13. Laura Donald - Centering People Of Color

Self-care is essential in the mission to advance inclusivity and racial equity.
Laura Donald is the founder and CEO of Axis Talent Partners, where she focuses on supporting leaders of color in accessing positions of power. Through a career in teaching and recruiting, Laura has followed her lifelong passion for spreading a culture of liberation and leaving a positive impact with her liberatory values.
Centering the experiences of people of color and cultivating a sense of belonging is a challenging goal in the fight to advance equity and justice. There are many tensions and hurdles along the path to defining and constructing the roadmap in liberation-focused work, and it requires constant examination along the way.
To lead with clarity in the fight for liberation, you have to commit to your own endless journey of healing and learning and truly feel like you are enough. Remember to self-care and self-reflect in this ongoing balance between self-leadership and our shared liberatory leadership journey!👉 Executive search can be equitable. 00:10
😇 Laura is a biracial daughter of educators. 02:21
🤓 The inspirations for becoming a consultant and entrepreneur. 06:18
🎯 Designing her work life was beautiful and liberating for Laura: putting all her energy into recruiting leaders of color and inspiring others. 09:52
🤔 Unapologetic, unequivocal focus and values are insufficient for your mission: equity work requires constant examination.17:33
👩🏽‍🦱 Centering the experiences of people of color: having a preference for people of color in your searches. 21:03
⚡ How do you build diverse candidate pools: laser focus on qualifications, reaching out to as many people of color as possible, and rechecking the application and interview processes. 22:49
🔥 The power of naming things: gathering the evidence on competencies and then connecting with people as humans. 25:33
🔠 After going through equity practice, the core-competency, alignment, interviewing and evaluating, it is time to see if the fit is real. 29:33
🗝️ From the hardcore superscripted core-competency interviewing to the beginning of the onboarding: the key is in honesty and authentic conversation with potential leaders. 31:33
🤩 Laura’s big revelation about liberatory culture: intentional and conscious choices about what's conventional, what's different, and balancing all constantly. 33:32
📋 There is no one way to do this: operating in shared leadership while the default is hierarchy. 35:15
⚖️ Balancing a delicate ecosystem and navigating tensions at every turn: keeping liberatory culture and bringing in revenue. 38:13
☯️ Laura’s healing journey: inner work, leadership development, therapy, and sabbatical are all needed for staying focused and adapting to the constant spinning cycle of her work. 41:04
☑️ Dynamics of changes and healing: healthy interconnectedness starts within you as a leader. 44:25
💎 Laura’s RONdering: how we truly heal and cultivate our own liberation, to feel enough, and bring it to other people. 49:03
🫱🏼‍🫲🏾 Laura’s team truly brings equity-centered search work for their clients and is an example of a different kind of paradigm of work. 51:42Links:Connect with Laura: www.linkedin.com/in/lauradonald Check out www.axistalentpartners.com Connect with Ron: www.linkedin.com/in/rapataloTwitter: https://twitter.com/phenomeronInstagram: www.instagram.com/phenomeron