Leadership and Social Justice

The thing that really destroys not only movement but in many cases, companies and organizations is ego-centric models. When the personality is in the central of everything and is based on that personality, that's a destroyer of momentum. But if you have a community-centric model where you have space where people can contribute and they feel value in that space of contribution, you get more out of it. Welcome to Living Leadership, a podcast brought to you by the Center for Innovative Leadership at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School. I'm Mike Doyle, serving as the Executive Director. The conversations in each of these episodes will be led by current faculty and MBA students from the center, blending academic insight with real-world experiences. Join us as we uncover the traits that not only define great leadership now, but will continue to do so in the decades to come. Today on the Living Leadership Podcast, we're on it to welcome Derek Johnson, a visionary leader at the forefront of civil rights and social justice, serving as the President's CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Color People, affectionately known as the NAACP. I'm Shavon Stuban and MBA candidate at the Carey Business School and your host for today. In our discussion, Derek emphasizes the importance of being a lifelong learner and discusses how eco-centric models can hinder progress, advocating instead for community-based approaches and leadership that foster space and growth. He provides a fresh perspective on diversity, equity, and inclusion movements, explaining it as a modern iteration of centuries-old fight to empower individuals to reach their fullest potential. Derek also opens up about the often overlooked challenges of leadership, including the loneliness that accompanies high-level positions in the shrinking circle of trusted advisors. His experience offers profound lessons on leadership, the continuous pursuit of knowledge, and the resilience required to lead a significant organization like the NAACP. Join us as Derek Johnson delves into these topics, offering a master-class in leadership and a relentless commitment to social progress. So with that, you've been with NAACP for 34 years. And so you've seen a lot of change over the years and then of course being in your six-year presidency. So to you right now, what is your vision for the future of what civil rights looks like and what does that look like to innovate that and address emerging challenges, specifically from a leadership perspective? Well, you consider the United States today. We are the most diverse country we've ever been in the history since our founding. That's really important, as you think about the party of life, but more importantly, the guarantees as in the social contract we call the Constitution. And our ability to ensure every citizen will be entitled to all of the guarantees of their constitutions. We must first focus on, unfortunately, this upcoming year's election in November. Because what's on about it is, in our opinion, is not candidate A or candidate B. Is whether that we have a functioning democracy that's guaranteed by the Constitution and implemented in a way in which the diverse nation in which we are able to truly have a say in the formation of public policy. That's opposed to the other option of having a system led by a fascist. We're a nonpartisan organization. We don't have people how to vote. But we do recognize the troubling times that we are in. We are in a current political environment where other rising has become so mainstream that we expected. And when you otherwise, we could cause harm to those communities and individuals who have been other. That's not consistent with the Constitution. It is a part of the mission of the NACP in our 115 year history to fight against that. Because as African-Americans, we know what it means when you marginalized communities based on one's ethnic background, gender, and in our case, race. We would never live out the true potential that we should be living out as a nation or as individual communities. So our vision, once in your question is to fight to make democracy work for all, that vision starts leading up to this election November. And then from there, making sure we maximize the true potential of every individual and every community that's in this country. So what is your personal leadership philosophy? So I have evolved my leadership style to really connect with what actually work when you think about the African-American struggle for human dignity rights that we call the Civil Rights Movement. It is one of which intergenerational strength is what propels us, the energy of young people, the wisdom of our elders and the continuity of those in between age. It is also one that is informed from those who are most affected by the policy or the adverse effect of corporate behavior. So the bottom up approach with guide rails that is put in place, topped out to ensure that we are maximizing the full potential of each individual or members of the association within the confines of barbed rails. So we don't overreact when we should become and that we react when instead of being calm. And that tension within itself is tear, that tension between generational energies and wisdom, that tension between how and when to react, that tension between top down structure versus bottom up structure. That tension, if it is managed properly, it creates the magic of movement. It creates the ability to see change happen because it's in that tension that no individual regardless of one's title, position or posture has all of the solutions, but all of us have a piece of the solution that if we put in the right bit, we can come out with a solution that we can all take ownership in and contribute to. Okay, so you touched on a couple things. One piece around diversity and specifically around kind of intergenerational organizing, another piece around having all the pieces of the puzzle to get to the right solution. And so two questions, but I'll do one other time for making all the pieces of the puzzle fit together to get to the outcome. How do you navigate all of those different areas of diversity and not just from a generational or from a racial perspective, but also just from a privileged perspective and how do you bring in allies and know when your leadership may not be the best for that space at that time and letting someone else lead in order to get to the outcome and the solution