A Woman’s Perspective on Leadership

The body I wear holds all the experiences of a woman whose perspective is different and absent in so many organizations. But, instead of asking myself where I belong, or how best to blend in, and which parts to conceal, I ask myself where I am needed. Right now, I am needed where my leadership asks new questions and challenges the status quo. I am needed where women who look like me rarely exist in leadership.

Growing up as a Hmong daughter was easy because my place within my family was determined from the moment I was born. The value of a woman within a patriarchal culture only mattered in how well behaved she was and how good her domestic skills were. Outside this cultural context, I sensed also that my place was again determined for me in society but not only as a woman, but as a woman of color. And women who look like me did not exist as leaders in either world.

Instead of opportunities to become a young leader, I learned that I had to navigate spaces differently and strategically. At a young age I was assimilating before I even understood what that meant. This conditioned me to later believe within an all-white church, that my voice as a woman was to be muted and my experiences as a person of color was not biblical.  These survival tools came in handy as I headed into a career in white spaces. In these spaces, I expected that my perspective as an Asian woman would not be invited and would be seen as a monolith; a negative stereotype. Yet, even in all of this, my value as a leader began to take shape.

It is too great a cost to lose my inherent God-given human dignity to fit into man-made hierarchies. I am a beloved of the creator of this cosmos and there’s deep worth in whose identity I bear. This shows up in my humanity and in my leadership. As the author, Cole Arthur Riley, stated so beautifully in her book, This Here Flesh, God Himself is described in three parts; therefore, He bares multiple images and I honor His image in my brown skin, monolid eyes, and black hair. I was made by God to be used by God, and my ethnic identity adds value to that calling, it does not take it away.