It was a pleasure to speak with Dr. Clytrice Watson on my podcast, Advancing Your Career in Academia. Dr. Watson is the Associate Provost for Academic and Student Services at Delaware State University.
In our discussion, she shared her career journey.
Q: So let’s start by talking a bit about your career in higher ed. You are currently an associate provost. But you have held other positions, you’ve been a Dean, Chair, and Faculty. What has it been like to be in these leadership positions and ascend from faculty into administration?
It has been a really interesting journey. With more ups and downs, I must say, more highs and lows. The experiences that I’ve had have been amazing! When I started as a faculty member, I knew that I wanted to do something more to have a greater impact on students, particularly students of color. As a faculty member, I was very limited in what I could do, I couldn’t write policy. So I decided I wanted to be Dean. This was my third year as a faculty member. I want to be in a position where I can implement some activities to help the students and faculty, and make an impact. I did ascend to the position of Dean, and it wasn’t what I thought it was going to be. That was one of those low valleys that I was in. Now, as an associate provost, I am enjoying the capabilities that I have to help students and faculty and to be in a position to inspire, motivate, and make a change.
Q: Well, that is very amazing. Part of what we both share is our passion to help students of color navigate this space. You may see some faculty who look like you or you may not if you’re at a PWI, or another institution. So when you’re having those few and far-between encounters, it’s great to be able to see someone in leadership who represents you.
We share a commonality in higher ed, and that is working with people. So we don’t work in isolation, although sometimes people will say we are siloed and that can happen, depending on the discipline you are in at your college, school, or institution. You tend to just work with those around you. But there are people that you will encounter if you are trying to promote or if you are trying to serve on certain committees, and so we do encounter other people, and those other people don’t always look like us or agree with us. So I thought we’d spend some time talking about some of the interpersonal interactions.
We were at a conclave one year, and we heard Melissa Harris-Perry. She was talking about her experience in higher ed. really her promotion. She was promoted to full professor. She’s going for tenure. She talked about how she thought she had it in the bag, essentially, she had met everything in the rubric, only to not get it. Later she found out that some men were not supportive of her. She went on to talk about these buckets that you might fall into. If you’re a woman in higher ed, men can see you as either a daughter, a date, a pet, or a threat. We have experience in at least one of those four categories.
You talk at length about what happens between men and women and higher ed, but more recently, we’ve been talking about the dynamics between women in higher ed, and you presented a few years ago on this. The idea of mean girls. Can you share more about Mean Girls in higher ed and the concept of Mean Girls in higher ed?
Let’s think back to high school. There was a certain subset of popular individuals who were pretty, they had the best fashion sense, or what have you. You’re walking down the hall and they are talking about you loudly. I know that once I graduated from high school, I was so happy. I was like, oh, my God, I’m gonna get away from this. You still may have a little bit of this in college as well.
But when you go into your career, you think I’ve worked hard. I’ve been blessed. I’m here. Now it’s time to live and love who I am and not have to worry about some of those things from my past. Then bam, you encounter Mean Girl syndrome. And it’s like, whoa, I thought I was in high school. What I mean by that is the smiling in your face and backstabbing behind your back. Hating on you, I don’t like using the word hate. But that’s essentially what it is.
For me going into higher ed working at an HBCU. I remember my first faculty meeting, I was so excited. I went in, I saw this black woman and I think I’m going to sit beside her. I tried to talk to her and she blew me off just as nice. I said, Hey, how are you? I introduced myself and said that I was new. I thought to myself, does she teach students? So I tried again. And I was crushed because I was fresh out of grad school. That was my first encounter with a mean girl, at my very first faculty meeting. That set the tone, I hate to say it, but it put me on guard. I was the only black woman in my department when I first started. There were a couple of other white women who were Caucasian. I just tried to stay under the radar. And eventually, you loosen up and you try to trust people because you want to be in a work environment where you can trust your colleagues. There were other relationships with other departments and that mean girl syndrome is there too. If they saw you trying to progress in your career, it was an issue like why do you want to do that? Or I would do that if I was you.
Then there’s me. I’m saying come on, we can do this. We can go for this. I get responses that are not really what I want to do. I don’t know why you want to do that.