you're looking for. One of the things that I have to always be is a lifelong learner. Many scenarios that we as a community or as a nation confront isn't one dimensional. It isn't just health related or just education related or just financial related. It is all of those things. And as a lifelong learner, and if you're actually seeking to apply solutions, you have to be agile enough and recognize when another individual's expertise should be accelerated so that we can all learn and you step back. The thing that really destroys not only movements, but in many cases, companies and organizations is egocentric models. But if you have a community centric model where you have space where people can contribute and they feel valued in that space of contribution, you get more out of that. So I try to lean into a leadership style where I give space while at the exact same time maintain a container because democracy is messy and you can give space and not knowing that you're giving space to an egocentric personality that we use at expertise for a moment but then try to apply that same expertise and scenarios where it doesn't apply. And so you have to also maintain a container and give different people opportunity to step up. And more importantly, the most dangerous thing to be or do or witness are individuals who are always seeking the microphone or being in front of the role of a camera. That's a dangerous place for any organization to depend on. I can recall moving back to Mississippi after law school working with Holliswalkers and our profit. We were told there's small community. And they say, you know, as a community organizer, our job is to sit in the back of the room and push local leadership forward. Because when we get in our car and we leave this community, they got a deal with whatever the issues are that we came to address and we cannot always be there. So we have to work as hard as possible. with individuals in that community to have them overcome fear, recognizing that they are the experts of their community, and that we're only there to provide technical assistance, and that technical assistance may align with other communities we're working with, to build momentum around a particular issue that's how we share. But at the end of the day, the leadership must be local, and we should never go in and project that we are the experts on their issue, that we are providing technical assistance so their leadership can shine strong in that community that they live in, because they are the experts of that community. So the second part of the diversity question is, it's kind of a wrong membership, and I'm a feed-it-to unit different way, just based on right exposure and knowledge of NACP, which is kind of how does NACP uphold the idea of DEI, diversity, equity, and inclusion, from an operational standpoint, from a leadership standpoint, also how do you include partners in those areas of diversities and potentially across different sectors? So I get to speak recently, and I ask the audience, these were executive. As I said, do you remember the day you woke up and all of a sudden the concept of everything was maintained in this three-letter concept of DEI? What did that come from? Who packaged it? Who marketed it? Who caused us to put the aspirations of everything we've always been doing to three initials and why? And so the whole DEI movement is a repackage reality that this country have been, we've been in a mis-suffer fight for not decades, but centuries. It is simply allowing each individual to achieve their highest aspirations without the hurdles in front of them, and allowing their skills that tell us their energy, their work actually allowed them to bubble towards the top. Maritocracy doesn't exist in this country. Everyone is being privileged who are successful by some open doors, some community that come from, some some seem external to who they are, they happen to be born in the right zip code or part of the right tribe. And so how they reflect in the organization is I tried to ensure on my staff that I have the most control over, make sure those are the most talented bubble up. I have an executive team of C-suite, as commonly known, of all women. They're talented, they're strong will, they're bossy as hell, they can tell me what to do because they are in the space in which they excel. And that's a beautiful thing. So the very thing, I say that tension at the table when you have these different types of, whether it's based on age generations or something else, we try to display that through how I operate my staff, while at the exact same time in order for the organization to grow, we have to talk to the average age of the community we represent. So also work very hard to make sure that the medium age of our staff is as close to as possible the medium age of our community, which is 34. Really important because with that, we begin to see a seismic change and how people view the association, how they see the association's effectiveness and how they're willing to engage with association. That's really important. That has everything to do with how we show up on things like social media. Because now the average age of our community can see themselves in our activities much differently than how they see themselves in 2016. That's really important for us. That's a good question that comes up even as you talk about having a sea suite of all women, which in itself is a lot of diversity, but then also what does it look like to have a representative membership? And be clear, I didn't try to do that. I'm saying they're highly skilled, highly qualified women. I know. But with that even in making sure there's diversity in age, I would love to hear about a time, like, gradually to ship where you've had to overcome resistance in anything that you've done, especially in relation to trying to be more innovative or push the needle and be more transformative. So, wow, that's a big question because, you know, I see the words macroaggressions and microaggressions. And it took me a minute to understand it. But there's been multiple times in terms of our community where people thought they should be positioned differently than how they were positioned in order to get there. They needed to dislodge me from my position. That's a struggle. That's about the individual's interests off the times, the Nazi community or organizational interests. When I go into specifics, there was a time that I was elected to the National Board of Directors by the members of the