Leading Her Introvert Way · 2026-05-06 · 13 min
Key moments - from our scoring
Substance score
33 / 100
Five dimensions, 20 points each
The episode directly addresses a systemic problem affecting accomplished Black women in the workforce: the internalization of gratitude as a barrier to self-advocacy around compensation. With mass job displacement creating a climate of fear, Black women are remaining silent about underpayment rather than negotiating for their market value. The host draws on decades of HR experience to debunk the myth that current economic conditions justify lower pay - compensation budgets still exist, and professionals who understand their market value and articulate it clearly continue to receive increases. The psychological cost of silence extends beyond financial loss; it reinforces a belief that personal needs come last and undermines decision-making autonomy. The episode targets accomplished Black women in executive-track roles who feel trapped between gratitude for employment and the legitimate need to earn their market rate. Four actionable steps are presented: knowing your market number exists, separating emotions from data, observing who negotiates successfully in your organization, and deciding that discomfort is worth the ask. A free two-day workshop called "Name Your Number" is promoted to help participants develop negotiation skills grounded in market research and authentic communication.
Over 600,000 Black women have been displaced from jobs in the last 18 months, creating fear-based gratitude that makes employed Black women afraid to advocate for themselves. They worry that asking for more will jeopardize their job security or damage relationships with their boss and colleagues, especially given the racial and gender biases they face.
No. Companies manage costs in other areas while compensation budgets still exist. Professionals who understand their market value and articulate it clearly continue to get increases even in tough economies. Companies pay less because employees haven't asked for more, and the economy simply gives them cover to do so.
First, accept that a market rate for your role exists and you have the right to know it. Second, separate your feelings from facts by researching actual market data instead of relying on emotion. Third, observe who in your organization is getting increases and promotions - they're the ones negotiating, not staying silent. Fourth, decide that you're worth the discomfort of making the ask.
Silence erodes your ability to make decisions from strength rather than fear, limits your exposure to new choices and opportunities, and reinforces the belief that your needs come last - a pattern that seeps into every other area of your life.
The host offers a free two-day workshop called "Name Your Number" (www.thechangedoc.com/nameyournumber) that teaches participants how to research their market rate, identify the right person to talk to in their organization, and develop language that feels authentic to their communication style.
Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.
The episode contains several valid tactical points (know your market rate, separate feelings from facts, observe who negotiates successfully) but relies heavily on emotional framing and repetition of the core message rather than novel insights. The advice is sensible but largely conventional wisdom in compensation negotiation literature, delivered with substantial throat-clearing and motivational padding.
Your company isn't paying you less because the economy is tough in this current market. They're paying you less because you haven't asked for more.
The antidote becomes the data. What I want you to do is I want you to start paying attention to what the market is saying about roles like yours, not what you are feeling about roles like yours.
The core argument - that Black women's job displacement anxiety creates a 'gratitude trap' that suppresses salary negotiation - is contextually specific and timely, but the underlying negotiation principles (know your worth, use data, observe peers) are widely circulated in career development. The framing is fresher than the mechanics.
Over 600,000 Black women have been displaced from their jobs. Now, here's what that number is doing to the ones who still are employed...It is making the black women who still have a job to go to grateful for a paycheck that was already too small.
Black women carry a specific burden here. We carry the double weight of racial and gender bias that makes self-advocacy feel riskier than it does for our peers.
This is a solo host episode with no guest. The host claims HR experience and executive coaching work but provides no verifiable credentials, specific client outcomes, or demonstrated track record of compensation negotiations at scale. No evidence of operator-level expertise is presented.
Now, here's what I know after spending decades in HR making compensation decisions.
I help you close any skill gap that you might have when you're there.
The episode opens with a specific macro statistic (600,000 displaced Black women) but provides no company names, salary ranges, market data, negotiation outcomes, or concrete examples beyond abstract scenarios. Advice relies on general principles rather than detailed evidence or case studies.
Over 600,000 Black women have been displaced from their jobs.
There is a market rate for your specific role, for your specific industry, for your specific level of experience and scope of responsibility. That number exists, whether you know it yourself or not.
This is a monologue-format solo episode with no guest interaction, questions, or dialogue. The host makes assertions without challenge or follow-up, and the majority of the runtime is motivational rhetoric and personal anecdote rather than substantive exploration. There is no evidence of intellectual sparring or pushback on claims.
At the time of this recording in 2026, in the last 18 months, over 600,000 Black women have been displaced from their jobs. I just want you to sit with that statistic for a minute.
And that belief, that quiet, fear-based gratitude is exactly what's keeping black women underpaid right now. Today we are talking about the trap and how to get out of it.
Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the words that came up most.
