Not having the support and clarity you need in your career can lead you to a frustrating state of stagnancy. That’s why so many of our WOC coaching clients quit their jobs; because they felt stuck, didn’t have a good relationship with their manager, and lacked opportunities for professional development at their company.

Here are three reasons why managers need to improve their hard and soft communication skills to better support their marginalized employees:

1. Solid communication nurtures safe work environments and belonging on teams

My Real You Leadership team and I have spent years coaching hundreds of BIPOC women & femmes and other marginalized groups to be empowered leaders and accelerate their career growth in their organizations. Even in this long season of mass layoffs in 2022 and 2023, many of our clients are making moves to leave their current company to find a healthier, more equitable, and inclusive leadership team and workplace. 

It’s no secret that managers aren’t always set up for success. Many aren’t trained to authentically connect with, lead, and support the diverse workforces their companies commit to hiring for. We see firsthand the negative impact of this lack of critical foundation-building for leadership when we help our coaching clients navigate challenging interpersonal dynamics, and toxic bosses in white-dominated, male-dominated industries as marginalized people. 

Yet, in our team’s experience, training people managers in global remote organizations, we continue to meet hundreds of leaders who want to learn how they can be better and do better. We love to see it!

In our leadership workshops, we help you set aside the judgment and stay curious about your growth points as a leader, what habits and mindsets you need to unlearn, and how you can be empowered to connect and elevate your BIPOC and other marginalized employees. 

2. Communication helps close the leadership and pay gap

It’s estimated that women are paid $400,000 less than men over the course of a 40-year career. For Black women, Indigenous women, Latina women, and women of color, at the intersections of race and gender, the wage gap they face can result in losing over $1 million in their careers. 

Although existing structural and systemic inequities are the cause of this pay gap, that doesn’t mean we as individuals are powerless in making a change. Managers have the power to help close it by role-modeling effective communication and imparting actionable steps towards career advancement with their BIPOC, women, and marginalized employees.

It’s Real You Leadership’s mission to help close the intersectional leadership and pay gap by elevating BIPOC employees and the managers who lead them. Some companies already have structural changes that support pay equity, like showing pay ranges on job listings and showing how roles are structured. 

But what is often missing for the women of color we coach is a clear understanding of what they need to do to make more within that pay range and how to advance from one role level to the next. This support and guidance is something WOC often see their counterparts receive, but not for themselves due to bias, discrimination, or lack of visibility from their managers.

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to managing and uplifting a group of individuals with completely different identities and lived experiences. Managers can intentionally nurture psychologically safe work environments that allow their team members to make mistakes, ask for help when needed, and advocate for resources they need to succeed in their roles.

This level of trust allows your teams to share their biggest challenges, their biggest professional gaps, and their career ambitions, providing leaders the insight they need to adjust their performance management strategy and communication style to help each employee succeed.

3. Honest feedback is critical to the professional development and career advancement of your BIPOC employees 

We encourage leaders to amplify transparency, communicate actionable advice and feedback on how their direct reports can grow their professional skills, make a positive impact on business outcomes, and get their next-level role and compensation.

We’ve been creating custom performance management training for people managers in a global enterprise tech company. During one of our pre-planning calls, the Director of DEI shared that recent company survey results revealed two things about their BIPOC employees:

• They are receiving ambiguous feedback on their performance (which isn’t helpful)

• They don’t have a clear pathway or understanding of how to move up in their current next level into the next

This company has heavily invested in equitable systems processes for managers and direct reports to have multiple feedback channels and professional development documentation tools, which is great. But it’s also necessary to support managers in addressing and correcting their lack of transparency and any communication breaks amongst team members, especially with their marginalized employees.

By providing executive coaching and human-centered manager training, we’re helping managers to keep it real and practice transparency with their direct reports, and actively give BIPOC, women, and marginalized team members the critical advice and feedback they need to advance in their organization. We help leaders stop avoiding critical, uncomfortable conversations around pay transparency, steps to grow their careers, and how they can stay aligned with their organizations’ diversity, equity, and inclusion commitments.

These Real You Leadership workshops can support your people managers in being more transparent and deepening authentic connections with their BIPOC team members:

• Owning Your Impact As An Active Ally

• Designing Psychological Safety In Teams

• How to Give & Receive Empowering Feedback 

• Creating Feedback Loops for Performance Review

If you’re interested in bringing our team on to host any of the workshops previously listed, head over to our website and fill out the inquiry form.

Leadership & Negotiation Coach for Women of Color in Technology|Founder|Workshop Facilitator, Speaker & Trainer

Nadia’s career and leadership expertise has been featured in CNBC, HuffPost, FastCompany, New York Times Kids, and The Muse.

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