Q: And how about this? But don’t tell her we don’t want to include her in it.
Definitely. You’d be surprised how often that goes on. I can’t believe this is happening. I think what was frustrating to me, I left the university for a while and went to do a rotation at the National Science Foundation. I came back to this administrative role. I’m thinking, Okay, we’re at a higher level now it has to be different, right? Nope, you’re sitting in meetings and this is the heartbreaking part of older, more mature women. They are just as nasty to the younger women, or even each other. I’m talking about dirty looks and hearing the things they say about others behind their backs. It’s heartbreaking. It’s heartbreaking. I’ve watched some of my colleagues just get torn down publicly.
Q: It’s amazing to me that it happens on one hand, but I’m a clinical psychologist, so I study human behavior all the time. I think that what I would like our readers to understand is that a lot of this comes from insecurity. If I’m insecure, whether in my work or home life, I’m unhappy. I will lash out or intentionally or unintentionally make other people miserable. I want people to know that there are some things that we can do to protect ourselves, and our reputations. Because it is about your reputation. You can engage or encounter a mean girl, and they might be in a position of authority. Your reputation will suffer from that. What can someone do if that happens to them?
I saw a mentor, a young lady, who was new to the university. She hadn’t worked at an HBCU. She was experiencing some really bad behavior from some other women at the institution. She would just be so upset. Surprisingly, some of the things she just said are the things that I told her, I said, look, you have to understand who you’re dealing with. Whatever they’re going through, they’re projecting it on you with whatever insecurities they’re feeling. I just broke it down. I said, you dress nicely and are a very attractive woman. Sometimes women, when they get older, start feeling insecure, or unhappy about themselves. So they may lash out. Maybe they feel threatened that you may take their position. I don’t understand anyone feeling threatened that someone’s going to take their position. I believe in any leadership, a leader should always prepare their successor. Start grooming and preparing your successor, not beat someone down. You have the power to develop the next leader. Seeing that happen, especially with black women, I have a real issue with that.
At some point you have to say look, I’m not here for this. I’m here to do my job. We don’t have to be friends but you can be respectful.
Q: I appreciate this from a leader. If we were to experience someone who has been bruised by this bruised they’re now thinking, You know what, I’m out of higher ed. I just can’t take this anymore. I tried to do it, but this cut me deep as is said. What would you say to encourage someone like that?
That’s a great question. Because I have to think about the words that I had to say to myself, to encourage myself on more occasions than one. My spirituality is very important to me, and I rely on it to get through my days. I would tell someone, you have to dig deep into who you are and understand why you’re here. Are you here to fulfill your purpose in life? Or are you here to fulfill someone else’s purpose or to be someone else’s whipping post? We may not have a lot of power, but we can have control over how we respond to people. Sometimes our response is either going to fuel their ill intentions, or it’s going to shut them down. You have to be able to read the situation, read the person, and know your opponent. I hate to say that, your opponent. I have an art of studying people. I realized I have to try and determine how I need to deal with that person or navigate with them. It’s a matter of learning about the person that you’re dealing with. Sometimes you just have to humble yourself to get to know them, even if they don’t like you. But the more you get to know them, the better you’re going to understand how to deal with them.
Q: That’s helpful. We want to know the person, we want to have our protection, whether that’s internal spiritually, and I agree, I think it’s always good to do sort of a gut check, right? Like, why am I here? Right? And so if you can think about it in terms of your purpose, then there’s something outside of yourself. So even when you’re, you know, battered or bruised, you can say, Okay, I’m here for the students, sir, I’m here to make sure that my voice is heard. I’m here for this. And it can sort of buoy you. So what about that’s internal? What about external? Would you ever advise someone to maybe, you know, seek some external guidance coaching mentor? What are your thoughts about that?
Absolutely. I’ve always managed to keep an external network from my institution. That’s so important. Because of what I was not getting internally in terms of coaching and mentoring, I had a network outside the institution that I call my encouragement circle. I could go and share some of the issues that I was having, and get advice from others on how to deal with some of these issues. The OURS program was so critical for my transformation because I had a coach. I don’t know if you had Linda Liang. I had her as my career coach. And the program itself, the way it was structured was to restore the confidence, build confidence that I didn’t have helped me to find my inner powers, my superpowers. So that external network is so important.
