Giving direct, difficult feedback is one of the most important and anxiety-inducing leadership tasks. Yet, the leaders who master this skill find that clear, connected conversations about what’s working and what’s not reduce the emotional turbulence in an organization and give people the critical information they need to develop. 

Early in my career, as a first-time startup leader, I managed a woman (“Mary”) who was wonderfully talented in many ways, but who routinely underperformed in a few critical areas. Despite this consistent underperformance, I found myself unable to give her direct, useful feedback. It felt unkind to criticize her. I wanted to lead an egalitarian organization, and at the time, I felt like the “do better or else” message others were asking me to give her would fly in the face of that ideal. It didn’t occur to me; there might be another way to deliver the message. 

Eventually, the company entered a difficult period, and we decided to reduce our staff. As a result of her performance, Mary was included in the layoff. The decision didn’t sit well with me at the time and, over many years of reflection since, I see now that it wasn’t her underperformance that led to the loss of her job, but my own. 

Many of us find it difficult to give critical feedback. One study of over 7,500 leaders found that over a fifth of leaders don’t bother doing it at all. Is it just the interpersonal discomfort that naturally arises from making critical assessments of others? Maybe not. A 1996 review of the feedback literature found that over one-third of “feedback interventions” actually reduced performance! We’re not just avoiding our own discomfort, we’re avoiding sharing a message that could hurt performance. 

In the decade since that layoff, I’ve been working to discover the art of giving feedback, for my own sake and as a tool for the leaders I coach and advise, from first-time managers in the fast-moving startup world to the leaders of some of the largest and most important institutions. I’ve found that when we are anxious about giving feedback, it’s often because we’re trapped in a critical mindset. 

So, how can a critical message be transformed into an inspirational one? The key is not the message you deliver, but in how you orient yourself. 

 From a critical boss…

Often, we approach difficult conversations as if we are a boss delivering bad news. As a result, we over-focus on the message’s content and under-focus on the outcome we’re trying to create (better performance). We get stuck managing our own anxiety rather than designing the experience for the receiver. The subconscious mindset driving all of this is: “something is wrong with the person I’m giving feedback to.” 

To inspiring coach…

The shift that the best leaders make is from criticism to possibility. They hold the mindset: “this person has even more potential than what they have realized so far.” The fact that the feedback even occurs to them is a reflection of the potential they see in the other person. How would you communicate this potential, and what advice do you have to help the person achieve it?

Rather than speaking down to the person you are giving feedback to about your criticism, imagine standing behind the person and guiding them to achieve their goals more quickly and effectively. Instead of showing up as a critical boss, you become an inspiring coach. You recognize that while they are the ones in the ring, you face the same opponent and ultimate goal. Your job is to build them up, even when you are delivering corrective advice.

If I could go back and give feedback to Mary with this orientation, it would go something like this:

Mary, I appreciate how you connect with potential clients. You have an infectious enthusiasm for the business, and that’s perhaps the most powerful sales tool we have as a company. I think there is an opportunity to take that skill to an even higher level. I’m seeing a drop in enthusiasm in the handoff between your contact with clients and the rest of the team, which means their client experience goes downhill after their first encounter with you. I want to see us build on the momentum you create rather than waste it. To do that, I see a need to tighten up the reporting and handoff process between you and the other teams. Do you agree? What do you think we could do to make that happen? 

I do not doubt that it would have been a productive conversation that would have tapped both of our best thinking and de-escalated the issue to talk about it openly. Having this conversation would have served her much more than my silence did. 

When I imagine myself in the corner of the person I’m cheering on, I am excited by the potential: I can suddenly see what’s possible for them, how they might get there faster, and what I can do to help. With this orientation, my anxiety about what to say drops considerably, and I can connect more deeply and with more respect. Extraordinary leaders realize that when they have feedback to give, the burden of responsibility for the performance gap lies in them, not the person they provide feedback to. As a result, they master the skill of delivering corrective feedback in a way that affirms the potential of the receiver and inspires committed action. 

Do you feel safe? Will life ever get back to normal? What will that new normal look like? As we define a pandemic, nearly everyone is grappling with questions like these.

An expert on the history of spaceflight — and one of the few women in her field — Amy Shira Teitel, wants us to find a silver lining and take this moment to learn how to adapt like an astronaut. Her original inspirations are captured in her new book Fighting For Space: Two Pilots and Their Historic Battle for Female Spaceflight. Drawing on an extensive knowledge of NASA’s history and missions going back more than 60 years, Teitel shares six astronaut-tested tips below, to help us face the unknown. She suggests taking small steps that might lead to giant leaps in conquering quarantine, staying in the moment, learning how to focus, keeping a positive outlook and looking forward to the future.

