No products in the cart.
Deborah Gray-Young, PCC · Executive & Leadership Coach · dgrayyoung.com
There is a particular brand of professional self-sufficiency that professionals of color — men and women alike — are often raised to wear like armor. Handle it yourself, Don’t show weakness, Don’t ask for help. Figure it out. For many of us, that instinct was not just cultural — it was survival. In environments where asking for help could be read as incompetence, and where incompetence had consequences others didn’t face, self-reliance became a professional strategy.
The problem is that strategy has a ceiling, and career transition after reaching senior level is exactly where that ceiling shows up.
In her work with The BOSS Network, Deborah has written about the consequences of unchecked self-reliance for professionals of color — particularly the tendency to go it alone until the situation becomes a crisis rather than building a support structure deliberately, in advance.
The pattern is consistent across genders. Men of color in corporate environments are often conditioned to project certainty and self-sufficiency as markers of leadership readiness. Women of color carry the additional weight of navigating spaces where asking for help can be misread entirely. Both end up in the same place — isolated at exactly the moment they most need support.
Career transitions amplify this dynamic significantly. As covered in Career Transition After 40: What No One Prepares You For, the process is lonelier than most people expect. However, lonely and alone are not the same thing. Lonely is a feeling; being alone is a structural choice. Only one of those is within your control.
Dr. Samuel Chand, a leadership coach, tells a story in his book Who’s Holding Your Ladder? about watching a workman paint a building from a ladder. The workman had reached as high as he could stretch — left, right, up. He couldn’t go further and Dr. Chand realized why.Nobody was holding the ladder.
Without someone at street level holding it steady, the workman could not safely climb to the top of the extension. He had the ladder. He had the skill. He had the will to finish the job. What he lacked was the one thing that would make the climb possible — someone anchoring him from below.
That image is one of the most precise metaphors for career transition I have encountered. Because professionals of color navigating career change after many years are not typically lacking in capability, experience, or drive. What they are often lacking is the deliberate, strategic support structure that makes the next level of the climb possible.
A support system for career transition is not a vague network of well-wishers. It is a specific, intentional team of people who serve distinct functions. Here are the four roles that matter most.
An ally is someone inside your professional world — current organization, industry, or target field — with whom you can think out loud without risk. You can share an idea in progress, float a concern, or process a situation without worrying that it will be misrepresented or used against you.
Allies are not cheerleaders. They are trusted thinking partners. For professionals of color navigating the additional complexity of bias in career transitions, having at least one ally who understands your environment from the inside is not a luxury. It is a strategic necessity.
A champion is someone who actively advocates for your capabilities with key stakeholders — not because you asked them to, but because they genuinely believe in your work and are positioned to make their belief count.
Champions are different from allies in one critical way: they have access. They are in rooms where decisions are made, and names are circulated. Their endorsement carries organizational weight. Additionally, unlike mentors, the champion relationship is largely earned through demonstrated performance over time— it cannot be requested, only cultivated. Men and women of color navigating career transitions often underestimate the role champions play in opening doors that credentials alone cannot. Therefore, identifying and nurturing potential champions — in your current environment and in your target one is among the highest-leverage activities in a transition.
Mentors are not just for people starting out. As your career evolves and the terrain shifts — as it does significantly during a transition, having mentors who have already navigated similar ground is invaluable.
The best mentors are not hand-holders. They provide perspective, honest insight, and the kind of guidance that comes from having already made the mistakes you are trying to avoid. However, the mentee carries responsibility too. Being clear about your goals, open about your challenges, and respectful of a mentor’s time is what makes the relationship sustainable and productive.
One caveat worth naming directly: for professionals of color, finding mentors who genuinely understand the additional dynamics of navigating career transitions while Black or Brown — who don’t require you to translate your experience before they can engage with it — is worth the extra effort. Seek that specifically.
Every professional navigating a major career transition needs at least one truth-teller. Not a critic. Not a skeptic. A person who respects you enough — and whose respect you value enough — to tell you what is actually true, even when it is uncomfortable.
This is different from the people who love you and think you are brilliant. Those people are important, and you should keep them close. But their job is not to tell you the hard truth about your blind spots, your positioning gaps, or the ways your approach might be working against you. The truth-teller’s job is exactly that. During a career transition after 20-plus years, blind spots are expensive. A truth-teller is the person who catches them before they cost you. Before you build the right support system, you need clarity on where you’re going. Start with a clear 90-day career transition roadmap.
Make a deliberate, honest list of the people currently in your professional and personal inner circle. For each person, ask: are they genuinely equipped to hold my ladder during this transition? Do they have the bandwidth, the objectivity, and the relevant experience to serve this function?
Just because you love someone does not mean they should be holding your ladder. They can have another important role in your life. However, during a career transition, the people in the inner circle need to be there by design, not by default.
Make a second list — not of who you have, but of who you need. Where are the gaps? Do you need a champion in your target field? A mentor who has made a similar transition? A professional coach who can provide the objective, expert guidance the process requires?
For direct, personalized support in building your transition strategy, work with Deborah. This is a professional investment in your next chapter — and one of the most strategic ones you can make.
When built intentionally, a ladder-holding team delivers five things that no amount of individual hustle can replicate:
At the end of the process, all any professional of color wants is a fair chance to demonstrate their ability—nothing more and nothing less. Building the right support system is how you give yourself that fair advantage — deliberately, strategically, and before you need it.
Start there. Don’t go it alone.
Download the YOU 3.0 Career Transition Workbook — career transition tools for mid-to-senior level professionals of color.
Related Reading → Career Transition After 40: What No One Prepares You For → You Are Not Starting Over — You Are Repositioning → How to Know What Your Experience Is Really Worth in a New Field → 5 Steps to Becoming Politically Savvy at Work → You Are Not an Imposter → YOU 3.0 Career Transition Workbook
Deborah Gray-Young, PCC is a former advertising agency executive and ICF-certified executive coach who advises senior professionals and SMB CEOs. She specializes in helping professionals of color — men and women — navigate career transitions and lead with greater clarity and intention. Learn more at dgrayyoung.com or explore her executive coaching services.
.
Sign up to our newsletter