Q: Linda Liang, for those of you who are longtime readers, was one of our podcast guests a while ago. So she wasn’t my mentor. I had Dr. Beverly O’Brien, wonderful as well. The program was great. It taught us a lot about external support, and the importance of having a coach, mentor, sponsor, or champion on your team so for when you are experiencing some difficult times in the workplace you can talk to your coach, mentor, or trusted confidant to give you some perspective and some guidance. That external perspective is so important because when you’re in the mix of a situation, you only see it one way and sometimes you lose the ability to look at it from different angles or a different perspective. But talking to someone else who’s not in that situation, helps you recenter.
When I was going through a very difficult time, at one of my former institutions, that network was saved by a career in higher ed. I was that person who was like, I’m out of here. I can’t take this anymore. I’m done. Then my support team was like, no, wait a minute, hang on. Here’s what you’re going through which we’re not minimizing and yes, you’re being treated unfairly. But here’s a strategy for dealing with this and being able to have your sanity.
That’s important. I have so many situations and some recent ones where an outside network is so important. Just to be able to call someone and say, Hey, this is what I’m going through. I don’t need this, I can just go and do something else. I’m like you don’t want to do that right now.
Q: It may feel good at that moment, but some moments will follow that. What about your purpose? If your purpose is to be a representative of populations and demographics we don’t always see if you’re the only one and now you’re gone. Your voice is no longer being heard and you’re not able to make those inroads that you had set out to do.
I think it’s so important for us as women, to also understand that we can’t rely on other people to validate us. We have to know who we are within ourselves because if we rely on other people, especially other women, sometimes to validate who we are, or to be our cheerleaders, we are in trouble. It’s okay to be your own cheerleader, it’s okay to sit down and just say, I’m a bad sister right here look at all I accomplished.
Q: I love what you just said. One part of the strategies that I use when I’m working with people is to take out your CV or your resume and review it. Oftentimes, we’re just going through our day getting the work done and we don’t even realize that we have piled up a lot of work, and have even been recognized or maybe not been recognized.
Looking at that CV or resume will help reorient you. Then if people are struggling, I recommend that they have somebody else read it to them. I don’t know about you, but there have been times when I have been an invited speaker, or recently I was a keynote speaker. My bio was read and I was looking around thinking, who’s that I sure want to be her when I grow up. When we hear it from someone else, that can be helpful as well. Being your own cheerleader, reading your own accomplishments, and looking at your awards can be a reminder. It’s so important to be your own cheerleader, be your own superhero. It’s okay. It’s not being conceited. It’s self-preservation because you’re going to have moments where people are gonna beat you down, beat you up, and you’re gonna feel worthless. So you have to remind yourself who you are.
I’ve read a book called Smart Women Never Get The Corner Office. One of the things that she talks about is that women don’t want to promote themselves, right? They don’t want to toot their own horn or talk about their accomplishments. Sometimes that can be a detriment because nobody else is going to do this for you. Number one, they don’t know all the things that you’ve done so you don’t have to go around being narcissistic about it. But certainly reminding people you have a real doctorate, or I have done this, or do you see the job title on my door? Like, nobody just gave me that. So as women, just sometimes letting people know who we are and what we’ve done will help back them off of you.
Absolutely. Absolutely.
Q: We’ve talked about when we’ve been mistreated by others. You and I were talking recently, and you are going to be doing a study on this phenomenon. But in your reflection, you recall that there may have been some times when you were a mean girl, tell us about that.
Absolutely. And I believe in self-reflection. At the end of my day, when I say my prayers before I go to bed, and ask God to forgive me for my shortcomings I think about how I forgive others for their shortcomings. Sometimes you become a product of your environment and when you’re in a toxic environment, or certain situations, you pick up that same spirit or attitude. There have been times when I’ve been a mean girl. I’ve thought about it, even if it’s something as simple as speaking about another woman you are speaking ill about someone else. My mother always taught me don’t say something behind someone’s back that you can’t say to them.
