Pros
Our members are great! Some of your colleagues are truly brilliant, talented yet maddeningly underutilized. The flexibility is great in terms of making your schedule and working virtually. Especially for new parents.
Cons
Once you get past the smoke and mirrors that are the website and the beautiful multicultural materials LEE shares with members and prospective staff, it becomes clear that Leadership for Educational Equity (LEE) is no place for talented, hardworking and ambitious POCs. If you like spaces that time and time again privilege and prioritize white patriarchy this is your place. It seems every month the braintrust of LEE hires another buddy of the ED or just creates a new team and position for you guess it….another white guy. The organization makes it very difficult for the advancement of POCs and women at the organization. They seem to overwhelming come in with junior titles at the org, make less and work incredibly hard without the professional mentorship and organizational commitment to development that are given to their white colleagues. There is no career growth here and you’ll work 60-70 hour workweeks for a year or two before even getting the most modest title designation. It simply isn’t worth it. There are a lot of pseudo experts here who think more highly of themselves and their aptitude than they should. Incredibly obnoxious. It becomes apparent rather quickly that these people who are deemed experts in leadership development know absolutely nothing about organizational development and managing people. I have worked various nonprofits and have never ran into so many horrible managers. Some of these people do their jobs exceptionally well but they don’t have a clue how to manage and develop people. I have heard horror stories from my colleagues about their manager’s lack of vision, feedback and purported expertise. Their promise of diversity and equity was a compelling reason why I applied, I attended a hiring bias training at our annual conference that was really good and then I heard one of the facilitators who is a senior staff member at LEE performing blackness. This left me not only uncomfortable but disappointed. Especially because of his role in the organization. The few minorities that populate the leadership don’t speak up and or work to create more equitable outcomes for all staff members. They are either quiet and or ambitious rubber stamps serving as pawns for the “in group”. After during your job, navigating the daily onslaught of micro-aggression (Why are you so abrasive? Wow you’re pretty smart) putting in long hours for less pay that people of equal title and tenure you become incredibly demotivated and disgusted. I have seen several of my colleagues told that they couldn’t be considered for promotions until the end of the year while concurrently two white guys (that are my friends) got promoted. The rules apply to some but not to others. When they want to shut you up, they talk process, timelines and rules. But they don’t let it stop them from doing what they want and rewarding who they want when they want. If you’re a white guy this is absolutely a great place to work. You’ll find professional mentors and sponsors who will help you move quickly up the ranks. For anyone else, especially if you aren’t a friend of the ED or senior staff look at LEE as a great pit stop. A holding station for the next thing because they certainly aren’t thinking about a long term that includes you in any position other than the one they hired you for. In the recruitment process you're treated like a thoroughbred, once you are on staff you're treated like a mule.