1. Prepare Like an Astronaut. When the space age began in the late 1950s, NASA had to figure out what challenges and dangers astronauts would face—fast—with the understanding that they wouldn’t be able to control everything. No one knew if astronauts would be able to swallow food in space or if microgravity would make them go blind. Their survival ultimately came down to the best-educated guesses. Astronauts need to react quickly, without creature comforts and with limited social interactions and uncharted risks. Survival Takeaway: Expect challenges. Make peace with uncertainty. Stay informed. Be adaptable.

2. Stay Calm Like an Astronaut. For the nation’s first astronauts, mental fortitude was mission-critical. After all, no one knew how flying in space and seeing Earth from orbit would affect the human psyche. As such, candidates went through extensive psychological testing. If they couldn’t stay calm and measured in the face of sensory deprivation and boredom or, on the flip side, they weren’t considered astronaut material when faced with a slew of alarms. Survival Takeaway: Pay attention to your mental health. Take time for yourself, and even find a new practice to help cultivate a healthy headspace.

3. Sanitize Like an Astronaut. A simple head cold gets complicated since sinus cavities can’t drain without gravity. If you get a stomach bug, well, you can’t air out a spacecraft. Astronauts have limited medication and water on board, making recovering from an illness a lot harder than at home. To prevent astronauts from getting sick in space, NASA quarantines all crews, typically for two weeks, before a launch. What’s more, all robotic missions have to go through intense sanitation before a flight. We don’t want to land on Mars and find that some little Earth germ stuck around and will kill the life we’re hoping to find. Survival Takeaway: Practice sound hygiene. Wear a mask. Wash your hands. Take precautions to avoid spreading the virus.

4. Stay Connected Like an Astronaut. On Apollo missions, ground crews kept the astronauts connected to Earth by relaying messages from their families and reading up daily news headlines, with a particular emphasis on sports scores. Though they were in the Moon’s vicinity, they were able to maintain that connection to home. Survival Takeaway: Stay close with family and friends while social distancing. Take advantage of group chat tools like Zoom. Pick up the phone. Make time to talk and listen.

5. Stay in the Moment Like an Astronaut. For most of us, astronauts seem like the luckiest people on—or off—Earth. They get to see our planet from orbit, a stunning view most of us will only ever see in pictures. And the 24 men who traveled to the Moon got the even more incredible view of Earth from the lunar orbit and remain the only people to see the Moon’s far side with their own eyes. Though astronauts’ schedules are packed with experiments and planned events, they take the time to appreciate where they are in an extraordinary moment, even if those moments for reflection are rare. COVID Takeaway: Focus on the positive side of sheltering in place or working from home. Seize an unprecedented opportunity to enjoy your family. Cook meals together. Play games. Turn off the TV; put down your phone. Set aside time each day to be present. In retrospect, you might discover how truly fortunate you are! 

6. Look Toward the Future Like an Astronaut. Even though missions are planned down to the minute, things can always go wrong at any moment. Astronauts are trained to adapt to any situation, trust their training, crewmates and support teams, work any problem, and sometimes come up with life-saving solutions. Spaceflight is always dangerous, but no astronaut has ever assumed they weren’t coming home. COVID Takeaway: When the world seems bleak and your future feels uncertain, know that there’s a light at the end of the tunnel. Trust your instincts, lean on friends, and be excited for the day big group gatherings will be safe again.

Does a CEO’s gut instinct matter in a world that runs on digital data-crunching?

Over the last decade, big data analytics has risen to the forefront as a tool to facilitate smarter, faster, and more effective decision-making in business. Its meteoric ascension into corporate boardrooms and executive offices has displaced our conventional ideas about the value of an individual leader’s savvy. Today, a leader who so much as mentions intuition during a strategy meeting is likely to prompt a few skeptical looks and a polite variation of: “Okay, but what does the data say?”

Gut instinct is an outdated faux pas in modern business culture — an idea that might have backed CEO icons in the past, but hardly suits our understanding of leadership craft now.

As one writer for the Harvard Business School Online summarizes in an article, “The concept of intuition has become so romanticized in modern life that it’s now a part of how many people talk about and understand the “geniuses” of our generation. Though intuition can be a helpful tool, it would be a mistake to base all decisions around a mere gut feeling. While intuition can provide a hunch or spark that starts you down a particular path, it’s through data that you verify, understand, and quantify.”

