My Thoughts on a Womanist Approach to Leadership

By Chinedu Udeh

I am living a life I don’t regret 

A life that will resonate with my ancestors, 

and with as many generations forward as I can 

imagine. 

I am attending to the crisis of my time with 

my best self, 

I am of communities that are doing our collective best 

to honor our ancestors and all humans to come. 

-adrienne maree brown, Emergent Strategy. At an early age, I labeled myself a feminist. I defined feminism as the belief that my life has equal value to anyone else's. Therefore, I had the right to move and exist freely in any space—public or private. I believed I was made to live fully because I was God’s child. But we know that freedom claimed is not always freedom granted.

With this as a foundation, it made sense that I was drawn to the works of Alice Walker, Audre Lorde, and bell hooks. One of my all-time favorite books is Parable of the Sower by Octavia Butler. In this novel, the main character, Lauren Olamina—a young Black woman—creates a philosophy and builds a community that transforms systems in a world ravaged by chaos and violence. Deeply concerned with the welfare of others, empathy becomes both her greatest power and her heaviest burden. Lauren’s spiritual practice, grounded in community and collective self-sufficiency, honors the unique talents of others while fostering resilience. Her guiding principles on change, "God is Change" and "All that you touch, you Change. All that you Change, Changes you," helped give language to my approach to leadership: the belief that, through intentional action, we have the power to change ourselves and the world around us.

Parable of the Sower: Oya's Dream by Fahamu Pecou

However, it wasn’t until I encountered Alice Walker’s In Search of Our Mothers’ Gardens that I was introduced to the concept of womanism. Walker defined a womanist as “a Black feminist or feminist of color…committed to the survival and wholeness of an entire people…traditionally capable…Loves herself. Regardless.”  A womanist approach to leadership—rooted in a unique Black female way of being, loving, thinking, gathering, and transforming systems—offered a more expansive framework for how I wanted to lead.

In more recent years, modern interpretations of womanism, such as ebonyjanice’s All the Black Girls Are Activists: A Fourth Wave Womanist Pursuit of Dreams as Radical Resistance, have helped refine my understanding of how Black women uniquely engage in freedom work. She writes, “If you want to know what Black women are doing for the movement, we are dreaming. We are resting…We are in pursuit of our wholeness.” 

A womanist is concerned with wholeness—wholeness for herself, her community, and the world. It is through this journey that we can reimagine a more just world, where we are free to thrive and bring others with us. These steps are iterative and non-linear. This focus on wholeness calls for starting with self—knowing self, loving self, nourishing self. Once grounded in this sense of self, we can more authentically learn the skills, practices, and tools necessary to build systems that create inclusive communities and transform the world around us.

By nurturing our well-being, honoring our unique way of doing, and gathering in beloved communities, Black women access the transformative power that will sustain us in the fight for freedom, justice, and joy