Prince Andre-Khalid Corbett Log 3

This is a great question for me that comes at a perfect time for me to reflect on my understanding of leadership. I started this Fellowship back in August 2022 when I was working as Racial and Health Equity Administrator at Ramsey County. In that role I didn’t “formally lead” people, and by “formerly lead”, I mean having people that reported directly to me. However, midway in my Fellowship I had a job change when I was appointed as the Director of Racial Equity, Inclusion, and Belonging (REIB) at the City of Minneapolis in September 2023 where we have nine employees in my department that I am responsible for. In responding to this question, I’ll be reflecting and contrasting my understanding of leadership as I have transitioned from one racial equity leadership role into another.
I got out of prison on December 29, 2005 and in fall of 2006 I started at Minneapolis Community College where I earned an Associates Degree in Business Management. I remember taking the “Principles of Management” class and I will never forget the four functions of management that was taught. Those four functions are: controlling, leading, organizing and planning (I remembered them by the acronym CLOP). Leading involves motivating people to obtain organizational goals. I’ll take this concept a step further by incorporating racial equity into this definition and say that “leading involves motivating people to obtain an organization’s racial equity goals”.
At Ramsey County I learned that I didn’t have to be a “manager” in order to lead people and departments towards achieving the organizations racial equity goals. I was a relational and influential racial equity leader meaning that I leveraged the relationships and influence I had in those relationships to lead. I had developed great relationships with senior and executive leaders and leveraged my influence to get racial equity goals and measures implemented. I didn’t have a team to manage that could advance the racial equity work we we’re doing. In order to move the work, I had to rely on the relationships I had with senior leaders and because those relationships were built on mutual respect and trust, they used there positional authority and power to advance racial equity throughout the organization.
In my current role as a Director in the City of Minneapolis, my department (REIB) is responsible for guiding all 26 departments and offices in the City with embedding racial equity principles in the operations, program, services and policies of all 26 of those departments and offices. Part of my role in leading in this role is developing and maintaining trusting relationships with the 30+ senior and executive leaders who are responsible for managing those 26 departments. Since leading racial equity involves motivating people around racial equity, there is a need to understand what motivates these leaders intrinsically and extrinsically. Embedding racial equity throughout the entire organization is a change management process and therefore means I also have to understand the change process, assessing where individuals and departments are at in the change process, and then using motivational interviewing skills and techniques to address ambivalence to change. A senior or executive leader could be strongly motivated to change a department’s culture to advance racial equity, but key individuals and/or teams within that department could be in contemplation stage of change.
When it comes to directly managing and leading people, I’ve been doing that since I was 17 years old when I was promoted a shift supervisor at a quick-service restaurant. 3 weeks after my 17th birthday I was running shifts as the only manager on duty where I had to manage the daily work of 5-20 employees every shift. I worked at Ramsey County for almost eight years and one of the positions I held was managing a team of 13 people. I can flex on my management career by saying I have always developed high functioning and high performing teams (to “flex” means to outwardly brag). The team I lead in the quick service industry improved the customer service experience by 26% in four months. The team I managed at Ramsey County improved in every outcome measure we tracked. In addition, we lead in every racial equity metric we tracked amongst 8 other organizations working on the same federally mandated program.
Now at the City of Minneapolis I’m in the process of developing a high performing and high functioning team. High performing teams have high levels of trust, high levels of accountability, are committed to each other and do not fear conflict. Because of the structure of the department when I started as Director at the City, I had all employees reporting directly to me but since then I’ve hired two key leadership positions in our department. Over the past few months, I have learned to step back and let our department’s Deputy Director and Manager lead the other employees in the department. My understanding of leadership has changed because, at this level of leadership, it is my responsibility to develop and grow the leadership skills and abilities of these two leaders and allow them to lead the other employees in the department. I have to build trust and accountability with these 2 leaders and allow them to build trust and accountability with members of the teams they lead. My view and understanding of leadership has shifted because now I feel leadership is about growing and developing other leaders. The development has to be intentional which means I find myself observing these 2 leaders and then providing coaching and feedback in our 1 on 1’s. I allow them to “make mistakes” and allow them to learn from those experiences. I’m protective of my team, meaning that I navigate political relationships and make strategic moves so that my team can keep focusing on the work and not get caught up in divisive topics.
In reflecting on understanding how my leadership has changed during the fellowship, I’m learning the differences between leading the daily operational work compared to leading the vision and purpose of a department/organization. The learning and experiences I’ve had in this fellowship has allowed me to improve my skills and abilities to lead a department/organization rather than just a team. My department has 9 employees and a budget of $2M, so it’s almost like being an executive director of a small non-profit. The conferences I have attended and coaching I have received during this fellowship have given me great insight on leading departments and organizations. During this fellowship I have met and interviewed leaders who are executive leaders in their organizations and they have all given me pieces of information that have informed by ability to lead. As a leader it is important to maintain self-care and rest so that we don’t burned out at an accelerated rate. As a leader it is important to work with and across leaders from various sectors in order to achieve a result that will benefit the community. As a leader it is important we create environments of grace that does not punish when mistakes are made, but allows us to learn from those mistakes. It’s not a class alone that will teach us these things, but it’s the coaching and guidance we get from others that also teaches us these things. Being a Bush Fellow has put in relationship with executive leaders that I probably may not have met, and many of these executive leaders have offered being a sounding board if I need someone to bounce ideas off of.