When Identity Meets Leadership: What Communities Are Your Values Leading You Into?
- Patlee Creary
- 1 day ago
- 5 min read
Inclusive Leadership, Intersectional Identity & Resilient Dialogue for High-Functioning Entrepreneurs
In This Article:
Identity as a Lens: Why viewing "Blackness" as a tool for insight—rather than a silo—strengthens leadership.
The Limits of Isolation: Why "in-group" conversations are an essential starting line, but human solutions require diverse dialogue.
Systemic Resilience: How inner listening and self-compassion allow leaders to navigate universal barriers and personal biases.
Dear friends,
Values are a compass, but where are they actually taking you? I have been pondering this question a great deal this month as I launch into several new projects. This is the first year I have been invited into spaces explicitly centered on Black voices, leadership, and lived experience. It makes sense — it is Black History Month.
Every leader eventually faces this question: Where do my values position me?
I am deeply grateful for these invitations and opportunities. And yet, I find myself reflecting carefully on what it means to give my time and energy to what we might call “in-group” spaces.
Will it come at the expense of the broader, inclusive, multicultural, and intersectional principles I hold?
These are important questions. They invite me to unpack what it truly means to show up as the whole human that I am. I show up first as a woman, mother, community connector, adventurer, strategist, friend, philosopher, educator, neighbour, and many more things — before identities such as Black, immigrant, entrepreneur, business owner, or even leader enter the mix.
Does this matter in the spaces and conversations I have been invited into this Black History Month?
Absolutely. Here's why.
Black as a Lens: Intersectionality and Resilient Leadership
The conversations I have said yes to are holding Black as one lens among many. The feature and function of these learning spaces are grounded in the premise that our intersectional identities are what truly matter. Black is one of many lenses into lived experience. It allows us to examine interpretations, insights, and lessons that a non-Black lens may not afford.
This does not mean Black is special, better, more tragic, more rhythmic, or more beautiful. It simply means that the Black gaze offers a deeper look into what it feels like to move through a world where differences in kindness, access, equality, and opportunity can shape social, economic, and political realities.
While the capacity for struggle is a universal human trait, the data reveal specific disparities: Black entrepreneurs often face significantly higher rejection rates for capital, and Black women continue to receive a fraction of a percent of total venture funding. These realities shape access to dignity, mental health outcomes, and the ability to heal from intergenerational trauma.
Systems, Stories, and Inner Listening
Systemic barriers and indignities affect all people, regardless of sociocultural or ethnic background. Listen closely enough to other people’s stories, and you will hear the untold — often repressed — accounts of chronic stress and trauma shaped by family histories, cultural narratives, and the ways they have been taught to move through the world.
Not everyone we encounter is aware of these stories or their role in perpetuating the challenges and biases we often attribute solely to “the system.” But with time, compassion, and a commitment to deep inner and outer listening, patterns become visible.
My commitment to self-compassion and inner listening helps me recognize my own privileges and biases. When I can see these things in myself, I can more easily recognize them in others.
Safe Spaces, Shared Spaces, and the Limits of Isolation
Too often, I have been asked to declare which community I belong to or represent. More recently, I have been asked to consider what it means to create “safe spaces” for Black-identifying persons.
Here is where I must be honest.
Not everyone wears Black the way I do. I take no issue with that. However, I do take issue with the expectation that conversations about Black needs, Black identities, Black equity, Black access to capital, or Black mental health should happen exclusively in spaces reserved only for Black voices.
This siloing runs counter to everything I value as an educator, a peacebuilder, and a Jamaican. Jamaica’s national motto — “Out of Many, One People” — reminds me that the country of my birth is one of the most socially and culturally diverse places on earth. In Jamaica, we often identify first as Jamaican before naming our African, Indian, Chinese, or European heritage.
Diversity is not a theory; it is our lived identity.
I believe that safe spaces are an essential starting line, but they are rarely the finish line.
As an educator and peacebuilder, I believe firmly that we learn very little when we surround ourselves with sameness. When all you know is what you know, there is no room for discourse, critical thinking, or transformation. This reality extends beyond race into business, academia, social and mental health.
For example, if only Black people gather to discuss Black resource access, nothing fundamentally changes. When everyone who has a stake in, or has experienced pain with, those resources gathers to dialogue — bringing the nuances of Black and other lenses into the room — we begin moving forward.
Black experiences do not exist in a vacuum. So why should solutions?
This does not diminish the value of creating subspaces where Black identities can gather to articulate collective experiences and identify shared problems. That is an essential problem-identifying step. But it is not the solution.
Solutions are built in community. If we rely solely on Black-only spaces to generate and enact solutions to deeply human problems, we will remain limited. Dialogue must expand outward.
What Communities Are Your Values Leading You Into?
And so I return to my original question: What communities and conversations have your values led you into? If you are leading a business while holding multiple identities, you already know this tension.
This month has led me into conversations with other intersectional identities who are using Black History Month as an opportunity to remind ourselves—and others—that Black is a valuable lens, but not the only one. Depending on the nature of the conversation, different identities move to the forefront. Yet we all exist in a shared reality where solutions to injustice, exclusion, poverty, and deprivation are not “Black solutions.”
They are human solutions.
So we dialogue with everyone. We show up in all spaces. We give voice to all identities — even when they look and sound different from our own.
What communities and conversations are your values bringing you into? I would love to hear. Leave a comment below or reach out through our contact form.
For Black Entrepreneurs: Rooted & Rising
If this reflection resonates and you are a Black entrepreneur navigating leadership, identity, pressure, and sustainability, consider joining Rooted & Rising: Mental Wealth and Business Wellness for Black Entrepreneurs.
This facilitated journey is designed to strengthen clarity, confidence, emotional regulation, and strategic authority — so you can grow your business without chronic stress.
Learn more and apply here: Rooted & Rising: Mental Wealth and Business Wellness for Black Entrepreneurs.
For Leadership Teams and Organizations
If your team is navigating inclusion, identity, burnout, power dynamics, or cross-cultural dialogue, book a Strategic Needs Assessment. Reyou delivers trauma-aware, outcomes-driven sessions across wellness, strategy, and narrative development. Resilience begins here.
About the Author
Dr. Patlee Creary is a narrative, strategy, and conflict-transformation specialist and the founder of the Reyou Mindfulness Collective. Her work sits at the vital intersection of self-reclamation, mental health, lived experience, and community empowerment. Based in Winnipeg, Dr. Creary facilitates transformative workshops that help individuals and organizations witness their personal and collective stories—empowering them to rebuild identity, grow community, and deepen their social impact.
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