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Walking the Tightrope with Aplomb

Why are there so few Black CEOs?

For the Black professional, the road to the C-Suite can seem more of a tightrope than ladder – risky and demanding, with few making it to the end. Current studies show Black professionals make up less than one percent of CEOs and only 3.2 percent of executives and senior-manager level employees of at Fortune 500 companies.

The challenge of walking the career tightrope may cause a significant number of Black professionals to opt out of the journey even before they begin. Consider that 38 percent of Black millennials say they are contemplating leaving Corporate America to be entrepreneurs. The downward trend of Black executives and growing numbers of Black professionals exiting Corporate America will create space and opportunity.

Are you ready for tightrope-walking school? In this course, we will acknowledge and characterize the hazards of the Black professional’s career journey. This course will also focus on helping you develop the intrapersonal and interpersonal skills needed to navigate those hazards with increased awareness, confidence, effectiveness, and grace.

Learning Objectives

Learning objectives provide the foundation for training development. Terminal and Enabling objectives provide a framework that organizes the course content, instructional activities, and assessments. The Terminal Objective describes the learning achieved by completing the overall course, while Enabling Objectives describe learning achieved with specific segments of the course.

Terminal Objectives

By the end of this course, participants will have:

  • Created a mentoring action plan to identify the critical success factors of a personal mentorship
  • Created an individualized plan of action for peer accountability and progress
  • Developed a customized approach to individual development that addresses skill gaps
  • Developed a values-based career development plan that addresses the specific challenges of their work environment

Enabling Objectives

During this course, participants will:

  • Acknowledge the power and complexity of diversity in the workplace
  • Assess emotional and social intelligence using the Emotional Quotient Inventory (EQ-I 2.0)
  • Collaborate with peers to examine and interrogate scenarios for meaningful insights
  • Examine conflict styles using the Thomas Kilmann assessment
  • Identify “master” strategies for navigating common hazards that derail Black professionals
  • Improve the ability to provide meaningful and effective feedback