Paul: 0:05

Have you ever wondered if it's possible to embrace resilience, unwavering faith, and lead with integrity? Welcome to Courageous Conversations. Today I am honored to introduce Hope Gladney, a remarkable woman and proud member of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority Incorporated, which is renowned for its dedication to public service and sisterhood among black women. As a black woman of hope has navigated the challenging terrain of raising her children on her own while excelling in a male dominated field. Despite facing discrimination and adversity, she has continually leaned in building a powerful network of contacts. Through her passion for sisterhood and unyielding spirit, guided by her deep love for the Lord, hope approaches her work and life with a rare blend of humility and strength holding space for those around her and leading with that ego. Join me as we delve into hope. Gladys journey, exploring how she built trust fostered community, and led with grace and determination. This episode is a tribute to the power of resilience and the importance of lifting each other up. According to my watch, it's time for a courageous conversation. Hope thanks for joining me today.

Hope: 1:29

Hey Paul, I'm happy to be here.

Paul: 1:31

It's great to see you. So today we're talking about women in leadership, and I'm curious for you, what was the moment in your life when you discovered your power?

Hope: 1:44

That's a really good question. I think that when, when I think about power, there are different levels of power, so I feel like I always knew that I had power. I grew up in a small town in Texas. My mom had me when she was very young. I lived with my grandmother, so it was my grandmother and I in this small town. There were 36 people. Wow. In my high school graduating class, the small town that I grew up in. It was predominantly white. All of the black families, we were somewhat segregated, Paul. So there was like in this little town of 1000 people, there were three streets where the black families lived, and then the other families lived in the other part of the town. Growing up, most of the families there, we were all related. So I got to do everything. I felt like just in this little insulated area, in this town where I was, I always felt like I had power. I excelled at everything that I did, all of the things that I did. I had really good friendships as I got from that environment. I moved to college. To university life. I think there was a different level of power that I had to make myself aware of because now I'm not in this little bubble of this town, so I had to learn how to navigate there. And then just getting into life with work, there was another set of power too. So I guess to answer your question, I feel like I've always had the power, the struggle has been understanding how to navigate and to discern how to leverage that power, if that makes sense.

Paul: 3:16

Tell me about the navigation of that.

Hope: 3:19

Whew. That was tough. So I was a cheerleader. I was a national honor society. I was popular. I was one of the popular girls. And so I had grown up with a community where I was accustomed to being the minority, but it didn't matter a lot, or at least I felt like then it didn't matter a lot because those people knew me. They knew my family, they knew my grandmother. So then when I get to this university, I. Where it's, um, exponentially a lot less diverse than the little community that I grew up in. So now I'm trying to navigate this system where, wow, there's a lot of people here, right? And the influence and the power that I thought I have. It's nothing here. So how do I, number one, build new friendships? How do I become influential in this large college campus? How do I make new friends? Once I got to college, I didn't pay a lot of attention to. The racial makeup of things, Paul, even though I know I'm black, when you see me, that's what you see first. I didn't experience a lot of racism growing up, right? Because we did everything together. That little town was my family. But when I got to college, I. It was different. And I can tell you I was called the N word for the first time when I was in college. It was shocking to me. I had to figure out, okay, hope, who are you? Who are you really? And what is it that you stand for? So I started to align with the various organizations where I thought there were similar beliefs and really working with people and working with the students that had similar goals. That I had. And so it was just understanding what's the right way as this young person trying to get through college and still have fun, what's the right way to do that? So it was just a different level of figuring out how to navigate through it.

Paul: 5:17

I can imagine that when you were first called the N word, it probably knocked you for a loop.

Hope: 5:23

Yeah, it was probably my third year in college. We'd gone out as college kids do. We had gone to the nightclubs, it closed, and we were at a McDonald's. And while we were there walking back to my car, these drunk guys in their pickup truck, they just yelled it out. And I'm like, really? Did that just happen? And the guy that I was with, he actually, there was an altercation because I'm like. I can't believe that this happened. And I was really shocked that in that day and time that people were still thinking like that. But it happened, and that was without telling my age. That was 30 years ago. And what's surprising is that we're still going through some of those challenges today.

Paul: 6:06

And so for listeners, I'm curious, what would you say to. Women that are going through this, black women who are experiencing this for the first time. How did you move through that? What did you learn? What did you think about, what would you say to people that are going through that now?

Hope: 6:24

What I would say is that own your power, right? I'm always cautious when I hear people say, I don't see color. That's denialism in my opinion, because we all see color. The question is how do you deal with it when you see it? How do you try to affect change for the people who don't see it positively? So what I would say is you shouldn't feel less than or smaller than anyone else, just because of the color of your skin or just because of the way that you think, the way that you love you are who you are. And that's enough. I think it's important that as we think about our younger children, this younger generation that's coming up. We need to make sure that's what we're communicating to children, because I think a lot of this behavior is learned. It's not necessarily something that's innate with us. I think that's taught. So I think the words that we speak, we really need to be careful with how we're communicating and how we're sharing our thoughts.