And, in the writer’s defense, data is a crucial aspect of business strategy. With big data analytics, organizations can use the troves of information that they collect to identify new business opportunities, better understand their customers, improve marketing and sales, improve operational efficiency, and boost profits, among other gains.

According to a 2019 whitepaper published by New Vantage, a full 62 percent of surveyed businesses have already experienced measurable results from big data and AI investments. Analysts for the International Institute for Analytics take these findings a step further; they estimate that businesses using big data will see a collective $430 billion in productivity benefits over their non-data-reliant competitors by the close of 2020.

Given these findings, it’s no surprise that 88 percent of surveyed organizations feel an urgency to invest in big data and AI, nor that 92 percent of those who do are motivated by a desire for digital transformation, agility, and competitive advantage. According to New Vantage data, 55 percent of surveyed businesses spend over $50 million on big data and AI initiatives, and 21 percent are spending over half a billion on them. 

But is our appreciation of big data at the expense of intuition poisoning our decisions with blind faith?

As leaders, we need to ensure that we aren’t allowing ourselves to be steamrolled by raw data. The truth is, data applied blindly or without context is worse than useless — it can be outright misleading.

Consider the issue of cherry-picking data as an example. With large data sets, it is all too common to find links that appear to be legitimate conclusions but are, in fact, due to fake statistical relationships. As tech writer Nassim Taleb once concluded in an article for Wired, “in large data sets, large deviations are vastly more attributable to variance (or noise) than to information (or signal).”

For a leader who is both untrained in statistics and overly confident in the power of data, a glance over gathered data could inadvertently lead to cherry-picking (i.e., selectively choosing) these apparent relationships to build faulty conclusions. The consequences of following this statistical misdirection can be, as you might imagine, disastrous. 

Then, we have the issue of bias in algorithms. Research has repeatedly demonstrated that, for all our insistence that data is “objective” and thus immune to faulty human opinions, algorithms can be just as biased — if not more so — than human analysts.

As Dr. Nicol Turner-Lee once explained in an article for the Brookings Institute, “In machine learning, algorithms rely on multiple data sets or training data, that specifies what the correct outputs are for some people or objects. From that training data, it then learns a model that can be applied to other people or objects and make predictions about what the correct outputs should be for them.”

The result, she writes, is that “some algorithms run the risk of replicating and even amplifying human biases, particularly those affecting protected groups.” For all that the business world puts data on a pedestal, these points make it abundantly clear that we cannot blindly rely on its findings to guide our decision-making. 

This isn’t to say that data-driven decision-making isn’t useful — it is. However, data analytics tools must be implemented within a context of training and thoughtful consideration. To borrow a quote from New York Times contributor Robert J. Moore, “Obsessing over tests and metrics can be counterproductive if it prevents you from thinking about aspects of your vision that can’t be quantified.”

We seem to have forgotten in the hype that data is meant to inform our human intuition, not overpower it. 

In recent years, many executives have realized that the most significant barrier they face in creating data-driven organizations isn’t the technology, but the people who should be using it. One recent study published in Sustainability found that nearly half (48.5 percent) of U.S. executives polled in 2018 cited “people challenges” as their foremost concern in creating a data culture.

The problem appears to be a lack of personnel training and support. 

“Managers need to wake up to the fact that their data investments are providing limited returns because their organization is underinvested in understanding the information,” business researchers Shvetank Shah, Andrew Horne, and Jaime Capellá wrote in an article for the Harvard Business Review. “Companies that want to make better use of the data they gather should focus on two things: training workers to increase their data literacy and more efficiently incorporate information into decision making, and giving those workers the right tools.”

As business decision-makers, we need to stop dismissing intuition as an outdated strategic compass and take a more informed approach to our data strategy. Leaders need to seek balance at work and remember that while data should guide their path, it should not quash their instincts.

Use the word “love” in the context of work relationships? We avoid that like the plague! Well, now it’s interesting that a couple of real plagues, COVID-19 and social injustice, may become the catalyst for introducing the idea that love has everything to do with leadership, healing the stress and divisiveness in our politics, our society, and yes, especially in our business cultures.

Before anyone assumes that I will advocate for a “kumbaya, let’s all hold hands and be vulnerable” approach to the profound lack of trust and the disengagement rampant in our institutions today, let me define what I mean by “love.” Especially because, “I don’t have to love the people I work with,” is a common sentiment. And if we’re honest, love feels like a huge stretch when we can’t even seem to like the people we work with on most days!

