Anchored Aligned Accountable: A Framework for Transcending Bullsh*t and Transforming Our Lives and Work - Hardcover

Bethea, Aiko

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0593732162 ISBN 13: 9780593732168

Verlag: Random House, 2025

Inhaltsangabe

A bold new framework for successfully navigating complicated interactions at work and at home—by one of the first leadership coaches to infuse her work with an equity lens and propose spaces for connection that require accountability with generosity

We all have that moment we wish we could do over. Maybe it was a comment you made at work. Maybe a look you gave a loved one. These moments can cause real, lasting damage and they happen when we are misaligned with who we aspire to be. In this book, Aiko Bethea teaches us how live every moment intentionally by introducing the "Anchored-Aligned-Accountable" framework:

Transformation requires that we are anchored in our values, our intention and impact are aligned, and we are accountable to ourselves and others.

Bethea has spent her life helping folks envision and pursue their aspirational selves, including becoming the leaders they want to be, both at work and in life. By taking the reader through real-life scenarios from her career, and situations she’s seen first-hand, Bethea shows us how to rethink the moments when we mess up as ones that offer us a choice. We can shrink away, make a halfhearted apology, and refuse to enact changes in our approach—or we can apply a new framework and change our entire mindset and quality of life.

With a warm, inviting, and witty voice, Anchored Aligned Accountable teaches us how to intentionally lean into our fears, as well as learn from our mistakes instead of losing our connections with others. Bethea invites us to embrace connection over competition, empathy over pity, and vulnerability over ego, and work towards becoming the version of ourselves we truly admire.

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Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Aiko Bethea is the founder of RARE Coaching & Consulting, a leadership development firm that guides leaders to successfully navigate today's workplace, with more impactful approaches to leadership. She supports leaders and teams of Fortune 100 companies, research and academic institutes, and global nonprofit organizations. After practicing law at a global firm, she led legal teams at the City of Atlanta under the leadership of Stacey Abrams. She then served as Director of Compliance for the City of Atlanta and as a Deputy Director at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Bethea has been recognized by Forbes as one of the top seven anti-racism educators for companies and named multiple times by CultureAmp as an influencer to follow. She contributed to the New York Times best-selling anthology, You Are Your Best Thing, and her writing has also been published by Forbes, Harvard Business Review, and several other outlets. She is a senior leadership consultant for the Brené Brown Education and Research Group and a faculty member of the Hudson Institute of Coaching in Santa Barbara. Bethea holds a bachelor's degree from Smith College and a law degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

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Chapter One

Defining the Bullshit

I bet you know bullshit when you see it—­even if you can’t define what it is.

I’d even bet you have your own story about how the bullshit got in your way. Maybe without even knowing that’s what was happening.

I know I do. So here’s mine.

I was in my late twenties, a new associate at a law firm, and I’d managed to take some precious time off to go to a wedding. Actually, I was in the wedding. In fact, I was maid of honor. For my sister. A once-­in-­a-­lifetime moment, right? (And the key reason I took time off.)

So there I am on the day of the wedding, with just minutes to go before my sister Yoko walks down the aisle, and I’m standing there, bridesmaid’s dress on, makeup done, little bouquet in one hand and phone in the other. Writing out a damn work email.

Why? Because one of the firm’s partners had sent me an email. And when one of the partners reaches out to you, a mere associate? You better answer. Who cares that your sister’s getting married in ­T-­minus 30? Did they know that I was out of office? Yes. Did they know I was at a family event and on PTO? Yes.

I still remember how keyed up I felt. My nervous system was in overdrive, everything dialed up to 200 percent. My insecurity was blaring at full blast. I need to respond. The track that was playing underneath this, as I knew I had to reply: I don’t want to be seen as someone unreliable, someone not on the fast track. I need to show that I’m dedicated and that I’m available.

But what’s a trip is that I also remember how unimportant the case in question was. Like, not just insignificant compared to my sister’s wedding. Not important, period. It was some throwaway nonsense for a small civil issue with no deadlines approaching, no serious consequences, nothing that couldn’t wait forty-­eight hours for me to be back in Atlanta after my red-­eye and once again at my desk.

But I was still writing the f***ing email.

I managed to wrap it up in time, get my makeup finished, and hustle into place for my MOH duties. The wedding went on perfectly smoothly, and pretty much everyone had a great time. Except me. Because even after the ceremonies and my little speech honoring the newlyweds, I was mentally occupied by . . . work stuff.

