The Fractures We Lead Through Leading, Learning, and Still Choosing to Mend
- Soribel Genao
- Dec 15, 2025
- 7 min read
Nov 03, 2025
Sometimes leadership is not about holding it all together. It is about learning to breathe inside the cracks and finding the courage to rebuild without pretending the pieces were never broken.
There are moments in leadership when the cracks are too deep to ignore. We see them not only in the institutions we serve but in the faces of those navigating impossible choices: families deciding between groceries or rent, teachers carrying the emotional weight of their students, and communities working tirelessly against policies meant to diminish rather than uplift.
When programs like SNAP and EBT are stripped away or restricted, it is not the privileged who feel the shock first. It is the single mothers, the families without generational wealth or immigration status, the students who rely on free lunch as their most stable meal of the day. It is those who already stand at the margins, those who will never make the evening news or the mayoral debates.
The truth is that most people receiving government assistance are white. White families represent the highest number of SNAP and EBT recipients in the United States. Yet the public narrative has long been manipulated to depict poverty through the faces of Black and Brown people. This distortion was designed to weaponize race and create the illusion that whiteness is synonymous with hard work while poverty is a moral flaw attached to everyone else. These falsehoods about who struggles and who deserves support have shaped policy, public opinion, and the way we define leadership. They keep us distracted from the real issue, how deeply this nation has failed to create systems that allow anyone to live with dignity.
In New York City, that failure feels especially visible. The city is currently in the midst of one of the most consequential mayoral races in recent history. Billions of dollars are being poured into campaigns designed to undercut the leading candidate, and the promises on the table sound transformative: free bus fare, universal child care, expanded legal services for immigrants, and rent freezes. Yet while the rhetoric rises, the systems beneath them are holding their breath. A funding freeze has already slowed the flow of supportive services. Community-based programs that rely on city or federal allocations have been forced into a kind of waiting room.
For those of us who have lived through cycles of political change in education, we know what that pause means. Hiring freezes, delayed grants, uncertain budgets. It means school leaders cannot plan for the year ahead, and community-based organizations must stretch already limited funds to fill gaps left by stalled government promises. For families, it means that food access, childcare, and social supports, already fragile, hang in the balance of political power plays.
This waiting period creates a ripple effect that reaches every corner of community life. Schools that double as food pantries and shelters are forced to do more with less. Teachers and administrators, already navigating impossible expectations, must make decisions without clarity or resources. It is a quiet crisis that rarely makes the headlines.
The irony is hard to ignore. Those labeled as “threats” by immigration enforcement, ICE, or policy rhetoric are often the ones sustaining the very systems that dismiss them. They are the nannies caring for our children, the delivery workers feeding entire boroughs, the parents showing up to parent-teacher conferences despite language barriers and double shifts. The real danger is not them. It is a society that continues to strip away support and call it reform.
I have witnessed this from every angle. As a child, I often served as a translator, standing between my mother and the world, between teachers and systems she could not fully access. I became fluent not just in English but in inequity, learning how policies and paperwork could speak louder than people. I began to see that even my teachers and principals, those who seemed so powerful, were often leading against all odds. They were being evaluated not just on their commitment to students but on test scores that reflected structural injustice more than instructional quality.
What I once saw as a system to master, I now recognize as a space to reshape, a place where learning becomes liberation when guided by truth and care.
Leadership, especially in education, has never been fair terrain. Performance is still measured by proximity, who you know, who will vouch for you, and how well you fit into systems built to preserve familiarity over merit. Across sectors, we claim to value equity, but hiring decisions, recognition, and advancement still hinge on access, not excellence.
Over the years, I have worn many hats: professor, program lead, evaluator, and consultant, often all at once. I have led initiatives without acknowledgment, poured into students and colleagues while simultaneously finding other projects that fed my mind and spirit because the work I loved most rarely received the institutional nourishment it deserved. Like so many others, I found stimulation and growth in the margins while navigating leadership that was neither inclusive nor psychologically safe.
