Welcome to the first edition of the Reflections from Karundi newsletter. I’m excited to have this space to connect with you more regularly and share some of what I’m thinking about, wrestling with, learning, and unlearning as a leader.
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about fear and how much it has shaped my leadership.
For a long time, I carried a fear of failing, of proving someone’s doubts about me right, and of what my failure might mean for other leaders from marginalized communities, especially Black women. I felt like I always had to have the answer.
And if I’m being real, that fear pushed me to work in ways that weren’t always good for me or the kind of leadership I wanted to model for my team. I said yes when I should’ve said no. I got on planes when I was sick and pushed myself past my limits because I thought that was what leadership required.
Earlier this year, my therapist asked me a question I haven’t been able to shake: Why do you feel like you have to sacrifice yourself?
Whew.
That question opened something up for me. I realized I actually don’t have anything to prove anymore. I deserve to be in this leadership position. I have the lived experience, the expertise, and the track record. So why was I still putting all of this pressure on myself to prove that I belonged?
Well, we know why. Black women are constantly asked to prove that we belong in leadership, that we’re capable, that we know what we’re doing. As Black women leaders, so many of us know what it feels like to have our competence questioned and carry the pressure to prove we belong in the room and know what we’re doing. That’s part of how white supremacy works. It doesn’t just question us from the outside. It teaches us to internalize that scrutiny, to look for our own shortcomings, and to question ourselves before anyone else gets the chance. Somewhere along the way, I internalized that scrutiny and started policing myself. I had to get that police officer out of my own head.
Once I started letting go of that pressure, I began walking into rooms differently. I didn’t need to demonstrate my value by having the perfect answer. I could be curious and ask better questions. I realized that not knowing wasn’t a deficit in my leadership; it could create room for other people, other ideas, and possibilities I might not have considered if I’d focused only on proving I already knew the answer.
That’s made me much more comfortable saying three words that leaders are often afraid to say: I don’t know.
Because the truth is, none of us really knows exactly what comes next, and that kind of uncertainty can be scary, especially when the stakes feel as high as they do right now. Fear can make us want to rush toward certainty, to find the answer, and do anything that makes us feel like we have control. As I learn that uncertainty doesn’t have to push us toward fear, I want to be clear. There are very real reasons to be afraid right now.
Authoritarianism is here, and we are watching hard-fought gains for our people and our communities being systematically eroded. Families are living in fear as ICE tears people away from their communities. Trans people are facing continued violence simply for being who they are. And Black people are being found hanging from trees across the country, including two cases in Mississippi and North Carolina this month alone. For Black people in this country, it is impossible to see that happening without understanding the history and fear it carries with it.
So when I talk about leading from curiosity instead of fear, I’m not suggesting that we ignore what is happening around us or pretend we aren’t afraid.
The question I’m wrestling with is how do we acknowledge that fear without allowing it to govern how we lead.
Even in the middle of crisis, we have to create enough space to ask what this moment actually requires of us and what becomes possible when we get curious together. We can learn from our history, but none of us has a perfect playbook for this moment. If we stay rooted only in fear, I don’t think we’ll get to the kind of collective action and community we need, not only to make it through this moment, but to build toward the multiracial democracy we want on the other side of it.
I’ve been thinking about that for re:power, too.
We knew our work needed to evolve to meet this moment, but we didn’t need to have all the answers right away. Over the past year, re:power reflected on what we’ve learned from years of training and supporting organizers across the country, asked hard questions about our role, and listened to what our people need from us now.
The more we listened, the clearer our role became. Authoritarianism thrives on fear, isolation, disconnection, and the belief that we are powerless to change our circumstances. We fight that by building the opposite. We invest in leaders, strengthen relationships, and listen to what people tell us they need to build power in their own communities and stay in the fight for the long haul. Because at the end of the day, we are in the people business.
What we learned led us to a new strategy for re:power’s work, which we’ll share more about soon.
In some ways, re:power and I have been evolving together. I’ve stopped believing that leadership requires immediate certainty, and we’ve stopped expecting that of ourselves as an organization, too. Sometimes it means being willing to say, “I don’t know yet. Let’s figure this out together.”
I look forward to sharing more with you in the months ahead about what I’m learning, what I’m questioning, and where all of this is taking us. More soon.
Stay curious,
Karundi