Paul: 7:23

I know Delta Sigma Theta, this, that sorority has played an influential role in your life. Can you talk to us about that?

Hope: 7:32

I knew nothing about sorority life when I went to college. I don't know, in from my family, I wasn't the first person to go to college, but I was definitely one of the first, uh, people to get to college. So I didn't have family members that had pledged a sorority or a fraternity. I knew nothing about it. So I was this, I like to say this really naive girl going into college from this town of. With the population of 1000, I knew a lot about nothing once I got there. So I had some good friends that I'd met and they were talking about these sororities, and I'm like, what is that? I have no idea what it is. And so I remember going to Rush. I only went to the rush for Delta Sigma data because as soon as I heard about what they were, about what they did. I wanted to be a part of it because growing up I'd seen powerful black women with my mom, with my grandmom, with my aunts, and I knew what they were capable of doing. But when I got exposed to what these women were doing, what these women had endured to do, Delta Sigma Theta was founded on January 13th, 19 13th on the campus of Howard University. One of the first public acts that was done by the sorority was to participate in the women's suffrage march. That happened in March of that same year. The challenging thing is that these were black women that were participating for women. They were still frowned upon by some of the white women who didn't want them to be upfront, even though they were fighting for the same thing. There were still some pushback on these women to be a part of it. But they persevered Paul. And so even up until today, the organization is almost 400,000 women strong with a thousand chapters throughout the globe and the whole point of the organization, it was built on social action. When you look at the programmatic thrust of the organization, its education, economic development, international awareness, political awareness, physical and mental health. So it's all about this servant leadership and how can we help others? And so I feel like I found my people. It's this bond that I have with all of these women, but also it's this common goal of really doing good for people and to help out the less fortunate and the least. I, I just love that about the organization.

Paul: 9:59

It sounds like it's really played a pivotal role in your life.

Hope: 10:03

Yeah, it has. I was an only child. I had a lot of cousins that were just like siblings to me, but it's a sisterhood. Some of my best friends are a part of the organization. And again, it's just one of those things where I feel like it's a bond with women who, if I don't know them, but if I know that they're part of one of my Soros as we call each other. We're connected to each other, and I felt that sense of connection the minute that I became a part of that organization.

Paul: 10:31

I can imagine. When you went into a white male dominated field, what were some of the earliest challenges you faced and how did you overcome those?

Hope: 10:40

It was this feeling like I had to be 10 times better than they were just to have the sense that I was on equal footing with them. It was like, here's this little girl that's coming into this space. What can you do? So I had to prove myself time and time again just to be on equal footing with a lot of the men. Where I was occupying the same space as them. Imposter syndrome. It's real in, in the workplace. It, it's absolutely real. You have to make sure that you're strong mentally because there's a lot of just little signals that are there, or just side conversations that happen that you hear and you know it's about you. But they're not saying it to you. It's been interesting. I think that with maturity you learn how to deal with it a lot better. And I've come to a point now where it's, I am enough. It's, this is who I am. Either you like me, you appreciate what I do, or you don't, but I deserve to be here and, I'm doing this just as well as you are.

Paul: 11:42

When did that switch occur?

Hope: 11:44

I would say later in my career as opposed to earlier in it, because I was a single mom, trying to navigate my career, trying to be a really good mom, trying to figure out just the balance of life. How do I get through things? And so there was still this, need to please everyone where it's like, I have to do this in order to be accepted or I have to do things in a certain way. I had a need to be a people pleaser, but I would say that once, I hit my 40, once you get to a point where it's, okay, this is how I'm going to be, and it's not that I don't care about what other people think about me, but it's just this is who I am if they like me, great. If not, that's great too. Onwards and upwards.

Paul: 12:28

How did that unlock? Potential for you knowing that

Hope: 12:33

it unlocked it. Because if you're trying to be the people pleaser, you're trying to understand what everyone else wants of you, and that's a burden. It's really hard, even if you think about it from a professional perspective, but from a personal perspective too, with the relationships that you have outside of work, trying to live up to expectations of what others have of you. That's hard, and you just at some point it's, you know what? I can't. I cannot do this. I have to be myself. So getting to that point, I remember my husband and I when we met, we have this beautiful, blended family right now, but I remember one of the first conversations that my husband and I had, and it was him telling me, look, I have flaws. This is who I am. And so if we're going to get into this relationship, I want you to see me for who I am, because I don't wanna come into it as a representative. This is me. And so that gave me the freedom to do the same thing with him. It opened the door to do it at work as well. I don't send the representative, I am myself. I, I try to be authentically myself in every space that I'm in.

