He Said I Was No Lady. He Was Right. I Was The Vice President Of Operations

“I have chosen to no longer be apologetic for my femaleness and my femininity. And I want to be respected in all of my femaleness because I deserve to be.” ― Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Watching Kamala Harris on the stage with Joe Biden brought back painful memories for me.

It is hard listening to the double standard being applied as Harris campaigns for the job of the second most powerful person in the world. Many detractors wanted to exclude her from consideration because they felt she was too ambitious. Craziness. Have you ever heard of anyone wanting to be the President of the United States described as too ambitious?

Years ago, I was the Vice President of Operations at a manufacturing company. Operations Management is a tough job. I had an excellent hard-to-manage team I looked forward to working with every day. It was a challenge, but I was good at my job

What Is Operations Management?

Operations is the work of managing the inner workings of your business so it runs as efficiently as possible. Whether you make products, sell products, or provide services, every small business owner has to oversee the design and management of behind-the-scenes work. Operations Management is where the money gets made by a manufacturing business.

Photo by Remy Gieling on Unsplash

They hired a White man as a peer Vice President. My new peer decided that I did not match his ideas of how a “lady” should act, especially a “lady of color.”

How do I know this? He came to my office multiple times and told me, then repeated his accusations at a Leadership team meeting.

He said I was pushy.

He said I was overly ambitious

He didn’t like the way I talked to him or his team.

He didn’t like the way I interrupted him in meetings.

He accused me of bullying him.

I didn’t act like a lady.

No one stopped him. They took it seriously enough that we went on an offsite to address the tension between us. Yea. I was bullying a corporate executive; a person of the same rank and power. Really? Stop it.

However:

I was ambitious.

I spoke with confidence and power.

I made demands of him and his team, but I said no words that had not been told to me at that same company.

I was a no-nonsense, results-driven leader.

I interrupted people at meetings, but no more than any of the men.

As a Black woman from Chicago, I struggled with both the “northerner stereotypes” as a rough and tumble street fighter and resented the many micro insults which were intentionally directed towards me daily.

I won’t go into the details but to say sadly that my peer and I never worked it out. He made a series of moves that damaged both of our careers. I did not respond well to the damage he did. I took his attacks too personally. I didn’t want to complain or to look weak. I skipped working with the Leadership team to avoid working closely with him. I sucked it up. It was the wrong approach.

Kamala Harris is savvier than I was then. Hell, I’m savvier than I was then. Harris knows that the only way to face down the idiocy is to face the madness head-on. I wish I had.

No sucking it up. Sucking it up doesn’t work. Staying away from the team doesn’t work. If you yield, they will push you in the wrong direction.

Harris will also have the advantage that everyone has learned that silence is consent. Others will speak up to defend her against those who would dishonestly make shit up. Only straight forward clear-eyed, uncompromising honesty will work.

Our President was promoted, and new management took over our division.

Not a single member of the new management transition team ever spent over fifteen minutes one-on-one with me understanding my job or my vision or our companies’ Operation’s strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. Hell, the new President never had time to see me or talk with me even on the phone.

When I was put out by that same President, he told me, “I was not the type of person he wanted on his team.”

He was right. I wasn’t.

Originally published at Medium.com https://medium.com/no-air/he-said-i-was-no-lady-he-was-right-i-was-the-vice-president-of-operations-11438b51c434