Fortunately, at some point, I remember saying I don’t want to be around this. But there was more than once that I’ve been engaged in a negative conversation about another woman. Whether it was true information or not I should have not engaged in that. There have been times when there were certain women I just didn’t want to deal with, I had a reason for it. But there are a couple, I didn’t have a reason I just said I don’t want to.
I’m not helping them and that’s unfair. I’ll give you an example. Recently, we had a new lady at our University. I don’t want to say the role. I didn’t know her and I kept saying I need to go engage, but I’m just gonna stay in my lane. I heard that the lady had a really hard time and she was leaving. I felt horrible. I should have reached out sooner. Maybe if she had just found someone to connect with it would not have been so difficult. I think that I could have reached out, I could have tried, and it would not have caused any harm to me. Had I just reached out and said, Hey, let’s go to lunch? A couple of times on campus, she came up to me very enthusiastically. Hi, how are you? I was nice, but I was sort of aloof. That goes back to that first lady I met when I went to campus she was very aloof to me. So I did the same thing and that’s just not fair.
Q: I appreciate your candor around this and your insight into behaviors. I think you are an awesome leader. This is the epitome of leadership to be able to say, I need to check myself here and as a leader, what type of behaviors I want to demonstrate. As a leader, the behavior is going out of your way a little bit to say hi. When you think about it, in the grand scheme of things, that’s not a big deal. But if you have a million other things to sort of contend with as a leader, saying hi to somebody is gonna take some effort, right, because you got to a full schedule, you have to be at this meeting, you’d have these things to think about. And so it’s not just like, oh, let me just wander on over there and shoot the breeze with somebody, you don’t have time for that. But making the time for finding the time for it, those small gestures really can make the difference one way or the other to someone and their experience in the workplace.
Absolutely. I think something else that is important is not to become that product of your environment. The type of leader that you’re trained under, can influence heavily, the type of leader that you become, or the things that you do. And I’ve experienced that. So you have as a leader, as a rising leader, be careful who you allow pouring onto you. recognize the strong or the positive characteristics or teachings and be able to separate those negative characteristics that you don’t want to pick up.
Q: I like that we’re revisiting the environmental factors. I have been in very toxic workplaces at universities, and then I’ve been at healthy places. The difference is very stark. If you’re at an institution or a workplace where it is just vicious, or it could even be subtle, it could be so subtle that you don’t realize it until you’ve some time has passed. I think as you mentioned, it’s important to reflect on if this is changing me. Is this what I want to stand for? I tell people all the time, you can get another job, you can leave, they could fire you or you could stay there. So when you know you have these options, you want to be mindful of this as a job, but where is your career going. So you may end up moving from job to job as you navigate through your career, but that’s okay.
It’s okay. It’s important to be comfortable with who you are. You don’t have to become a product of your environment. I’m speaking from experience, you can become bitter or toxic. We choose to try to stay positive. It’s not easy, I promise you it’s not easy. It’s very difficult. But that’s where those external networks come into play to help you stay grounded to remind you of who you are and to see the glass half full and not half empty.
Q: That is great. I think you’ve given us some really good insight. Thank you for your leadership. I recently went to a great comedy ensemble Smart, Funny and Black with Amanda Seals for those of you who may be familiar with her, she is a very pro-woman and ended her show by saying hey, you know, if you are a black woman and you’re in the workplace and you see another black woman come in, go up and say, Hey, sis, how are you doing? So I would like to broaden that to just say if you are a woman in the workplace, and you see another woman coming in, go up to her and say, Hey, sis, how are you doing?
Absolutely. And smile when you do it!
Q: We love smiles. Thank you so much, Dr. Watson, for talking to us today and giving us some insight into this mean girl phenomenon, and sharing your experience with it. It does unfortunately follow us through to the workplace and in higher ed.
Oh, my pleasure. It’s always my hope that it helps someone else, and maybe they can avoid some of the heartaches or frustrations that I have.
If you’re looking to advance your career in academia, and you’d like to talk, please schedule a call on my calendar. It’s a no-obligation call and we’ll have a quick chat. I’ll see if I can help you out and answer any questions you might have. Continue to connect with me by going to www.theacclivity.com.