"Being a good leader is knowing when and where it is appropriate to use your power and privilege and why."
Dr. Tracy A. Pearson, J.D. is THE resource when answers and solutions are in short supply. She makes sense out of the noise.
Tracing Dr. Pearson’s career trajectory, the prevailing theme is that she is a natural teacher: in a classroom teaching at a research university, in a courtroom in front of a judge explaining a novel issue, with individual coaching clients who need help solving their own challenges, in an organization identifying the problems leadership and management couldn’t recognize let alone the impact it was having on the employee or employees, as well as the risk it posed for the organization, and through public speaking appearances in person, on radio, or on television, Dr. Pearson’s passion is helping another person learn or understand something they didn’t before, and most importantly, changing their perspective.
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We’re happy that you could join us today! Please introduce yourself to our readers. What’s your story?
Dr. Tracy A. Pearson: Thank you for extending the opportunity to share my thoughts with your readers!
My story is like a patchwork quilt. I am persistently amazed at successful professionals who seem to have achieved incredible goals through a planned-out existence. My story is anything but that — more like 93 South through Boston, if you are familiar, where you see off-ramps that just stop because I changed direction [laughing].
I started out wanting to be a teacher. To me, it is surprising because, within my family, no one had gone to college. I didn’t have the support and direction a lot of kids that age have, and certainly none of the resources they have now. But, initially, I landed on wanting to each high school, but an internship at a high school disabused me of that idea. I shifted to college teaching, earned a McNair Scholar Award, and then went to graduate school. But, when I arrived, I found it wanting. Ideas not put into action seemed like a boring existence. By this point, I was unearthing pieces of my personality that suggested advocacy was in my future. I shifted lanes and went to law school and felt at peace where I was learning a method to solve problems important to real humans. I practiced law, continued to teach–not only in the classroom but found that being a trial and appellate lawyer was teaching, Investigating, something I also did in several domains, was teaching, too. Though, my understanding of how my professional career looped back to teaching would come later. Solving problems as a mediator was also part of my toolbox.
Eventually, I shifted to investigations full time, and I realized that there was a serious problem–where it appeared investigations in the workplace did more to hurt people than help. So I entered graduate school and earned an Ed.D. in organizational change and leadership, having conducted the first study on implicit bias and workplace investigators to address the problem. I am most happy when I can help people understand; there’s that teaching thing again, so I am a commentator, providing analysis to help print and broadcast media understand issues important to real people. I am also a Certified Breakthrough Coach helping professionals achieve their goals through a process called reflective inquiry. I am a researcher and a consultant–helping lawyers and organizations with issues related to workplace investigations, implicit bias, and improving workplace culture.
CEOs and leaders usually have different motives and aspirations when getting started. Let’s go straight to the beginning. What was your primary goal for starting your business? Was it wealth, respect, or to offer a service that would help improve lives?
Dr. Tracy A. Pearson: Being a commentator, coach, researcher, and consultant, the goal was to offer a service to help, as Rachel Maddow puts it, to increase the amount of useful information in the world. I am fortunate (or unfortunate, depending on your perspective) to possess a great deal of education and experience in a lot of areas. It is frustrating to see the amount of misinformation out in the world. I talked back to the cable news programs and decided–I can do that; I can help explain things to people. But, in their defense, the media can only do so much–there are a host of limitations, time being one, that prevents them from being able to know a lot about a subject to understand the nuances which explain the whys. The whys matter.
Facts matter in understanding the whys. That’s where I come in–I can, with those teaching skills, distill the information into understandable chunks and help put knowledge into the world. Knowledge changes perspective. Changes in perspective make us better people. Better people make a better world. Not too far behind, being a researcher and consultant supports that work. I have seen the shift in understanding when talking with a reporter or host, and it is empowering and brings me joy.
Weird, maybe? But watching someone or hearing someone shift their thinking because they learned something they didn’t know before is like a drug. As a researcher/consultant, I help lawyers understand and together we explain things to decision-makers and I help organizations become better in the way they operate and interact with their most important assets, their employees. As a coach, I work 1-1 helping people realize they are brilliant, possess the keys to unlock the solutions to their own situations, and empower them to achieve whatever they want to achieve.