Don’t get me wrong—­I was thrilled for Yoko and her husband, and more than ready to relax and cheer them on. But something was nagging at me. I didn’t quite know what, though—­at that time, I had done zero self-­reflection, no journaling or mantra-­writing or any kind of formal soul-searching. Yet in between the champagne toasts and first dances, I still hit this moment of clarity when I couldn’t stop thinking about that damn email.

This is some bullshit.

And I immediately told myself, basically, to shut up. Stop complaining. You’re being paid more than most people. You should be grateful.

Because, to my mind, I had plenty of good reasons not to think like that. I was making over six figures in my late twenties. I was at a prestigious, competitive, name-­brand firm. I got all kinds of luxe perks, like client lunches in fancy restaurants and swanky after-­work receptions.

In addition, it didn’t seem like too many Black folks were coming in as associates straight out of law school, or further climbing the ladder. So yeah, I had to—­had to—­prove myself, prove that people like me could cut it. And opting out of practicing law impacted other folks and their narratives and sense of worth. Ask any Asian person what their parents wanted for their career: doctor or lawyer (now maybe engineer can be added to the list). I believe my mom didn’t really second-­guess that my work was harassing me . . . because wasn’t there a sense of pride that this big law firm kept reaching out to her daughter?

And the law is not a profession where you can take it easy—­at least, not at that level of firm. If you were an associate, you were busting your ass, because you wanted to be on track. Make partner. And once you made partner, well, you’d bust your ass some more to hit your billables, retain clients, win cases. Being at the firm was like a pie-­eating contest where you cram in as much as you can . . . and then the prize is just more pie.

It would be months before I did anything to change my situation, to identify in a meaningful, lasting way what really took me to the edge about that email and all the expectations holding it in place. But my eyes were opened, and I started to notice other places where this misalignment, this bullshit, was present in my work, and later in my own personal life.

I remember a few weeks after Yoko’s wedding, I was leaving the firm really late one night—­as usual. The security guard, this older Black gentleman, wished me good night (though it was technically morning), and asked me a question.

“Are you married? You have kids?”

I told him no, and he just shook his head. “Well, if you want ’em, you ain’t gonna get ’em. With you being here all night until two a.m.? It ain’t gonna happen.”

I wasn’t pining to be married or be a mother or any of that stuff. So it wasn’t that he gave me a wake-­up call about any particular dream I had. But what he did do was make me think about the math. He made me think, What else am I giving up to work here? What is the cost of staying? And I was starting to realize that the math wasn’t mathin’.

See, whenever I’d noticed the bullshit before—­at the wedding, at those fancy client lunches, at any point in my seventy-­hour workweek—­ I’d been thinking so much about the costs of leaving.

I can’t leave, because I’m making such good money, and what kind of person would just throw that away?

I can’t leave, because what would people think? That I can’t cut it? Also, I can’t burn bridges.

I can’t leave, because then I’ll just be adding to the narrative: There goes another Black associate who couldn’t hack it here. Those diversity hires . . .

I can’t leave, because how would that make my mom feel? She’s so proud of me, and my success makes her sacrifices worth it.

But I never asked myself what the cost of staying would be.

And ultimately, I realized the cost of staying was not living the life I really wanted or being the person I actually want to be. Being compliant with a culture and way of life that I didn’t agree with.

There was much, much detangling to come from there. I was not magically enlightened and set free from that moment onward. But it was an early first inkling, that this is bullshit feeling, at the wedding that finally started me thinking about how much I was being held in place by stuff that was not me. That I did not believe in. That I did not want to contribute to.

And that’s a feeling I think everyone has had.

Because the bullshit is everywhere.

When everyone’s talking about “change,” “values,” or “Living Your Best Life,” as though these concepts are some kind of golden ticket to amazing organizational culture, but no one’s doing anything differently—­that’s it.

When you’re trying so hard not to be that person—­the person unloading on other folks, constantly getting caught with their foot in their mouth, and...

Details zur Ausgabe

• Verlag: Random House
• Erscheinungsdatum: 2025
• Sprache: Englisch
• ISBN 10: 0593732162
• ISBN 13: 9780593732168
• Einband: Gebundene Ausgabe
• Anzahl der Seiten: 320
• Kontakt zum Hersteller: Nicht verfügbar
• Verantwortliche Person: Purmerul LTD; https://strengholt.nl/en/; ; 22 Liuleburgaz Str., floor 4, app. 9; Plovdiv; Bulgarien