When we say “love,” our minds tend to go immediately to intimate, personal/familial, warmth-and-butterflies kinds of feelings. But the type of love I am referring to is much broader, less gushy, and more powerful. One label often given to it is agape love—the selfless, unconditional love commonly found in the Bible. This kind of love asks many us as human beings, especially when it’s hard to get through a day without getting sucked into difficult conversations about our ideological differences and judgments about our world.

But as I explore in my new book, Leadership through Trust and Collaboration, finding ways to practice love at work is not that hard, nor does it have to be uncomfortable for anyone. Here are four ways to get started:

1.  Remember, people don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care: In the book, Trillion Dollar Coach about Bill Campbell, an executive coach who worked with some of the most successful tech companies in the world, the authors reveal that Bill attributed his impact as a business coach to teaching five timeless things, including getting things right in how you interact with people, building trust, collaboration, and his personal favorite, showing both love and appreciation as a leader. Bill is credited by his clients for helping generate over a trillion dollars in revenue. As the saying goes, the soft stuff is the hard stuff—it takes courage.

Market knowledge and strategy matter, but they are overrated as the essential leadership capabilities to drive growth and high performance.

2.  Be responsible for the energy you bring into the “virtual” room: Another way to think about love is as the most productive energy on the planet. In her wildly popular TED Talk, “A Stroke of Insight,” Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, a neuroscientist who suffered a stroke on the left side of her brain, makes a compelling case for consciously choosing to bring positive, caring energy into any room you enter. She said that during her recovery (a miracle by medical standards), she could feel if people’s energy was positive or negative when they entered her room. It directly impacted her ability to heal.

Next time you are in a meeting, take a minute to notice what happens to productivity when the energy feels good (love) and when it doesn’t (anger/frustration/fear). The fact that our meetings are now mostly virtual makes it that much more important to create an emotional connection with people that positively raises the energy.

3.  Time and attention are the most powerful ways to show love: We continuously talk about time management; time is one thing no one seems to have enough of, especially if you are a leader today facing the relentless barrage of unpredictable business challenges. We have convinced ourselves that having limited time is the problem when, in reality, limited time is simply a universal truth that affects us all. This “problem” should instead be considered an opportunity to choose how we spend our most precious resource. 

When we consider prioritization as the challenge, how we spend our hours must pay significant returns. People know that your time and attention are your most valuable resource, so when you take the time out of your busy schedule to reach out and check in with people, they NOTICE. That builds loyalty and commitment, and it says, “I care” more clearly than anything else you could do.

4.  Ask people how they’re feeling rather than how they are doing: This may sound like splitting hairs, but it’s not. When you ask people how they’re doing, they tend to say, “I’m fine, thanks” or even, “I’m so busy!” They report what they are up to, what they are doing. When you ask someone how they feel, it’s more personal and lets them know you care. You also tend to get more honest answers, not autopilot responses. In his book Back to Human, Dan Schawbel talks about connectivity at work and the alarming rise in loneliness as one of the most significant health risks facing our country. He cites Dr. Vivek Murthy, the former U.S. Surgeon General, stating that the impact of loneliness on health is equivalent to smoking fifteen cigarettes a day. Unfortunately, in our society, people feel ashamed or embarrassed to share that they are feeling unconnected. A wise leader assumes that people struggle in our current work environments, then takes the time to make it safe to say so. Start by asking.

American entertainment reporter, television personality, professional wrestler, actress, and businesswoman, Maria Menounos knows how to keep variety in her life. When the pandemic started, she began a daytime show, Better Together, as a weekly journey through health, wellness, spirituality, career, relationships, and finances.

“What I want to do is expose people to top experts and allow them to have that “a-ha” moment without going through a near-death experience like the brain tumors my mom and I incurred,” she explains.  

“In March, when the pandemic hit, I knew we would all face challenges like never before. Jobs would be lost; uncertainty and depression would soar,” she says. The show has brought inspiration, healing and sanity to more than 13 million viewers across all platforms, including YouTube, Facebook, Apple Podcasts and Spotify. She also recently inked deals with GSTV and Coinstar to reach another 145 million viewers a month — to receive branded Better Together tips at gas stations and supermarkets across the country. “Instead of focusing on all the many things we can’t do in these challenging times, we spend our energy focusing on the things we can do.” 

