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Key Topics: Black Women • Leadership • Identity • Assimilation • Code-Switching • Corporate America • Authenticity • Workplace Bias • Sisterhood • Career Advancement • Belonging • Leadership Development

Episode Summary

What happens when becoming successful requires you to become less of yourself?

In this powerful conversation, Dr. Ebony Stone sits down with Dr. Jovan Keith, people and leadership executive, researcher, speaker, and founder of Mahogany Protégé, to explore what happens when Black women learn to minimize, adjust, and assimilate in order to advance in the workplace.

With more than 20 years of experience in human resources and organizational leadership, Jovan has seen firsthand how Black women can be labeled before they ever speak. Too loud. Too aggressive. Too much. Not the right “presence.”

And over time, many women learn to adjust.

They change how they speak. They become quieter in meetings. They rethink their hair, clothing, expressions, and communication styles. They learn how to fit the unwritten image of what a leader is supposed to look and sound like.

But what does all of that adjusting cost us?

Drawing from Jovan’s research with Black women navigating the leadership pipeline, Dr. Stone and Dr. Keith unpack the emotional and professional consequences of assimilation, the difference between changing yourself and becoming more strategic, and why organizations cannot claim to value diversity while simultaneously expecting everyone to conform to the same model of leadership.

They also explore the power of sisterhood and community. Jovan shares how bringing Black women together during her doctoral research helped participants realize that many of the workplace experiences they had internalized as personal failures were actually shared experiences—and how that realization helped some of them advocate for themselves, speak up, and ultimately advance.

The conversation also reaches beyond corporate America.

Whether you're climbing the corporate ladder, questioning who you've had to become to succeed, leading others, or simply trying to reconnect with the woman underneath all of the expectations, this episode is a reminder:

You can be strategic without disappearing.

And you can be done fitting in.

Who Should Listen to This Episode?

This episode is for you if…

• You’ve ever changed the way you speak, dress, wear your hair, or express yourself because you wanted to appear more “professional.”
• You’ve been called intimidating, aggressive, loud, difficult, or “too much” when you were simply being yourself.
• You’re a Black woman navigating leadership in a workplace where few people in senior positions look like you.
• You’ve become so accustomed to adapting to different environments that you sometimes wonder who you are underneath all of the adjustments.
• You feel unseen at work while simultaneously feeling like everything about you is being watched.
• You’re trying to advance professionally without losing yourself in the process.
• You need a stronger community of women who understand your experiences without requiring you to explain them first.
• You’re a leader who wants to create an organization where people can genuinely bring more of themselves to work—not simply one that says they can.

Corner Office Lessons

💜 You do not have to minimize yourself to advance.

There is a difference between being strategic and assimilating. Learning how to navigate an organization can help you advance, but advancement should not require you to erase the very qualities, experiences, and perspectives that make you valuable.

💜 Stop trying to convince people who have already decided who you are.

You cannot change every person who refuses to see your value. Instead of exhausting yourself trying to change their minds, identify leaders, mentors, peers, and advocates who recognize what you bring to the table—and build relationships with people who will speak your name in rooms you have not entered yet.

💜 Sometimes the most important question is simply: Who are you?

Degrees, titles, promotions, families, responsibilities, and expectations can accumulate until we realize we've spent years becoming what everyone needed us to be. Reconnecting with who you are—what you value, enjoy, believe, and uniquely bring—is part of becoming the leader you were meant to be.

💜 Sisterhood reminds us that we are not alone.

When you're the only Black woman in the room, it can be easy to internalize difficult workplace experiences and wonder whether you're the problem. Community gives women a place to compare experiences, validate one another, strategize together, and remind each other of their value.

💜 Organizations cannot ask for diversity and then demand conformity.

Hiring people with different backgrounds does not create meaningful diversity if everyone is expected to speak, dress, lead, think, and behave according to the same narrow definition of leadership. If organizations truly want the innovation that comes from diversity of thought, they must examine the unwritten rules governing who gets recognized as a leader.

About Today’s Guest

Dr. Jovan Keith is a people and leadership executive, researcher, speaker, and founder of Mahogany Protégé, whose work centers on helping women grow into leadership without believing they have to become someone else to succeed.

With more than 20 years of experience in human resources and organizational leadership, Jovan has built a career helping organizations develop their people, strengthen leadership, and create more equitable workplace practices.

Her research focuses particularly on the experiences of Black women navigating corporate workplaces and leadership. She is the creator of Humanizing Black Feminist Action Learning, a research-based framework that centers the lived experiences, knowledge, and voices of Black women as they navigate and make meaning of their workplace experiences.

Her doctoral research, Becoming the Phoenix, brought Black women across industries together to examine identity, workplace experiences, leadership, and advancement. Through that work, Jovan saw the power of community and identity firsthand as women began advocating for themselves, speaking more confidently about their value, and approaching career advancement without believing they needed to erase parts of themselves to succeed.

Jovan holds an MBA and a PhD in curriculum and instruction, and her work is grounded in identity-informed leadership—the belief that who we are, what we've experienced, and how we see the world can be assets in how we lead.

Her passion for identity also extends to young girls. Through the Avery James, Even When children’s book series, Jovan is creating stories that help Black girls navigate big feelings, embrace their voices, and become comfortable being themselves even when who they are looks different from those around them.

Work with Dr. Jovan Keith: 

Jovan works with Black women who have found themselves assimilating in order to advance professionally and want to reconnect with their identities while becoming more strategic about their careers and leadership.

Through coaching and upcoming cohort experiences, she creates spaces for Black women to learn, reflect, build community, and navigate their careers without believing they must minimize themselves to succeed.

Jovan also partners with organizations that are prepared to do meaningful leadership work—not simply check a box. Her organizational work helps leaders examine the gap between what companies say they value and what their systems, leadership models, mentoring programs, and workplace cultures actually reward.

Coming Soon: Avery James

Jovan is also the creator of the Avery James, children’s book series, featuring a young Black girl learning how to navigate emotions, identity, confidence, and belonging while remaining true to herself.

The first book, Even When I Am Nervous, follows Avery as she works through anxiety while pursuing an opportunity to join a swim team

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