urgent by  Valorie Burton
  87. Little Black Book: A Toolkit for Working Women by  Otegha Uwagba 
  88. Miss Jessie’s: Creating A Successful Business from Scratch – Naturally by Micho Branch 
  89. Mo’s Bows: A Young Person’s Guide to Start-up Success: Measure, Cut, Stitch Your Way to a Great Business by Moziah Bridges & Tramica Morris 
  90. More Than Pretty: Doing the Soul Work that Uncovers Your True Beauty by  Erica Campbell 
  91. The Book of Awesome Black Americans: Scientific Pioneers Trailblazing Entrepreneurs, Barrier-Breaking Activists and Afro-Futurists by Monique Jones 
  92. The Memo: What Women of Color Need to Know to Secure a Seat at the Table by Minda Harts 
  93. The Merchant Prince of Black Chicago: Anthony Overton and the building of a Financial Empire by Robert E. Weems 
  94. Balancing Work and Life: The Nia guide for Black Women by Sherly Huggins & Cheryl Mayberry McKissack 
  95. The Road to Someplace Better: From the Segregated South to Harvard Business School and Beyond by Lillian Lincoln Lambert 
  96. You Got This!: Unleash Your Awesomeness, Find Your Path, and Change Your World By: Maya Penn 
  97. Women of Color in Tech: A Blueprint for Inspiring and Mentoring the Next Generation of Technology Innovators by Susanne Tedrick 
  98. Finding My Voice: My Journey to the West Wing and the Path Forward by Valarie Jarret 
  99. Believe Bigger: Discover the Path to Your Life Purpose by Marshawn Evans Daniels 
  100. Swimming with Sharks in Dark Waters by Athene Brinson 
  101. FutureProofed: How to Navigate Disruptive Change, Find Calm in Chaos, and Succeed in Work & Life by Natalia Peart 
  102. Own Your Phenomenal Self: A Guide on Character, Success, & Leadership by Rita P. Mitchell 
  103. Werk 101: Get Your Life Together Guide by Koereyelle DuBose 
  104. Illogical: Saying Yes to a Life Without Limits by Emmanuel Acho 
  105. Impolite Conversations: On Race, Politics, Sex, Money, and Religion by Cora Daniels & John L. Jackson Jr. 
  106. Driven by Intention: Own Your Purpose, Gain Power, and Pursue Your Passion as a Woman at Work by Michelle Gadsden-Williams 
  107. Right Within: How to Heal From Racial Trauma in the Workplace by Minda Harts
  108. Gracism: The Art of Inclusion by Dr. David A. Anderson 
  109. So You Want to Talk About Race by Ijeoma Oluo 
  110. All Bout Love by Bell Hooks 
  111. Ain’t I a Woman: Black Women and Feminism by Bell Hooks 
  112. You’ve Got to Be Hungry: The Greatness Within to Win by Les Brown 
  113. The Art of Ronin Leadership by Mike Howard 
  114. Hood Feminist: Notes from the Women that a Movement Forgot by Mikki Kendall 
  115. Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community by Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 
  116. Upper Hand: The Future of Work for the Rest of Us by Sherrell Dorsey 
  117. Will by Will Smith 
  118. More Myself: A Journey by Alicia Keys 
  119. Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals by Alexis Pauline Gumbs 
  120. These Wilds Beyond our Fences: Letters to My Daughter on Humanity’s Search for Home by Bayo Akomolafe 
  121. Black Futures by Kimberly Drew & Jenna Wortham 
  122. Radical Dharma: Talking Race, Love and Liberation by Rev Angel Kyodo Williams 
  123. Just Mercy: A Story of Justice and Redemption by Bryan Stevenson 
  124. Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls: 100 Real-Life Tales of Black Girl Magic by Sonja Thomas & Lilly Workneh 
  125. How to Be an Antiracist byIbram X. Kendi
  126. Bridges to Heal US: Stories and Strategies for Racial Healing by Erin Jones 
  127. The Color of Water: A Black Man’s Tribute to His White Mother by Andre Braugher, James McBride, Lainie Kazan 
  128. The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference by Malcolm Gladwell 
  129. David and Goliath: Underdogs, Misfits, and the Art of Battling Giants by Malcolm Gladwell 
  130. Allow Me to Retort: A Black Guy’s Guide to the Constitution by Ellie Mystal 
  131. Fire Shut Up in My Bones by Charles Blow 
  132. The Devil You Know: A Black Power Manifesto by Charles Blow  
  133. Speaking Truth to Power by Anita Hill 
  134. Writings on the Wall: searching for a New Equality Beyond Black and White by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 
  135. Becoming Kareem: Growing Up On and Off the Court by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar 
  136. Up from Nothing: The Untold Story of How We (All) Succeed by John Hope Bryant 
  137. The Memo: Five Rules for Your Economic Liberation by John Hope Bryant
  138. Love Leadership: The New Way to Lead in A Fear Based World by John Hope Bryant 
  139. The Purpose of Power: How We Come Together When We Fall Apart by Alicia Garza 
  140. I’m Still Here: Black Dignity in a World Made for Whiteness by Austin Channing Brown 
  141. Standing Above the Crowd by James Donaldson
  142. The Extraordinary Power of Leader Humility: Thriving Organizations – Great Results by Marilyn Gist, PhD

Interested in reading more? Check out our American Indian and Native Alaskan Authored Leadership Booklist!

