Lead from the Outside: How to Build Your Future and Make Real Change

No matter how accomplished Abrams is, she continues to grapple with doubt. Others’ perceptions about her race and gender cloud and sometimes distort the message she tries to communicate to the world. After Abrams confirmed in a 2017 interview for Cosmopolitan that she has set her sights on the presidency, both Republicans and Democrats decried her honesty, judging her as brazen and presumptuous. Others came to Abrams’s defense and praised the openness with which she shared her ambition. When members of minority groups aspire to positions of leadership, their striving expands the public’s understanding of what a leader can look like. This is a productive disruption of the status quo.

The Cosmopolitan anecdote opens up a discussion about allyship, that is, advocacy for social groups of which one is not a member. While her primary audience is composed of people from minority groups, Abrams addresses herself here to a secondary audience who may yet offer support to others as their ally.

At the end of the chapter, Abrams returns to the idea of passion as a guiding light that steers minority leaders through personal hangups and professional disappointments. She tells her reader that challenges will come, but confidence in their power to overcome them will enable them to achieve beyond their expectations.