Last weekend, it was reported that the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) was now demanding that federal workers summarize their accomplishments for the week, or prepare to lose their jobs. The rogue agency, led by the unelected and non-government official Elon Musk, sent an email to government workers with the subject line “What did you do last week?” The message required employees across agencies including the F.B.I., the State Department, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, and more to reply with at least five bullet points of what they accomplished throughout the week and to cc their managers.
While there’s nothing surprising about a White Supremacist White Supremacy-ing, learning about this still sent a chill up my spine because it reminded me of the countless times my clients— and me personally— have come face-to-face with the callousness of White Supremacy Culture in the workplace. Many have been up and arms about how belittling the request is, and rightfully so considering its underlying motives, but it made me wonder: where has this outrage been when tactics like this have been used for decades to push women of color out of companies?
I once was coaching a Black woman who had been in a string of toxic work environments. She felt forced to resign from one role at a nonprofit after the anti-Black racism there tanked her physical and mental health, only for the next two to cut her position after just a few months in. The running theme through each experience that would let her know to prepare to be let go was when she would suddenly be required to document her accomplishments throughout the week, and justify her purpose for being there.
It’s a trend that’s not unique to that one woman, either. ‘Progress is bigger & more’ and ‘quantity over quality’ are core tenets of White Supremacy Culture, and they show up in the workplace by insisting that people prove their worth by meeting specific metrics, regardless of the personal and moral toll it takes on employees. Essentially, these beliefs mean that an accomplishment isn’t an accomplishment if it isn’t tangible, can’t be measured, or flaunted in some way. Women of color are especially harmed by these tenets, since empathy and grace are seldom shown to us, and we’re judged more harshly.
Managers who insist on these kinds of accomplishment updates create a culture built on fear and micromanagement. Asking your team ‘what have you done for me lately?’ is an easy way to push them out the door– not keep them motivated. And for women of color, it forces them to perform even more than they already have to in White-dominated environments.
Many would argue that it’s well within a manager’s right to have their team articulate their accomplishments on a regular basis. But if you’re truly invested in uprooting racism and anti-Blackness in the workplace, it’s antithetical to those values to put the onus on your team to show and prove their value when you say so. There are better, more equitable ways to ensure your team is meeting its goals, including:
Recognize how bias shows up when evaluating performance
You can’t hold people to standards that they haven’t agreed to. Women of color are also held to unspoken, racist, and biased standards on the job that their White and/or male counterparts are not; so when setting goals for your team, be sure that they’re values based, and not rooted in what you think is best for them.
In a world where it’s already been ingrained in most people from an early age that being a woman and having darker skin automatically equates to less intelligence, competence, or an inability to be a leader, those beliefs don’t turn off just because you’re on the clock.
Research shows that for women of color (and other oppressed groups), their mistakes are more harshly judged and remembered, making it more difficult for them to get strong reviews on their performances. So even when goals are clearly identified for your team, recognize that women of color are being held to those goals more harshly than others. Shifting this dynamic means that we have to reconceptualize our understanding of progress, leadership, and accomplishments in the first place. This isn’t to suggest that women of color are incapable of doing challenging work, but how we keep a critical gaze on them in the midst of undertaking said work is where the issue lies.
Give quality, actionable feedback consistently
Data also suggests that women of color are more likely to receive non-actionable feedback at work. That non-actionable feedback can also be a slippery slope into racist territory, where many women of color are told things about them being ‘difficult to work with’ or that they are ‘not a team player.’ Being picked apart just for the sake of it not only hurts the earning potential of women of color in the long run, but it damages their self-esteem in a way that makes it increasingly difficult for them to show up confidently and authentically at work.
We tend to not listen or care about the concerns of women of color until they start affecting the masses. The intimidating tools and tactics that are being used by DOGE now have been used to push women of color out of the workplace for generations now. Let’s call them out in real time.
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