Over 600,000 Black women have been displaced from their jobs in the last 18 months and that single statistic explains a lot about what’s happening inside workplaces right now: people are scared, and fear is making them quiet. When job security feels fragile, it’s easy to start treating a paycheck as something you should be grateful for, even when it’s already too small. That silence doesn’t just slow down your career; it keeps you underpaid and makes it harder to move into leadership with the power and choice you deserve. We unpack what I call the “just be grateful” trap, why it hits Black women so hard at the intersection of racial bias and gender bias, and what you can do about it. If you’re ready to stop shrinking and start advocating with confidence, hit play, then subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review so more women can find this conversation. __ It's time to position yourself for the powerful career you deserve, not what they're willing to give you. Join my free 2-day leadership intensive: Name Your Number: How To Negotiate Your Salary With Confidence Even In An Uncertain Economy on June 6 & 7. Save your spot here .
Transcribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.
At the time of this recording in 2026, in the last 18 months, over 600,000 Black women have been displaced from their jobs. I just want you to sit with that statistic for a minute. Over 600,000 Black women. Now, here's what that number is doing to the ones who still are employed, to everybody who's still getting up and going to work every day.
It is literally making them silent. It is making the black women who still have a job to go to grateful for a paycheck that was already too small. It is making black women who are still employed, it's making them believe that this is not the time for them to advocate for themselves. And that belief, that quiet, fear-based gratitude is exactly what's keeping black women underpaid right now.
Today we are talking about the trap and how to get out of it. The first is getting promoted to the executive suite. The second is once you land your executive level role, I help you close any skill gap that you might have when you're there. It could be executive presence, it could be how you communicate, it could be how you set strategy, it could be your leadership brand, how you manage your team, it could be any of those things.
And the third problem that I help you solve is setting up your new department or new team. Let's dive into today's topic, which is directly tied to problem number one, how to get promoted into the executive level. What we're talking about today is what I call the just be grateful trap. And the just be grateful trap is not new, right?
It's not something that came up in the last day or a couple of months or even this year. Black women have been handed this message in various forms for generations, ever since we actually entered the paid workforce. Be grateful that you got the interview. Be grateful you got the offer.
Be grateful you have a seat at the table. Hey, just be grateful that you still have a job when so many others don't. And on the surface, all of that sounds like wisdom. But here's what it actually does: it converts fear, your fear, into compliance.
It takes the very real anxiety that you and every other black woman feels about job security, and it uses it to silence the one conversation that could actually change your road to financial freedom. Because here's what I want you to know. And I need you to actually hear this clearly and to sit with it. Your company isn't paying you less because the economy is tough in this current market.
They're paying you less because you haven't asked for more. And this current economy is giving them cover to do exactly that. Gratitude is a virtue, yes. But gratitude that keeps you underpaid is not wisdom.
It is a trap. Now, one of the things that I often used to think when I thought about negotiating for my salary is I don't want to rock the boat. Like, I don't want to cause trouble. I don't want to disturb the peace that I currently have in my role and on the job.
This is the most common unspoken fear that I hear from my clients also. And it deserves to be named directly. You are not just afraid of being told no. You're afraid of what advocating for yourself might cost you with the relationships that you have with your boss, with your colleagues, with other leaders across the organization.
You are wondering if you negotiate or ask for something different than what you currently have, will you be seen as difficult? Will people perceive you as being ungrateful? Will you start to get known as the problem team member? Black women carry a specific burden here.
We carry the double weight of racial and gender bias that makes self-advocacy feel riskier than it does for our peers. You have watched other women ask and you've seen them being labeled negatively. You've seen people start to treat them a little bit different. So as a result of that, you stay quiet and you think that you are safe by doing that.
But you know what staying quiet is actually costing you? And no, it's not just costing you money, though the money is significant and particularly significant over time. It's also costing you the ability to make decisions from strength instead of a place of fear. It's costing you choices and options that you don't feel comfortable making and that you'll never get exposed to.
And it's also reinforcing the belief that your needs need to come last, need to come after everybody else. And that belief starts to seep into every other area of your life. Rock in the boat is not the risk. The true risk is actually when you stay silent.
So here's what I know after spending decades in HR making compensation decisions. Companies are not cutting salaries because the market, the current market, happens to be tough. Companies are managing costs in other areas, but compensation budgets still exist. And the professionals who understand their market value and can articulate it clearly and professionally are still getting increases, even in our current economy.
The woman who walks into that conversation armed with data, a clear business case, and a professional approach is not the one who gets passed over. She's the one that they can't afford to lose. So the current economy is not your enemy. But your silence, you staying quiet, that's the enemy.