Check out the list!

Read our other leadership booklists too!

Showing Respect with Attention

The 7 Forms of Respect (7 FoRs)® tool builds mutual trust and understanding by giving people a vocabulary to describe what matters to themselves and others. Respect is relative. What is important to one person might not be important to someone else.

In this post, we will go in-depth on “Attention” as a form of respect. The 7 Forms of Respect® include procedure, punctuality, information, candor, consideration, acknowledgement and attention. Attention focuses on giving up distractions. 

How Attention shows up in everyday life

Imagine you’ve been invited to attend a special presentation. There are about a dozen people in the room. Just as the presentation is about to start, your boss asks you to read a report and share your initial reactions as soon as possible.

Do you ignore your boss’ message and pay full attention to the presentation? If so, you’ve decided to give Attention to the speaker.

Do you tell your boss you aren’t available because you have another obligation and you need more notice, returning your full attention to the speaker? If so, you gave Candor to your boss and Attention to the speaker.

Do you try to discreetly read ther report on your phone and respond while listening to the presentation? You are giving Procedure to your boss at the expense of Attention to the speaker.

Do you tell others around you that you need to  address an urgent work matter so they know what you are doing while listening to the presentation? If so, you are giving Information to others, Procedure to your boss, but not Attention to the speaker.

This example illustrates the complexity and trade offs of respect. It demonstrates that the ways in which we want to get and give respect are not universal and can change depending on an individual’s preferences and the situation. The degree to which you expect this form of respect may depend on the power dynamics of your relationship.

Attention can look like: 

  • Listening attentively. 
  • Referring back to other people’s comments to indicate you were listening. 
  • Not interrupting except to ask clarifying questions.

Lack of Attention as a form of respect looks like: 

  • Multitasking.
  • Interrupting to comment.
  • Allowing for distractions.

How Attention can be interpreted differently 

There are many different personal and professional reasons why someone would care about giving and/or getting Attention as a form of respect. Understanding your FoRs starts with asking yourself, why does this matter to me? Many people in our research talked about their families and childhood. Others focused on the demands of their current job function and company culture. 

FoR provides a shared language to describe what you need. You’ll be able to use this language to navigate conflict and address misunderstanding. This can come up when you want a particular FoR of respect and you aren’t getting it. You can then share why the FoR matters to you.

Scenario 1:
Sue is a new leader at a company and she noticed that in group meetings, everyone has their laptop open and their phones facing up on the table. The team historically has not given Attention as a form of respect to one another. People openly multi-task. The first few times she leads the meeting she’s distracted by the multi-tasking. At her third meeting, she asks people to close their laptops and turn over their phones. “I know Attention doesn’t matter to most of you. It matters to me. I feel respected when I know you are focused on what I’m saying. For the early part of my career, people regularly couldn’t hear my contributions because they were distracted. They didn’t know I felt disrespected until I said something. The multi-tasking made me feel like whatever else they were working on was more important than me. Once I started asking for respect the way I needed it, they could hear my ideas and that’s how I got to where I am today.”

Scenario 2:
Rosa has a colleague, Ernie, who interrupts her constantly when they are talking. He inserts his own stories and comments. Finally, she tells him, “I need Attention as a form of respect and you constantly interrupt me. I wish you would just listen to me. Ernie is surprised, “In my culture, we
interrupt each other all the time, It’s my way of showing I’m interested and engaged. I didn’t mean to disrespect you and I’ll try to wait until you finish talking before I say something .”

Our preference for certain FoR are rooted in our past experiences. Explaining those experiences builds empathy with others. Use the FoR to find common ground with someone who wants to give or get respect differently than you do. Ask them about their past experiences and who influenced them.

What’s Next

Check out Dr. Julie Pham’s book, 7 Forms of Respect: A Guide to Transforming Your Communication and Relationships at Work.

Check out the book!

To learn more, visit our website. CuriosityBased is also available to host workshops for your team or company  so you can  improve communication, collaboration and trust.

Is Attention a form of respect for you? 

Take the free quiz here.

Check out the digital course!