Menounos believes that people are inherently good. “We all come from different backgrounds and are shaped by different sets of experiences, but there is so much good in the world. We need to listen to and understand each other.” Menounos thinks honesty is paramount. The best leaders work together on solutions, recognizing that tough moments are an opportunity to grow and be better. “Strong leaders aren’t afraid to make tough decisions. They have a way of cutting through their fears and all the noise to get the job done. They look at all the facts and make the best decisions they can at the moment.”

Rebecca Henderson is a renowned Harvard professor who debunks prevailing norms with a new outlook and a practical way forward. She believes this way of thinking is an antidote for a system that has lost its moral and ethical foundation. Her arguments, as she teaches the MBA program at Harvard Business School, are a clarion call for reimagining and remaking capitalism. Beri Meric, cofounder of IVY, asked her about the role of capitalism.

What has been great about capitalism so far?

Capitalism is probably the greatest invention of the human race. If you think about what’s happened in the last 50 years, the population of the earth has approximately tripled, and GDP has quintupled. So, simultaneously, as we’ve got more and more mouths to feed, we’ve generated more and more prosperity. The turn to capitalism in China brought a billion people out of poverty in the last 20 years. 

What are the shortcomings, and how can capitalism be improved?

Inequality is a big issue. We’ve generated enormous prosperity across the world, but in many countries, particularly the United States and the UK, that prosperity has not been widely shared. So, there’s a significant fraction of the population that hasn’t seen a real increase in their standard of living for the last 20 years.
And many people are losing hope.

Where do the new opportunities lie?

Reach out to other people in your industry and ask, “Are there problems we can address together that will make us all better off? And can we join together to do that?” That could mean addressing human rights abuses if you’re a mining company, or committing to purchase sustainable palm oil if you’re a consumer goods company. We’re seeing these kinds of coalitions spring up across all sorts of industries. They’re good for everyone in the industry, and no one is at a disadvantage by participating.

There are billion-dollar business models on the other side, but you need to have the courage and the focus to go and get them.

The founder of Operation Underground Railroad (OUR) is on a mission to end child trafficking and slavery.

For a decade, Tim Ballard worked in the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force as a special agent for the Department of Homeland Security. He has successfully dismantled dozens of trafficking organizations and rescued countless children from sex slavery. To formulate his business plan, he bought every history book he could find on American slavery.

The Underground Railroad was a network of secret routes and safe houses established in the United States during the early to mid-19th century. They were used by African American slaves to escape into free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists and allies sympathetic to their cause. The original Underground Railroad was a group that acted and infiltrated, and that’s precisely what Ballard is inspired to do today.

In the past six years, OUR has rescued more than 3,800 victims and assisted in the arrests of more than 2,100 traffickers worldwide. Through partnerships with like-minded organizations, they have collectively rescued more than 10,000 survivors who were enslaved, exploited, or at risk.

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men and women to do nothing,” says Ballard, quoting 18th Century statesman, Edmund Burke. 

“The original Underground Railroad saw people of all colors and creeds coming together to rescue people. Some of these people would pose as slave catchers to learn who was being sought and then devise plans to throw the slave owners off their trails. It’s one of the most inspiring stories of history I have ever heard,” says Ballard. Today, Ballard is doing just that, using similar covert operations to put sex traffickers and pedophiles behind bars. Slavery is not only part of history, either. According to Sean Reves, Utah’s Attorney General, there is more modern-day slavery than at any other time in history. 

“You have to make a decision,” says Ballard. “The world is in turmoil in so many ways, and it’s sometimes easier to crawl into a fetal position and ride it out. But that’s not what we should do — indecision is also a decision. It’s important to stand up for what you believe in and do something that benefits society. Stand up to the evils that hurt people.” 

Ballard reckons that many of us aren’t paying attention when our calling comes. He thinks we should keep our minds open to significant events that move us; it could signal the start of a whole new journey. For Ballard, that moment happened 10 years ago, while still considering a career in fighting crimes against children. “We were rescuing a little boy who had been kidnapped from Mexico,” he recalls. “During the investigation, he gave me a necklace on which was written, “Man of God.” It was a necklace his sister had given him, who had also been trafficked. I found power in that symbol and still wear it today.” 

Despite the horrific things he has seen, Ballard believes that through all the darkness, there are still more good people in the world than bad. “Humanity is good by nature, and most people want to improve their lives continually,” he says. “I focus on the light that I can see in people around me, and I have seen more light this year than ever. 

