I peeled open the Sunday Styles section of the New York Times to find an alliterative headline: “Rehearsals Follow Rehab.” I noticed a photo of Luann de Lesseps, more affectionately known as The Countess on The Real Housewives of New York. Given my Housewives fandom, I began devouring the piece.
The article detailed de Lesseps’ redemption story following an episode on December 23rd when she “tried to escape a patrol car after being arrested on accusations of disorderly intoxication and assaulting a police officer.” Most of the feature was focused far less on that flagrant moment and far more on what de Lesseps has been up to following that night – preparing to star in her own cabaret show, #CountessandFriends.
No amount of Housewives devotion could distract me from the thought reverberating through my mind the entire time I read the piece: everyone does not have the privilege of second chances. Surely a bevy of factors intersected to allow a woman like de Lesseps to transform an inebriated run-in with the law into the ultimate story of atonement through song and dance. Those factors probably included – but were not limited to – fame, celebrity, wealth, class and race.
One could argue that second chances are a key tenet of American society. In May 2015, former President Barack Obama published a blog post entitled “A Nation of Second Chances” where he announced 58 new grants of clemency and told the story of former clemency recipients who have since redeemed themselves and relished their second chances. Later that same year, John Kiriakou published an article for the Institute for Policy Studies with the headline, “Second Chances Are as American as Baseball.” The idea that failure is not an experience or moment that forever seals someone’s fate is what underpins many American success stories.
Yet, the margin for error does not always extend with equal latitude to everyone. A 2017 Forbes piece entitled “Failure Is Not An Option: The Pressure Black Women Feel to Succeed” highlighted many black women’s struggles with the demand for success in a variety of professional spaces. During the interview, attorney and managing member at the Cook Law Group, Candice Cook Simmons, said:
“It’s well-established that for men, Caucasians, or Caucasian women, the advice in entrepreneurial space is ‘fail fast’ or ‘fail forward.’ Those themes contribute to a person’s ability to pivot quickly and to fine tune their iterative process. If we are honest, we know that failure for women of color in most cases will not be looked at as a growth experience, an example of a solid risk taker, or as a method toward iteration. To the contrary, women of color who are ‘quick to fail’ are often classified as simply ‘failures’ and after having the label of failure affixed to women of color, it becomes extraordinarily difficult – if not impossible – to shake the label or to get a second chance at a future opportunity.”
Simmons’ perspective shores up conclusions from the 2012 study, “Failure Is Not An Option for Black Women: Effects of Organizational Performance on Leaders With Single Versus Dual-Subordinate Identities” that cites ways in which “Black women are more harshly evaluated under conditions of organizational failure when compared with black men, white men, and white women due to the ‘double jeopardy’ effect.” The study also highlights the reality that while white women and black men may receive lower evaluations than white men, the dominant aspects of their identities (being white or male) serve as a benefit and mirror aspects of what’s considered typical for being in a leadership role.
Ultimately, when the repercussions for failure seem weightier – or even possibly career-ending – the boldness to take risks diminishes. Yet, risks and some level of failure are oftentimes experiences on which rewarding careers are predicated. Most of us would be hard-pressed to find any accomplished leader who could not relay how taking a risk, stepping into a stretch role, or even failing, ultimately informed the positive trajectory of his or her career.
Therefore, it’s important to understand how the room for failure does not always spread in equal measure for minority leaders. But, even more importantly, it’s crucial to erect the proper support systems so those same leaders can take professional risks, perhaps be unsuccessful, and still have the space to bounce back.