There is absolutely no market condition, not a recession, not mass layoffs, not an employer's market that makes it acceptable for you to be underpaid for the work you are already delivering. Now, if you're ready to change this for yourself, then I want to give you a few steps that you can actually think about. I want to give you a few things that you can start thinking about right now to shift away from this silence, this fear that you are having, keeping you kind of stuck when it comes to your salary and salary negotiation.
The first thing is knowing your number, knowing that your number actually exists. There is a market rate for your specific role, for your specific industry, for your specific level of experience and scope of responsibility. That number exists, whether you know it yourself or not, whether your company tells you about it or not. Your first job is simply to accept that the number exists and that you have every right to know what it is.
The second thing that you can do is you can start to separate your feelings from your facts. The gratitude trap works because it is emotional. The antidote becomes the data. What I want you to do is I want you to start paying attention to what the market is saying about roles like yours, not what you are feeling about roles like yours.
Not to make yourself angry. You're not collecting this information to make yourself angry, but to get grounded in reality. Because feelings are absolutely valid, but feelings alone will not win compensation conversations. Actual facts and true objective data do.
And the third thing I want you to think about is I want you to notice who is having salary conversations, salary negotiations, and who isn't. Actually look around your organization because the clues are all there. Look at who is getting increases, who's getting promoted, who is being rewarded. And I promise you that the ones moving up are not the ones that are staying silent.
They're the ones who have learned how to advocate for themselves professionally and strategically. And you can learn those skills too. And the fourth thing I want you to do is I want you to decide that you are worth the discomfort of the ask. I get it.
It actually can feel very icky when you start to think about you taking the action of making an ask, asking for something different. And sometimes it's related to salary, but sometimes it has other financial rewards for you. It could be asking for vacation days. It could be asking for a new laptop.
It could be asking for anything like that, where it may not necessarily be about a salary. It could be about a bonus, it could be anything. But if you're afraid to ask for one of those things, you're likely afraid to ask for the others. So deciding that you're worth the discomfort of the ask, that's the one that nobody actually talks about because negotiating can be uncomfortable.
Full stop. It may never feel completely comfortable for you, but you can do uncomfortable things. You already do uncomfortable things in all other areas of your life. So why not this?
You have also done uncomfortable things in your career as well. Negotiating for your actual salary, the salary that you deserve, is just one more thing. You do not have to have it all figured out to take the first step. You simply have to decide that staying where you are at the salary rate and compensation that you currently are is no longer acceptable.
Now, if you want to go deeper on this topic, if you want the how and not just the what, that's exactly what we're building together in my free two-day intensive. Name your number, how to negotiate your salary with confidence, even in an uncertain economy. I'm hosting this workshop. It's two hours each day, and it's completely free for now.
We're going to figure out what the market says you should be making, who in your organization you should be talking to about that, what to say when you actually get in the room with them, and how to say it in a way that feels authentic to who you are. The link to the two-day workshop is www.thechangedoc.com forward slash nameyour number.
Again, that's www.thechangedoc.com forward slash name your number. The link is also in the show notes.
Signing up takes less than a minute. If you're coming to this workshop, and if I were you, I would definitely show up because you don't get this type of information in any other place. If you're coming, come ready to work because we are going to actually be doing work in the workshop to get you ready and to make sure you're prepared. Gratitude did not pay your mortgage this month, but advocating for yourself actually might.
Until next time, lady leader, keep leading your introvert way.
Other episodes covering the same guests and topics, from across The B2B Podcast Index.
105: The MOST Profitable Skill to Learn (From a $200M+ VC Investor) with Codie SanchezBiggerPockets Business Podcast · on Salary negotiation69 / 100
Kwame Christian: Finding Confidence in Conflict Through Better NegotiationEnterprising Investor · on Salary negotiation63 / 100
Salary Negotiation Part 1: Why You're Afraid to Ask (And Why You Shouldn't Be)My Friend in HR · on Salary negotiation61 / 100
Emily the Recruiter on CLOCKING IN & Communicating at Work (ep. 217)Talk About Talk · on Salary negotiation60 / 100
Breaking the Rules: Overcoming Imposter Syndrome and Perfectionism with Heather WhelpleyNo More Mondays · on Salary negotiation48 / 100
The Bank Account That Saves Your Marriage, Career, and CustomersThe Toilet Paper Salesman® Podcast · on Salary negotiation42 / 100
143: Black Women Leaders Can Have The Soft Life Too58 / 100
139: Why Black Women Leaders Get Overlooked (Even When They're the Most Qualified in the Room)59 / 100
138: Why Black Women Can't Leave It at the Door (And Why It's Holding You Back as a Leader)50 / 100
137: The Seasons of Your Career: How to Stop Burning Out and Start Being Strategic This Summer44 / 100
136: After the Salary Negotiation: What Black Women Leaders Do Next To Keep Winning57 / 100