Tell us about 2 things that you like and two things that you dislike about your industry. Share what you’d like to see change and why.
Dr. Tracy A. Pearson: I claim membership in a lot of industries [laughter]. But, I’ll give it a shot.
I love the fast pace of media–broadcast, print; you name it. It means it is always changing, there is something new to think about and consider, and boring isn’t part of the lexicon. I love the champion component of the law. Lawyers, for all the jokes made about them, are superheroes, helping real people every day. People don’t like lawyers until they need one. But, I used to have a saying, which was, “you have to come through me to get to my client.” I took my job as a champion seriously.
I would like to see the media provide more information to their audience and spend just a smidge more time working on the precision of the information they convey. Headlines are frequently inaccurate and clickbait, which only fuels the misinformation, and sometimes, because of a lack of knowledge in a particular domain, nuances are lost that is important to understanding.
I wish the legal system, which includes the legislative branches, both federal and state, would affect change in the way employers behave. Our legal system has been shoved to the side for private paid-for courts (arbitration) over which employees have no ability to reject; employers operate in a state of they will do x until they’re caught. Employers disparage the employee who is brave enough to expose a problem. The matter is addressed in a secret process, and the employer often pays a settlement and continues on in the way it behaves, until the next time. The legal system is no longer an effective accountability system and lawyers are limited in what they can do to be those champions. It is a great big hamster wheel. You see a lot of lawyers experiencing burnout because, try as they might, their efforts don’t have a larger impact.
Companies around the world are rapidly changing their work environment and organizational culture to facilitate diversity. How do you see your organizational culture changing in the next 3 years and how do you see yourself creating that change?
Dr. Tracy A. Pearson: We need to move beyond diversity — diversity alone doesn’t change the culture of an organization. What improves an organization’s culture is inclusion and belonging, where people who are different, whether because of sex, race, national origin, religion, the great unifying protected class of disability, sexual orientation, and other ways people identify such as class, educational background, and values, are not only present in an organization but are included. That means the organization affirmatively seeks out their voices, and those individuals feel psychologically safe to take part in the organization’s business. We have a heck of a lot more work to do before achieving that level of competence and functionality.
I plan to continue to explore the impact of implicit bias in decision-making through my research. I have a cache of data from my study that I will analyze that I carved out as a separate population and I will do a comparative analysis of the data pertaining to internal workplace investigators and external workplace investigators to see if there are discoveries there. I also intend to expand the project to explore implicit bias in other domains, including law enforcement, research investigators, investigative journalism, and child protection investigators. What I hope to do is to build on the work I have already done to understand knowledge, motivation, and infrastructure gaps to make recommendations that lead to improvement.
According to the Michigan State University “An organization’s culture is responsible for creating the kind of environment in which the business is managed, and has a major impact on its ultimate success or failure.” What kind of culture has your organization adopted and how has it impacted your business?
Dr. Tracy A. Pearson: I am not so sure I agree with Michigan State University’s statement. For one, it doesn’t allocate responsibility and accountability to where it belongs, which is on people. If the organization is led by a group of people who make decisions that are unethical, that operate the organization doing whatever is providing the short-term benefit until they get caught, and who center dominant culture, power, and privilege, while ignoring and drowning out minority voices which may act as a counter to the corrupt values of those in charge, the culture becomes one where people are not psychologically safe and silence and fear reign, There are many businesses operating today that operate with that culture. I wouldn’t call those businesses successful, but complete failures. But they continue to operate.
The culture I advocate for is one that is a learning organization. Learning organizations proactively engage to get feedback and turn that feedback into understanding and then change. Implicitly, the organization will learn things it isn’t proud of, but it embraces that information in order to become a better version of itself. It respects individuality and the gifts that different people bring to the organization, not seeking a homogenized group of people who think the same. It embraces conflict as a natural process of learning and growing. It values the person who is paid the least as much as it values the person who is paid the most. It sees employees as assets to be developed and does not adopt a management, or status quo, approach, but adopts a servant and transformational leadership ethos.
