How to Prove Yourself Without Working Twice as Hard (for Half the Credit) When You Have Reduced Privilege

It’s both a trope and a truth that working twice as hard will help you get ahead in your career. It’s also, not surprisingly, a key assumption that under-represented leaders assume they must overwork in order to prove themselves in order to advance their careers. Talk to most women, Black people or people of color, and you’ll find that most feel the pressure to work harder than more privileged worker in the next cube over, in order to receive less credit and less reward.

I believe there is truth in these assumptions, but I also think that too many under-represented leaders use these truths as an excuse to overwork and burnout. So let’s question the “work twice as hard to prove yourself” career advice and look at some alternatives to overwork that will still help you prove your worth and demonstrate your potential.

A note about privilege: privilege is subjective and changes based on culture, context and interpersonal dynamics. However, we see many patterns across metrics as diverse as pay, hiring processes and workplace satisfaction that indicate a general privilege that men have over women and white people have over people of color. Thus, while you’ll see a variety of metrics in the data and links we use in this article, they all speak to…