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The Last Word

Sandra Finley

League of Black Women

By Terra Cooney • La Chambre Noir Photography

We could probably all learn a little something about finding happiness from Sandra Finley, president and CEO of the League of Black Women (LBW). Starting in the late '80s as a volunteer for the organization, which aims to provide successful, strategic and sustaining leadership research, she found a niche in life that she really believes in. Today, Sandra is fully dedicated to the advancement of black women as leaders, and when she's not promoting that cause, she's promoting others. As entrepreneur of her own consulting firm on diversity, the Sandra Finley Company, she's tied to the fortunes of what's happening for black women. Living under a seemingly controlled amount of harmony, she maintains a balance that's evident in how she carries herself.

You're a graduate of Loyola University Chicago. Are you originally from the city? I grew up in Chicago. I was actually born and raised in on the West side. My mama would want me to make sure you know that; she's still there!

Tell us about the goal of the LBW. The League of Black Women is a national organization founded in 1970 as a Chicago-based organization by civil rights advocate and educator, Dr. Arnita Young Boswell. It first put effort toward providing an ongoing resource for the continued advocacy of black women, assuring their leadership. Today, the LBW is a preeminent expert on black women leading. Our goal is to set the national agenda for black women and to assure that they are able to emerge within their families and workplaces as exceptional leaders with distinctive, substantial, lasting decisions that shape our world.

What motivated you to become involved in this type of work, both with the organization and your consulting business? I was a volunteer who served my term, made my contribution, and then went on to do other things. I came back at Dr. Boswell's invitation in 2000 and we made it a professional position. Advocating for diversity and bringing skills and strategies to people who were struggling was what I thought ought to be done with my time on the planet anyway! I'm a growing leader myself, so the Sandra Finley Company allows me to explore some of those things and to share with leaders what I believe, or what will help with what they have to do.

How does the League find innovative ways to advocate? We look to our research for indications of what is new and fun in the way of opportunities to advance on possibilities. We say that black women are at the crossroads of everything that concerns this nation around race and gender. If you look at the population that is sitting right there in the middle, you're looking at black women. So when we get it right for black women, we get it way right for most everybody else.

Describe the strategy of Joyful Living that the League promotes in it leaders. We determined from early work that not only a satisfying life, but all-out glee in life, was required for the full maturation of a leader. We decided joy would not be a side salad of what we did. It would be an absolute core value, and we call that behavior 'joyful living.' We make sure it's a premier facet of everything we do. It's critical even in our leadership conference. We build the sessions to stop in the afternoon and from then until the evening session, you have time for joyful living. If you do the work the way you choose to do the work, there will probably be quite a lot of joy mixed in.

What does joyful living mean for you? In terms of my own activities, I've got an eclectic appetite. I like horses, I love science fiction, I enjoy westerns. I like flying and the miracle about it. I went on a glider, and it's very quiet up there, very relaxing. You trust in the wind and you find out there is another whole possibility for how flight can be other than with a great big engine. I guess the lesson for me on life is that sometimes the mechanisms around stuff are confused with the essence of what the true experience is. You should not confuse them, because maybe you are for the pure experience of learning or researching or advocating or all those things that we do here. So I, inside the League, streamline that stuff as much as possible so that it doesn't overtake the true joy of advocating for the potential of black women.