Self-Advocacy Hacks for a Toxic Workplace

8 snips

Jan 13, 2026

Sarah Boyd, Founder and CEO of The Formation and talent development leader, builds community and career programs for Black women. She discusses documenting all work, framing stretch assignments to show impact, navigating biased feedback, and balancing individual strategy with collective action. Practical tactics for protecting and advancing your career are highlighted throughout.

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INSIGHT

Systems Get Framed As Individual Failings

Organizations often frame systemic problems as individual shortcomings like lack of ambition or confidence.
That reframing shifts responsibility onto employees while inclusive policies are being rolled back.

ADVICE

Keep Every Work Receipt

Document everything at work, including wins, interactions, and assignments, to protect your career.
Use apps like Work Receipts or Hively to streamline documentation and prepare for HR or legal needs.

ADVICE

Categorize Work Into Three Buckets

Track foundational, strategic, and stretch work separately so you can show scope and impact.
Record outcomes and responses to make invisible labor visible during reviews or disputes.

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How can you advocate for yourself when you’re operating in a broken system? We’re gearing up to face even more unprecedented times in 2026. And recent research shows, unsurprisingly, that inclusive and DEIB policies continue to be phased out while hostile work environments expand. Many of us are all too familiar with the lack of resources out there to help us cope with all this, especially options specific to Black women and Women of Color, who face the brunt of this ongoing shift.

That’s the landscape that prompted Sarah Boyd to found The Formation, an app that serves up “real talk, real resources, and real tight-knit community” for Black women navigating the realities of corporate America. She joins me to break down her evidence-backed recommendations for how we should protect ourselves while we fight the bigger fight of fixing our broken systems.

Start documenting everything and finding your career clarity as we cover:

How corporate changes are impacting Black women and Women of Color;
Why you need to keep your work receipts—all of them;
How to frame your stretch work and find your ideal audience;
The innate gap-filling gift so many women have, and how to maximize it.