'I have experienced the loneliness of being the only woman of colour at a leadership table'
Despite New Zealand’s worldwide reputation for excellent and forward-thinking race relations, as a young Asian immigrant to New Zealand Suki Xiao experienced quite deliberate racism first-hand. The experiences of deliberate racism led to Xiao making changes in her behaviour, so she appeared more normal. Just seemingly small things like eating the more traditional kiwi sandwich instead of the chicken and rice she had grown up on at lunch time.
“It's really easy to disassociate parts of ourselves and go, this is not useful, our culture, our background is not useful, therefore, I'm going to assimilate,” Xiao explained to HRD.
Little did she know as a child, that years later the law and business graduate would end up founder of a leadership and career training company that aims to ensure women of colour never have to change their behaviour to fit in again. And that simply having women of colour on a board or in the leadership team isn’t the same as allowing their diverse point of view to have a voice.
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“I have experienced the loneliness of being the only woman, or the only woman of colour in a room and at a leadership table. It is not unusual that I get asked “Where are you really from?” or receive comments about how good my English is, or in one outstanding case where I got asked in an interview for a board position, how are you going to gain respect given you are from minority backgrounds,” said Xiao.
Xiao, through her leadership and career development company AsYou, has launched a leadership training program for women of colour that aims to empower women of colour to pursue leadership roles and highlight and change the systemic racism that exists throughout kiwi workforces.
What is systemic racism in the workplace?
Sometimes awkward to talk about in the workplace because often it stems from unconscious bias, Systemic racism occurs when people form beliefs or patterns of behaviour based on a person’s race. For instance, humans are more likely to believe a white man is competent in a business leadership position or something more policy based like everyone must wear a suit to work.
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Xiao believes one of the main challenges for ethnically diverse staff is the pressure to conform to what the majority of the success looks like. While she was a young consultant in a large business services firm where a lot of business was done over Friday drinks or on the golf course, Xiao felt pressured to partake in the activities despite having no interest in them.
“A lot of women are not interested in drinking and talking about fishing or playing a round of golf,” said Xiao. “But as a part of this system or society that we live in, it’s a way for people to build those critical informal business networks, but that only works if those activities are the things that you are interested in.”
Xiao explains another challenge is a lack of role models for women of colour. When they look up at leadership teams, they don’t see anyone like them, and this creates self-doubt as to whether they can make it there. Furthermore, it creates a barrier for women of colour to bring up their concerns with the leadership team for fear of the person that is constantly bringing up issues that a white/men leadership team can’t relate to.
“There is such a need for us to be able to acknowledge the different backgrounds that we have and bring that deliberately into work so that we can have better business performance and workplace culture,” said Xiao.