Richard Branson once famously stated “There’s no magic formula for great company culture. The key is just to treat your staff how you would like to be treated.” and Stephen R. Covey admonishes to “Always treat your employees exactly as you want them to treat your best customers. What’s your take on creating a great organizational culture?
Dr. Tracy A. Pearson: I agree with Richard Branson, but I humbly suggest one slight improvement to his position, which is that you need to treat your employees better than how you would like to be treated, exchanging his Golden Rule for the Platinum Rule.
Organization leaders who understand the concept of power and privilege and how it applies to them will foster better environments. There is a misconception that to be a good leader, you need to exert power. However, that isn’t true. Being a good leader is knowing when and where it is appropriate to use your power and privilege and why. People who supervise others impact employees beyond a paycheck; they influence how that employee feels about themselves (self-esteem) and their motivation. When leaders behave badly, employees feel intense betrayal, leading to a range of feelings and behaviors not conducive to a thriving organization. I don’t want to know how you treat your best customer. I want to know how you treat the customer who has the least value. As I have said, to understand organizational culture is to understand people. How do leaders treat the people with the least amount of power and privilege? That will tell you a lot about an organization’s culture.
The overwhelming majority of more than 9,000 workers included in a recent Accenture survey on the future of work said they felt a hybrid work model would be optimal going forward, a major reason for that being the improved work-life balance that it offers. How do you promote work-life balance at your company?
Dr. Tracy A. Pearson: For decades, disabled people have sought to work from home as a disability accommodation. If not resistant, these reasonable requests were met with outright “no” for an answer. And, consistent with power and privilege, it wasn’t until the dominant majority’s health was placed at risk that industry could make it work. We learned a lot during this experience. We learned employees don’t have to travel to the office every day or at all. We learned that employees, when treated with respect, trust, and their agency was restored to them, are productive and work harder in many circumstances. With technological advances, we can communicate effectively.
I find I have a better work-life balance when I can work while taking care of my needs, like taking a break when my energy is low, changing rooms to sit more comfortably, having the flexibility to do the things I need to do but still accomplishing tasks related to work. Feeling like I have control over my environment helps me quiet my mind and provides for depth of productivity–not just more, but at a deeper level.
How would you describe your company’s overall culture? Give us examples.
Dr. Tracy A. Pearson: Right now, an organization I work for is on what will be a long road to improving culture if the change process can be sustained. You can’t simply improve culture, but you accept that there are gaps, listen without reacting, accept the perspective being shared, and then collectively work to dismantle the parts of the culture and make improvements as an all-hands-on-deck activity.
So, the organization is still in the preliminary or planning phase of change. An example I might use to explain how you might know that the organization is still early in the process is the lack of effective, detailed, and meaningful communication about changes that will be implemented. Without that information, you cannot secure agreement and you create unnecessary stressors for employees. Unexpected high turnover in key positions signals setbacks. A further sign of challenges is especially true if the roles were referred to early on to foster support and credibility for the changes to come.
It is believed that a company’s culture is rooted in a company’s values. What are your values and how do they affect daily life at the workplace?
Dr. Tracy A. Pearson: I could spend pages discussing my values and how they affect my work. I’ll use the context of conducting investigations. These values include respecting human dignity, doing what is right, accepting I can always improve, and protecting my integrity.
While I eschew words that can reinforce dominant cultural norms–like fairness (what is fair to you may not be fair to the other guy over there), I want the people involved in the investigations I conduct to walk away believing they were treated fairly even if they don’t agree with the outcome. I don’t start with a conclusion that something occurred but I start with a question about did something happen. I don’t assume the person being accused did what is alleged. I believe that human dignity needs to be respected. Everyone involved in an investigation is a human being with the same needs and fears. I go back to how do you treat the person who is leaving valuable or, another spin on the same theme is how do you treat the weakest member of your society. The same holds true here. A person being accused is in the weakest position by comparison. They are owed respect, care, sensitivity, and understanding.
