“Those in the margins are always trying to get to the centre, and those at the centre, frequently in the name of tradition, are trying to keep the margins at a distance. Part of the identity of a place is the tension between those in the margins and those in the centre, and they all live behind the walls which wear the tradition.” – Anna Deavere Smith, Talk to Me

I took on one of the most daunting challenges of my career in 2019: a TEDx talk. This opportunity required me to confront several fears at once.

First, I had to agree to become a local celebrity, with marketing materials featuring my name and likeness shared across the community. Second, I had to speak in public, without the comforts of written notes, a podium or an understudy. Third, I agreed to tell my story, a personal narrative that had previously been carefully hidden behind my professional persona.

And finally, I was expected to deliver my TEDx talk from centre stage, standing on a large red dot designed for a single speaker.

Starting offstage

It was the final challenge that was most uncomfortable. Even though I was a leader in national higher education and in the local community, centre stage was not my home.

Ultimately, I resisted all the stage manager’s cues, and I began my TEDx talk offstage, delivering the following remarks:

“Look. I’m over here. I know you expect me to be at the centre, but to be honest, I’m not built to be in the centre. The world tells me I was made to dwell in the margins. Your inability to see me isn’t a new experience for me. It’s the very definition of being marginal.

“There are entire communities of people we fail to see because they dwell in margins. People whose humanity is doubted or, at best, questioned. People whose human value is defined by their race or gender or economic standing and, because we fail to meet a standard set by those in the centre, we are left to the margins.

“The margins: that place where people who are deemed unworthy are relegated. The margins: that place where you embrace who you are but feel like you’re often alone. The margins: that place where you feel a visceral pain because the world tells you you’re not enough and that to be enough means you would have to be a fundamentally different person. I know some of you get what I’m saying.

“For reasons beyond your control too, you’ve been relegated to the margins. Invisible. Ignored. As someone who was born poor, black and a woman, the margins are my genesis, my shelter and my place of nourishment.

“Because I come from and now choose to dwell in the margins, I have had to learn how to navigate life and leadership differently than those who come from, or primarily locate themselves in, the centre.”

Life in the margins

I began my talk with these words as a way of greeting all my fellow margin dwellers, letting them know they are not alone. You see, for those leaders who dwell in the margins, it is important to acknowledge what brought – and keeps – us there. My margins are drawn by my sex, race and class. These factors not only draw my margins but also help me to embrace my margins and my leadership.

Perspectives formed by life in the margins give us new ways of viewing the world, a readiness to question inherited assumptions, and the tools to give witness to the harm these assumptions cause. So, as a leader from the margins, you step into this work to engage the centre in these questions and to engage (and recruit) other marginalised communities who share these gifts of perspective and wisdom.

To be clear, I am not advocating for a better or worse way of leadership based on proximity to the margin. I am, however, acknowledging that one can conceive of a leadership position born from the margins. And because this leadership starts from a different point, it will, by design, manifest itself differently. It will have meaning for leaders who look different.

Leaders who have defied (and continue to defy) great odds will have a different approach not easily recognised or valued by those from the centre. Leadership from the margins demands a different skill set. A different path. A different destination.

While one might think a leader from the margins seeks the centre, I argue that a leader from the margins seeks to move across that space and reach individuals and circumstances in other margins.

Traditional leaders

Often when leaders are described, it seems it was inevitable that the person would become a leader from a young age. They had the opportunities, privileges and even physical characteristics to be a leader.

A recent study found that when asked to picture a leader, both men and women identified a leader as a man: “Getting noticed as a leader in the workplace is more difficult for women than for men. Even when a man and a woman were reading the same words off a script, only the man’s leadership potential was recognised.”

Women are not who we have traditionally pictured as leaders, and, as a result, women have less access to leadership development, training and mentoring opportunities. Women frequently get relegated to the margins.

Next, let’s add race to the margin. According to the American Council on Education, only 5% of college presidents are women of colour, with 25% of college presidents being white women. Women lead 8% of Fortune 500 companies – a record number, despite women making up nearly 60% of the workforce in the United States.

Of the 41 Fortune 500 leaders who are women, six are women of colour and only two are African American women (my demographic).

Early lack of opportunity

Taken separately, my sex and race make a leadership role less likely. Taken together, given current structures, my being a leader feels increasingly impossible. This perspective is only heightened when you consider the lack of access I have had to opportunities and resources that support leadership development. I was raised in a low-income household in the rural South, with few pathways to leadership.

In fact, a 2014 study found that low-income and first-generation college students were significantly less likely to pursue campus leadership roles than their higher-income peers, even after controlling for demographic and other variables. This early lack of opportunity for engagement has implications for long-term success, as the networking and leadership skills developed at the collegiate level are not always allowed to emerge for low-income students.

I am not a tall, white male who grew up with the privilege such markers can afford, though, of course, that privilege can readily vary based on individual circumstances. I am a leader who emerged from the margin. A leader who longed to hear from others like me – people who, perhaps unexpectedly, found themselves in leadership roles wondering how to navigate when one’s core perspective is not centred by others.

My recent book is titled Leading from the Margins because my life, my leadership, my calling, is based on the dialectics of the margins. My spirit was born and shaped in marginal spaces. I believe leadership is about bringing those on the margins to and through the centre, as well as helping those in the centre explore their margins.

My life on the margins supports my ability to move not only towards the centre but through the centre to reach and uplift others on the margins. Similarly, leadership from the margins can equip those in the centre to recognise and value those on the margins.