Beat ‘Em With Your Brains

by Madeline Bell | Oct 10, 2019 | Leadership, Leading Teams, Uncategorized, Women in the Workplace

An Interview with Dr. Eve J. Higginbotham on Diversity in Leadership

In the past few years, there has been much public discussion over gender equality. While not nearly enough progress has been made in the fight for equal pay or representation at the highest levels, we have seen some notable advances. For example, a record-breaking number of women CEO’s (33) appeared on the most recent Forbes 500 list. However, when we dig a little deeper we see that despite this progress, there is another story to be told. Only one of the 33 women listed was a woman of color, and she was holding an interim position. If you ask many women in the workplace, the advances we’re celebrating are clearly not benefitting all of us. 

I started Heels of Success with the goal of elevating women in the workplace, but it’s important to me that we are elevating ALL women. In my role as CEO of CHOP, increasing representation is a priority for me. I’ve spent considerable time focusing on diversity within our Board of Trustees, and CHOP’s Diversity Council, which I chair, is partnering with teams across the organization to implement our Diversity Strategic Plan. Seeing this Forbes list made me stop and think about how I could address this issue on the blog. I decided to speak with a woman who has made diversity and inclusion a core element of her personal and professional mission, Dr. Eve J. Higginbotham, Vice Dean and Professor of Ophthalmology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. A friend and professional colleague of mine, I’ve always admired Eve, and even more so after this interview. 

She’s had an extraordinary career, beginning with her undergraduate and graduate studies at MIT then attending Harvard Medical School. She’s served as the Dean of the Morehouse School of Medicine in Atlanta, Senior Vice President for Health Sciences at Howard University, and Professor and Chair of the Department of Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences at the University of Maryland in Baltimore, a position she held for 12 years. Her resume reads like a masterclass in leadership – holding top positions of all kinds, often in male-dominated organizations and fields (you can read her full bio here). Her personal story also provides insights into how women of color, or those with mutiple intersects, as she puts it, rise above a lifetime of microaggressions, discrimination and bias, and how white women might become better allies in addressing the lack of racial diversity in leadership. 

Dr. Higgenbothom was kind enough to sit down with me recently for an interview. Below is a summary of our conversation. 

MB: Tell me about your upbringing. Was it always expected that you’d pursue a career? 

EH: My parents were both teachers and always raised me to focus on education and what I wanted to achieve, despite any discrimination I might face. And growing up in New Orleans in the 50’s and 60’s, there was discrimination – every day “microagessions” as we refer to them now. My mother would always say, “just beat ‘em with your brains” and my father was a Tuskegee Airman – both of them provided great examples and formed me in a way that I knew not to let the environment drag me down. But I did grow up being influenced by what was happening around me – and I learned that I only had control over how I reacted to the world around me, and how I let it shape me. 

MB: How have you dealt with discrimination in your career? 

EH: I remember noticing how the subjectivity in medical school illuminated discrimination in a new way. Growing up, I liked math and science because it was all about merit – there was a wrong or a right answer, so I thought MIT was a good place to start my higher education, and it was. The fact that engineering and science are much more data driven didn’t leave as much room for discrimination – if you got a problem right, you excelled. It wasn’t until medical school that I started to notice things like that fact that not everyone was being asked to give a report. In fact, one of the reasons I went into a surgical specialty is because there was a comfort level there that reminded me of my life at MIT; I was able to publish scientific papers in my speciality, and that really helped me have a rapid rise – allowing me to become a department chair in my early forties. 

MB: Why do you think there is still such a lack of representation at the highest levels of corporate leadership? Do you have any perspective on why we are we seeing an increase in white women holding these positions and not women of color? 

EH: There are more white women to begin with in the pipeline and more white women who are likely to have sponsors or even family members in positions of power who can serve as sponsors. The bottom line is that we do not have sufficient diversity at the highest levels, which is unfortunate given the power of cognitive diversity. Bringing together different perspectives produces more innovative and profitable organizations. I believe it is a matter of critical numbers of women who can help others succeed and demonstrate to others what is possible. 

MB: What are some concrete things leaders should be doing to ensure that the next generation of leaders they’re preparing represent a diverse group of women? 

EH: There are four things I would recommend to leaders:

1. Recognize the barriers that exist within oneself, within the relationships where one spends most of one’s time, the micro and macro environments, and the national political context.
2. Once one becomes self-aware, develop strategies within each of these domains that you can change and role model for others.
3. Develop a plan to implement each of these strategies. For example, understand our own biases; expand your relationships within the professional workplace and include new perspectives in your research or work. Develop a plan related to at least one process within your workspace and optimize its objectivity, e.g. evaluation of your direct reports. 
4. Finally, seek out others with a different perspective and have a constructive conversation about differing perspectives. Find common ground and seek to understand the differences. As leaders, we need to be coaches, mentors, and sponsors and seek out new future leaders to nurture and grow.  If everyone does these things, they we will have more diverse leadership that is developed and sustained.

MB: Alternatively, what mistakes are that those advocating for gender equity making that have led us to such under-representation for women of color? 

EH: In my opinion, many of us tend to gravitate to those who have shared experiences and one must be intentional in going beyond the immediate group of individuals with whom one spends time and mentor.  There has been an intentionality to going outside one’s usual group of collaborators.  

Thank you to Dr. Higginbotham for taking the time to talk with me, and for so candidly sharing her experiences and perspectives. As leaders, we know the most important way to achieve success in anything we do is to develop thoughtful strategies, set goals, and ensure there is accountability for achieving them. This applies directly to increasing diversity in our leadership teams. If you’re in a leadership position, I encourage you to develop a plan for creating a more diverse, inclusive and equitable environment in your organization through setting specific, measurable goals. At my organization, our diversity goals include improving the environment at CHOP by developing and modeling a culture of inclusion; increasing our focus on recruiting, developing and retaining diverse talent; providing more equitable care; and improving CHOP’s reputation in these important areas. I truly believe that our diversity is our greatest strength, and this work will make us even stronger.