Doing what is right is very important to me. Investigations need to withstand scrutiny so that there is some finality to the process for all involved. Having an outcome overturned harms people involved and future cooperation by others in other investigations. To withstand scrutiny in my mind means not to take negligent, reckless, or intentional risks in investigating. That means consulting with those who have the information you need to ensure that tricky situations are being handled in a defensible way. Information should not be hoarded. I use a framework that, if I am questioning how something is being done, someone else will, so it is worth doing it properly.
I can always do a better job and I need to not inflict harm by helping. Because of my expertise in implicit bias, I try to be careful and aware and I constantly reflect to account for it. But, when I investigate, I know that I have power and privilege by being in the role. Therefore, I try to center equity through my actions. Recognizing implicit bias is ever-present is a starting point, not rushing to judgment, knowing I am not perfect and affording others the ability to question or call out any perceived bias, and speaking truth to power when necessary. This latter point is especially important. In the study I conducted, 95% (n=117) of internal workplace investigators reported organizational interference in their investigations. Therefore, I stand close guard over my integrity.
An organization’s management has a deep impact on its culture. What is your management style and how well has it worked so far?
Dr. Tracy A. Pearson: I reject the word management and choose leadership. I believe that management is about maintaining the status quo — do you want to be managed? Being managed feels like “tolerated”. I don’t want to be tolerated either. Do you?
My leadership style has changed through the years as it should because a failure to adjust would show a failure to learn and grow. I describe my leadership style as authentic, servant, and transformational.
Authenticity is important to me. Nothing turns my stomach more than folks that try to pretend they are perfect or that they aren’t subject to all the human challenges that we face in life. In that way, I describe myself as a project boat. Any of your readers who sail will appreciate the reference. You always know where you stand with me. I cherish clarity and the ability to speak freely without reprisal. Conflict is part of the natural human condition and nothing is gained by bottling feelings or faking nice.
As a leader, and I can be a leader even if I don’t have a leadership title, I hold power and privilege (which is always relative). When you have power and privilege, you need to use that authority to help. So, as a servant leader, I am here to help others in any capacity I can become successful. While the principle doesn’t come from teaching, it is consistent with my experiences teaching others, whether college students, young associates, or colleagues. Whatever you need me to do to help you, I will do (as long as it’s lawful {laughing}). If standing on my head singing Here Comes the Sun is what you need, give me a second so I can grab a pillow for my head and cue up the music.
Inherent in service leadership is the willingness to listen. You need to listen to people even if you think you know what they are going to say, even if you don’t want to listen to them, especially when you hold the power.
Finally, I adopt a transformational mindset. I want you to be inspired. This past year, I received two extraordinary compliments that stuck with me. One of my colleagues was struggling and each day I would reach out to him through Facebook Messenger to check in. They were feeling fatalistic about a predicament. A day or two into the check-ins and my “listening” and asking questions, the colleague said to me that what he always admires about me is that I lift people, that I lift him. I felt very humbled. The second compliment came from someone I didn’t know but exchanged a few emails with and who took the time to email a then supervisor to say that I was the change she wanted to see at the organization. Again, very humbled. But both were indicators I was being viewed as transformative.
Every organization suffers from internal conflicts, whether functional or dysfunctional. Our readers would love to know, how do you solve an internal conflict?
Dr. Tracy A. Pearson: Oh sheesh, isn’t that the truth!
I will pick dysfunctional conflict for $100 [laughing]. Seriously, functional conflict is fairly easy to address. Everyone agrees there is a problem, and it is a healthy disagreement. Dysfunctional conflict is toxic and destructive.
To solve a dysfunctional conflict, I dig into my toolbox and return to my meditation roots. My experience with this sort of conflict is when it is entrenched and high emotion. Though some dysfunctional conflicts can present less emotional. Assuming it’s heated, the first step is to cool it down. I do that by listening and allowing space to vent but individually. Once the steam valve has had some time to release pressure, the next step is for me to identify what the issue is and what the interests are. These are different things. The issue is inconsequential. It is the conduit for the interests being threatened. In dysfunctional conflict, the interests are driving the conflict. Another way to think about interest is why is this important? Each stakeholder to the conflict has an answer to that question. What makes the conflict dysfunctional is an unwillingness to communicate the interest (sometimes a lack of awareness). That doesn’t mean the unwillingness to communicate the interest stays buried. No, instead it finds its way out in other ways. This is where the unhealthy piece comes into focus. I keep curiosity as my plumb line, so I don’t deviate into solutioning. I am focused on trying to understand.