Paul: 13:52

I think it's one of my favorite things about you is I've seen you just be this authentic leader, and I think for younger people, and you can correct me here if I'm wrong, but when you think about younger people and when younger people stand in their power, it can be more energetic and forthright and come across differently than how you're showing up now with this kind of knowing. And so what would you say to young black women today in the workforce that are trying to stand in their power? And show up authentically. What would you say to them?

Hope: 14:24

What I would say to young black women is. Be yourself. For black women, it's you have to straighten your hair. You can't come off as aggressive because you're going to be painted as an angry black woman. You can't just sit in the back and shy away because no one's going to notice who you are. So there's this box of things that we have to do in order to frame ourselves as acceptable. To others, and in that framing, it's we have to emulate the idea of someone else. So my advice to young black women today is. You create the box, you decide what your box is, you decide what's that version of yourself. You don't have to conform to anything that you're not comfortable with. Be authentically yourself from day one, because once you start conforming, you have to continue to do it. And it's hard. It's hard living up to expectations that aren't true to you. So be true to yourself first, and if others don't see it. So what be true to yourself?

Paul: 15:38

One of the things you have a beautiful blend of is humility and strength. How do you balance leading with confidence while holding space for those around you?

Hope: 15:48

I grew up with my grandmother. She instilled so many things in me. Paul, I remember every night before my grandmother would go to bed, she would pray. She had such a strong faith. I remember people coming to my grandmother for advice all the time, and I remember her also saying, you treat everyone with respect no matter who it is. You treat everyone with kindness. And so I've taken that with me in the way that I work. I try to respect everyone. I'm in sales. One of the things that I feel like. I do really is I try to connect with the people that I'm selling to. I try to build genuine relationships. So I think it's just being kind and holding space. People have a knack for, sensing, authenticity, and sensing is this a representative or is this a real person? So. I try to do that with every person that I meet and I've tried to instill it in my children as well. It's like, look, you treat everyone with kindness. We never look down on anyone.

Paul: 16:53

I'm curious, what do you think is the most important conversation we need to have today about women in leadership?

Hope: 16:59

The most important conversation that we need to have about women in leadership today is that we're not going anywhere. It's that we are here, and we deserve to be here. We have earned the right to be here, and we're just as worthy of being here as anyone else is in this space.

Paul: 17:22

Is there something in specific that you'd wanna say to your white colleagues? Be it male or female?

Hope: 17:27

Specifically? What I would wanna say is that we went through the pandemic, we went through the George Floyd era, and there are these conversations that surfaced, uh, conversations that came to the forefront that really hadn't come to the forefront before. And there's been a burden for black people. It had been unspoken. I think it had just been really under the surface until a lot of these things happened. It's bubbling up now, and there are conversations that are being had that have not been had before. But as a black person. There's this fatigue about having to explain the challenges that we've had to go through, and I'll give you this example. Paul, you and I talked about this before, entering a room being the only black person or the only black face in that room. If you flip that to my white colleagues, my question to them would be, how would you feel? How would you manage that if you went through life like that? All the time. How would you navigate those situations? I think what I would like to say is that we need to be empathetic, but we also need to be careful at understanding the path, understanding our history of where we've come from. I know people are really quick to say, why are we having these racial conversations? Black people just got the right to vote in 1965. So I feel like we've been in this struggle for a while. We've come a long way with it, but there's still a long way to go so I think that we just need to come from a sense of empathy when we're having these conversations and to have them really understand what your black colleagues and your black friends have to deal with and what we go through.

Paul: 19:19

You mentioned being exhausted, and I remember having a conversation with a colleague who's a black male right after George Floyd and I brought up, what can I do? Yeah. And one of the things he said is, you can start getting educated so I can stop having this conversation with you. And that's really the first time I was like, holy smokes, this is truly on me. It's not on him. It's on me to understand what my role is. And from that moment. I've really started to take an active role in reading. Yeah. And listening and elevating colleagues around me that aren't white.

Hope: 19:52

Yeah, and there's so much of our rich history that's just swept under the rug. When I went through high school, I never had a black teacher. I still haven't, in all of the years of my education, I never had a a black teacher. I don't remember there being a lot about black history when I was going through high school. The things that I learned about black history are the things that I picked up on later after college and readings that I've been doing now. There hasn't been this effort to really educate, so I think that we all have a responsibility, just like you just said, let's do the research. Let's really learn about this. Mm-hmm.

Paul: 20:30

When you pivoted in your leadership journey, when you put faith forward and you started to leverage your sisterhood, how significant was that for you?

