The HBR Diversity and Inclusion Collection (5 Books)

Leadership in Your Midst

Tapping the Hidden Strengths of Minority Executives.

by Sylvia Ann Hewlett, Carolyn Buck Luce, and Cornel West

ALL COMPANIES VALUE LEADERSHIP—some of them enough to invest dearly in cultivating it. But few management teams seem to value one engine of leadership development that is right under their noses, churning out the kind of talent they need most. We’re referring to the deeply substantive outside lives of their minority executives.

If you know many minority professionals—particularly women of color—then you know that these are the people who are called upon inordinately to lend their energies, perspectives, and guidance to activities outside their jobs. (We use the term “minority” in the statistical sense to denote ...