Most people are smart, capable, and can find solutions to problems. But when you are close to it and it is important to you, some coaching is required. Once I have figured out the issue and the interests, I probe for what a solution would look like for the stakeholder; what might impede solving the problem; and what they would need to solve the problem, as well as any support that might be expected to solving the problem.
The biggest mistake most leaders make is rushing in to rescue and impose a solution. I have learned over my career that solutions that come from the people the problem affects are more effective. Think about your own careers. How many times have the folks higher in the hierarchical structure imposed a solution, and it worked?
According to Culture AMP, Only 40% of women feel satisfied with the decision-making process at their organization (versus 70% of men), which leads to job dissatisfaction and poor employee retention. What is your organization doing to facilitate an inclusive and supportive environment for women?
Dr. Tracy A. Pearson: Again separating out the work I do, I am not perceiving that the organization facilitates an inclusive and supportive environment for women as it pertains to the decision-making process, job satisfaction, and employee retention. Truthfully, when organizations become very large, these issues only become blips on the radar in times of crisis or when a survey is released. Dr. Marcia Reynolds wrote an incredible book, Wander Women, discussing this phenomenon. Women simply move on – and the organization loses institutional knowledge and all the rich knowledge and experience this person can provide.
What role do your company’s culture and values play in the recruitment process and how do you ensure that it is free from bias?
Dr. Tracy A. Pearson: No recruitment process is free from bias. You can, however, mitigate for it. For example, job descriptions should be carefully written so as not to discourage certain applicants and should only contain the reasonably essential functions of the job. For example, if 10 pounds isn’t part of the job, leave it off. Or think seriously and thoughtfully about the kind and types of experience you are seeking. Job descriptions that require many years of experience can implicitly discourage women who may not have that experience.
Think about how to manage the information an applicant supplies to reduce bias. If they have a long work history, you need to guard against age bias. If you use AI technology, it too can have bias. Amazon had a terrible gaff when the AI technology used for their recruitment was based on male data, leading to discriminatory outcomes for women. Finally, have a written set of criteria with aim measures to compare candidates. “Fit” is a term that is weaponized and, by establishing objective criteria, to the extent possible, helps to mitigate bias in decision-making.
When I have hired employees, I was focused on motivation. I always preferred to give an employee an opportunity to learn because I could teach them the job, but I couldn’t teach motivation. I would hire a great attitude over a great resume any day.
We’re grateful for all that you have shared so far! We would also love to know if there was one thing that you could improve about your company’s culture, what would it be?
Dr. Tracy A. Pearson: I appreciate the opportunity for your readers to learn about me and to share my thoughts on important and timely subjects. I consider it a privilege and a treat to talk about these issues and more. I also want to invite your readers to reach out to me if they want to learn more or collaborate. They can connect with me on all major platforms, like LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. They can also visit my website, TracyExplains.com.
Turning my attention to your question, separating the work I do, if I could improve one thing about the organization’s culture, it’s only one thing, huh? [laughing]. Well, if it is only one thing, and I had a Harry Potter Magic Wand where I could wish a solution into place, it would be for the organization to respect itself by behaving with integrity and truly centering the employee experience.
This has been truly insightful and we thank you for your time. Our final question, however, might be a bit of a curveball. If you had a choice to either fly or be invisible, which would you choose and why?
Dr. Tracy A. Pearson: Oh! I LOVE these types of questions.
I would choose to be invisible, without a doubt. If I were invisible, I could seamlessly float in and out of rooms learning vast amounts of knowledge that I could put to use solving many problems. But the invisibility would have to be something I could choose to turn on and off. Can you imagine where I could go and what I could learn? Sign me up!
Jed Morley, VIP Contributor to ValiantCEO and the host of this interview would like to thank Dr. Tracy A. Pearson for taking the time to do this interview and share her knowledge and experience with our readers.
If you would like to get in touch with Dr. Tracy A. Pearson or her company, you can do it through her – Linkedin Page
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