Hope: 20:43

It was really significant for me. My faith is the basis for everything that I've done. I think that's really driven a lot of the decisions that I've made in life. But having my sisterhood as well, I've learned a lot from the leaders within the sorority. What I picked up from it is this concept of servant leadership. How can I help others? And then how can I give back to others as well? How can I take what I've learned and make sure that people that are less fortunate that they can learn from that? Or how can I help someone out to just give someone else a hand to help them to navigate the journey that they're going through? By giving them, details of what I had to experience. So it's been pivotal for me because I remember just when I was much younger, not having that voice, but then leaning on my faith to say, okay, I've gotta do this. I never expected myself to have to be a, a single mom of two little boys that are 18 months apart. I never expected that I was going to have the career that I had. I didn't know what I wanted to do. So I got into tech sales. I, I did hear some people telling me you need to have a career where you're in an office all the time where you don't have to travel. I didn't want that for me. I've always leaned towards doing more complex things. I wanna do something hard because I like to challenge myself. So I had a, a community. I had a village that helped me. To raise my boys. As I was going through it, I was always striving to be better, and in that quest to be better. It was just, okay, how can I work on myself? How can I make sure that I have a life that's good for my boys? Because I wanted them to see me working hard. I. So that they in turn, would see what that work ethic was like, and they would be able to take that on for themselves and then leave it to their generations after them

Paul: 22:38

I know when you were in college, you were thrown a pivot, you were going to pursue one thing, and then life happened and you were forced to change direction. How did you navigate that pivot?

Hope: 22:48

So when I was in college, I was a biochemistry major, and I thought that after I finished with that, that I wanted to go to medical school. The last year that I was in college, I ended up, I was pregnant, right? And so I had this baby in July after I graduated that summer. And so I was faced with, okay, what am I going to do? My partner and I, he had recently graduated as well. Things didn't work out with him. So the pivot that I made was, okay, it's not just me that I now have to take care of. So I've just recently finished college. I don't think I'm gonna go to medical school at this point. What are you going to do? Hope? How are you going to support not only yourself, but you have someone else who you're responsible for? Now I started working, right? I got one of my first jobs was with at and t and I started this career in sales there, and that sort of catapulted me to getting into tech sales. The way I navigated it, Paul, was that I knew that medical school wasn't necessarily in the cards for me. But this is now where I am and where I am was I was going to make the best of the opportunity that I had been given and be the best in that role. And I've been doing the same thing year after year as I've made decisions about my career and where I am in it.

Paul: 24:10

When the pivot happened, you were like, okay, I've gotta do something. So you put your head down, you chose a career path, and you've made the best of it. And now you understand there's strength in this for myself.

Hope: 24:22

Yeah, and I think too, once you make that decision to do something, don't do it halfway. If you're gonna commit to do it, then commit to doing it 100%.

Paul: 24:32

If there's one thing you want listeners to take away from your story and experience, what would that be?

Hope: 24:37

I would say resilience because I feel like I've been driven since I was. A little girl. I always wanted to be the best at everything that I did. I was always very competitive, but it wasn't always easy, and so I had to figure out how to get through some obstacles and I had a good village around me. I had people that supported me. I had a great network. I remember at one point in my career, some of the best advice that I got from one of my mentors was, you need to build your own, personal board of directors. And I was able to do that. And every. Organization that I've worked for, every company that I've left, I feel like I have relationships with those people. I can still reach back to people and. I consider them a friend where like you and I, Paul, I know that the first conversation that I had with you, I remember that conversation and it was just a bond that I felt that you and I had with each other. I try to make those connections no matter what, because I think that those connections, you need them because in addition to the resilience. Those connections is the connective tissue that actually helps you to get through the challenges that you have.

Paul: 25:54

I, I appreciate the conversation today. Hope I've heard the power of your faith, the power of, as you say, connections, but both within your sorority, your grandmother, the community, to understand the power of your voice and how you lean in and recognizing that sometimes adversity is going to happen and you need to pivot. And put your head down and seek another solution.

Hope: 26:19

Yeah, that's key. Just keep going. Never give up is the mantra. And another mantra that I have is enjoy the moment, right? We never know what's around the bend, so enjoy the moment. Perfect.

Paul: 26:32

I think I'll leave it right there. Thank you so much for joining us on this episode of Courageous Conversations. I hope you found today's discussion as inspiring and thought provoking as I did a special thank you to our guest, hope for sharing her journey and insights. If you've enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe. Leave a review and share it with someone who could benefit from this conversation. We've got some exciting guests lined up for our next episode, so make sure to tune in. You won't wanna miss it. Until then, stay curious, stay courageous, and keep the conversations in your life flowing.