“A leader must be optimistic and bring hope; a plan that inspires others to be confident,” he concludes. “Leaders can’t always have the right answer, but surround yourself with people who have great ideas and empower them — it doesn’t always have to be about you.” 

2020 YPO Global Impact Award African Winner and entrepreneur Patricia Nzolantima is dedicated to empowering African women and girls. As founder and chairwoman of Congo-based Bizzoly Holdings, she runs a marketing and advertising agency as well as Ubizcabs, a transportation and logistics company that employs only women drivers.

In addition, Nzolantima serves as managing partner for EXP-CommunicArt, which activates brands from 19 offices in 15 African countries through experiential marketing with big brands like Coca-Cola, Samsung, P&G, and Unilever. But she also uses her skills to help local businesswomen trying to compete with these big brands.

To that end, she founded Working Ladies WIA Hub, an economic empowerment group with 1,500 members that incubates women business owners, helping them reach their full potential so they can help develop the African continent. (To put things in perspective, the DRC ranks 176th out of 189 nations on the United Nations’ Gender Inequality Index.) She regularly provides pro bono work on packaging and branding for women businesses as well as coaching and mentoring.

“Women would start a business because they were very passionate about what they were doing, but there was no help to grow,” she says.

One of Nzolantima’s goals is to show that women can succeed at jobs traditionally for men. “When you start entrepreneurship in Africa, no one believes in you, not even your family,” she explains. “There are lots of doubts, and banks don’t necessarily trust women because African women generally don’t have a credit history.”

Nzolantima’s work is focused on reducing poverty, creating opportunities for employment, and helping women become independent income earners. “My greatest hope is to help African women become models of inspiration in their own communities,” she says. “When a woman gets a paycheck from her own business, she helps her family. She helps her village. She impacts the next generation — and if we want to reduce poverty, we need to start with them. The business revolution in Africa will be driven by women, not men.”

In a recent interview with Your Business magazine, Nzolantima said, “Now is the time to make a profound impact, to inspire each other to have more humanity, to think differently, and take time to listen and reflect.”

Her hope for the future? A development bank for women. “For me, the next five years is about how can I work to make more women happy, to lift them, to give them funds, and to make them think bigger.”

Ava DuVernay is providing hope for women and artists of color to promote and showcase their work in film. Her 14,000-square-foot, three-building campus in Los Angeles, which opened in early 2018, includes a new theatre to highlight movies created by these artists.

DuVernay’s collective includes a nonprofit called Array Alliance, which funds programs and educational events that promotes social impact and gives a leg up to women and nonwhite filmmakers; a for-profit distribution company to acquire and release mission-oriented independent movies that might not otherwise be released; and a private production company — whose crew is over 50 percent women — which is already receiving recognition for shows like Netflix’s When They See Us and Emmy-winning and Oscar-nominated documentary 13th (about race problems in America) as well as Oprah Winfrey’s Queen Sugar.

Though each entity operates independently, they share a common mission: first, to break down Hollywood legacy systems that make it difficult for women and artists of color to succeed, and second, to provide a creative platform for social justice.

In an interview with the Los Angeles Times, DuVernay, the first black woman to direct a movie with a $100 million budget (Disney’s A Wrinkle in Time), said, “Every system has roadblocks for people like us, whether it is in acquisition, production, distribution, exhibition, marketing, crewing up… So, what we were looking to do was disrupt those systems so that we create normalcy and momentum.”

DuVernay is no stranger to stirring things up. She was the first African-American woman to spearhead a film (Selma in 2014) nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award — although surprisingly not recognized in the Best Director category. She has been outspoken about Hollywood’s lack of diversity in the Oscars, keeping her 2.6 million followers updated on where, when, and how the movie industry falls short. Her efforts led to the Academy changing membership rules to include more minority voters and continues to spotlight Hollywood’s lack of women and minorities on both sides of the camera. She is one of the most passionate voices calling attention to our nation’s relationship with race.

Her colleagues point out that DuVernay is not trying to push white people out of Hollywood, but rather, to change the system so that everyone gets a chance. Her rise came from nothing but talent, extremely hard work, and a culture that treats everyone equally on the set. “I don’t treat my actors differently than I treat the gaffer or the grip or the craft services manager or hair and makeup, because we’re all making the movie,” she once said. DuVernay is a real leader keeping the spotlight on race and prejudice, providing hope to those whose stories otherwise might never be told, and providing the shoulders for minority artists to stand upon.