Zia Best

Topic: Awakening our Support of Black Leaders

With the US still reeling from COVID19 global pandemic and ongoing protests that continue to highlight the country’s long-standing struggles with race, privilege, and prejudice, many people wrestle with feelings of anger, grief, fear, and hopelessness. As employees and leaders, those emotions are not simply left at the front door come Monday morning. In fact, those leaders carry their feelings with them and they can show up in the workplace, on the conference call line or in a company email and present challenges as those leaders seek to prioritize professional performance over personal despair. What can organizations do to support and stand in solidarity with their Black leaders and foster an environment that encourages dialogue and reflection? What have we learned in the past several months and what are we doing about it?

 

Zia Best serves as an Account Service Manager for CoachSource where she manages 70 clients and
oversees more than 130 coaching engagements per year. In this position, Zia works directly with global
organizations to understand their organizational goals and works to help them implement
comprehensive coaching programs by building diverse and robust coach pools.
Prior to CoachSource, Zia spent 12 years working at Rutgers University and Princeton University in
diversity and inclusion, project management, events and communications roles. She worked in Human
Resources where she became a certified Development Dimensions International facilitator and managed
the peer mentor program.
In June 2020, Zia moderated CoachSource’s webinar aimed at unearthing ways that organizations can
support their Black leaders and continues to work on efforts to advance such a critical conversations.