board. I was unelected to the National Board of Directors by the members of the board. Then I was elected to the board by the members of the association. And it was the best thing that could have happened for me and to me. That at the time of the board decided that they wanted another person to represent them on the board, I had to ponder that for them. So, what is it that I could have done differently? What is it that I was doing? And how was I actually showing up? I remember sitting next to Julian Bond on one side and Gary Blesso, the Texas State Congress president, also on the board on the other side. And I said, "I think they are about to vote me off." And Julian Bond said, "No, that's not possible." I said, "No, I'm counting the votes. I think they're about to vote me off." And I sat there and I smiled. And they gave me the mic after the vote. I said, "You know, I have learned a lot at this table. Thank you for the opportunity. I will be back." That gave me that opportunity to really reflect because sometimes we don't have that opportunity to have that separate reflection until that joking thing happened. And that was that joking thing that I needed to really assess, how was I showing up? Was I adding value? Was I causing unnecessary harm or threatening people's in their positions? Or was they just, they just didn't like me? And I took the other project and said, "No, it has nothing to do with they just didn't like me. What is my responsibility? How do I own this? What could I have done? What should I do differently?" That's really important when you're doing both organizational assessments, but also personal assessments, but it's really important when you're doing that cross between a personal assessment and how you are impacting the organization. And so when I did get back elected, I came in with a different understanding of how I should show up. And I showed up to add value to the organization, not to the positions I was seeking or people think I was about to dislodge from out of their position. It was simply, how do I make the organization the best it can be to serve the communities that depend on the organization's existence and strength? I like that. So if you think back to your earlier leadership and moments in your career, are there any situations that you would handle differently or things that you wish you would have known sooner in your leadership journey, I know you just shared kind of being on the board and talking about self-reflection, but any other notes that you would give either aspiring leaders or leaders who are also lifelong learners to what they can be thinking about? Consume as much information as possible, even if it's foreign to your expertise. Paul Kruppman has a book, believe it came on maybe 2008, 2008 or 2009 called Conscious of a Liberal. Now Kruppman, I've read a few of his articles in the time, he's an economist and I never really embraced, he can open to that way until I read his book, Conscious of a Liberal. And he really talked about the nature of the tension around making sure we have a true multi-racional representative democracy and what are the barriers from preventing that? I wish I would have dabbed into that much sooner than I did because what he essentially did for me is narrow the real tension around the essence of the fight, who gets taxed, who's not taxed, and how those tax dollars are spent and what communities are spent in and what priorities are those tax dollars. And the regulatory authorities of a centralized government, federal government or local government. And if you look at the tensions in our democracy, it really centers around those things. I had never thought about it in that way. And then when you abstract from that and understand the tool of race and religion and in some times region to encourage people to operate outside of their own self interest, it would be allowed me to have a really, really strong understanding around the strategies that are we are being attacked by. If you want to change health policy in this country or prevent health policy from being changed, you could be as a whole segment of our society to make it feel as if somebody's taking something from them. For you label it in a racialized identity, Obamacare versus Affordable Care Act. You can have people who are dependent on federal medical health insurers say we don't want to Obamacare, but we like the Affordable Care Act that makes sense and that's all about the tool of emotionalism through race, religion, gender, things of that nature. Had I had a chance to do it sooner, I would have devoured into that study much earlier, some 10, 15 years earlier, but I didn't understand the nature because for many individuals they think the attack is about their identity, not realizing that their identity is just one of the tools and the toolbox to give people to react to get their outcomes, their pursuing around tax policy or regulatory control. Switching gives a little bit. So when do you know that your time in a space as a leader has expired? So in this case, how will you know when it is time for you no longer to be the president's CEO of the NACP? I recall being state president of Mississippi NACP and I knew that my time was coming short where the things that we were doing are being effective get kind of boring. I'm going to do it anymore. And right before I took this position, we were in the process of hiring an executive director, so I can be freed up to go do something else after roaring the state conference. But I took it over. It was five digit budget. When I left it, it was a seven digit budget. So just grew it tremendously. But I knew that there was a tipping point and we we began to hire executive director and executive director came in and did way better than me. Now he got appointed by Biden and a person that replaced him has done better than him. Charles, you know, and so that's a beautiful thing that's called growth. And I think even in this position when I get to that tipping point where the things I was seeking to right size and correct and put us in the right direction, would it become boring and so routine that I'm like, oh, God, do this again. It's time to go because there's no challenge. Thank you for tuning in to Living Leadership. We hope this episode has left you feeling inspired and equipped with new perspectives and approaches for leading others. Stay connected with us at the Center for Innovative Leadership for more. Until next time, keep innovating and leading the way into the future.