And even as someone devoted to justice, I have had to wear an armored vest to survive it. The hardest part is realizing that sometimes the people who speak of justice most loudly are the ones who inflict the deepest harm.
My recent decision to step down from my role as Grievance Counselor for the PSC Union at Queens College after the Spring 2025 semester was not made lightly. I reflected deeply on what this position once meant to me, a space to protect, to advocate, to mediate, and what it has become. While serving in this role was an honor, my values and vision for equity no longer align with how leadership and union efforts are being carried out on our campus.
A significant part of this decision stems from the actions of two white women whose behavior caused deep disruption and contributed to an environment that no longer felt safe or respectful. Their actions undermined my ability to serve effectively and revealed the fragility and entitlement that too often go unchecked in institutional spaces. One of them even mentioned resigning from her position as chair because of what happened. I wish she had followed through, not to walk away from accountability but to face the consequences of her actions. When behavior like this goes unaddressed, it sends a damaging message to Black, Brown, and global majority colleagues that harm can occur without correction, that our safety and dignity are negotiable.
Beyond these incidents, I have felt the growing absence of transparency, respect, and real accountability within both the college administration and the union. Too often, I have seen performative gestures replace meaningful action, particularly when it comes to supporting Black and Brown faculty, staff, and students.
Even in therapy, the fractures followed me. Sessions that were meant to help me process my inner world often circled back to work, the constant negotiation between advocacy and self-preservation, the exhaustion of having to explain harm to those who claim to understand it. At times, my sessions became an audit of my professional resilience rather than an exploration of my personal needs. It was as if my personal life became the footnote, deferred for another time, another space.
I have lived in what I sometimes call different worlds depending on what was going on. The world of leadership, where composure and diplomacy are currency. The world of survival, where family and chosen kin hold you up. And the world of rest, where I am still learning to be soft. Leaning on close friends and family has been both a blessing and a lifeline. Yet even with that support, reminding myself to be gentle, to pause, to not armor up, especially when white mediocrity continues to be rewarded, takes constant work.
It is a strange kind of fatigue that comes from watching mediocre white men who hit “submit” on a form or idea receive amplification that others have to fight decades for. It makes me ask quietly and aloud in safe spaces, “What did I miss?” How is brilliance still measured by access rather than depth? I think of how many of us, especially women of color, first-generation professionals, and those of us from working-class immigrant families, were never taught to play the pedigree game. No one explained how networks and lineage replaced talent. We were not told that while others were pulling themselves up by bootstraps, some of us did not even have straps on ours.
Still, we lead.
And even as leadership in the United States wavers under the weight of polarization and neglect, I find hope in other corners of the world that remind us what foresight and care can look like. In Jamaica, as Hurricane Melissa brought catastrophic winds and devastation, the nation stood not only in resilience but in readiness. Through strong coordination and leadership, Prime Minister Andrew Holness and the government, particularly under the direction of Minister Kamina Johnson Smith and local leaders like Jamaica set a tone of unity and foresight that has insured lives and livelihoods for moments like this. This likkle island continues to set the tone for years to come by being innovative, proactive, and people-centered. Jamaica reminds the world of what “Out of Many, One People” truly means, offering not only human capital but an example of collective resilience, community care, and leadership rooted in vision.
Even with this resignation, my commitment to equity, justice, and collective healing remains. I will continue to pour my energy into efforts like tenure workshops and faculty initiatives that create real inclusion and belonging. My hope is that this moment sparks a deeper reckoning within our community, a willingness to confront what is uncomfortable, to acknowledge harm, and to move toward accountability and change that truly matters.
The fractures we lead through are not signs of weakness. They are reminders of what still needs to be mended. Kintsugi teaches us that repair is not about hiding the cracks but illuminating them. Leadership, at its core, is the art of seeing what is broken and still choosing to build, to believe, to stay human.
And so, I return to the work with clarity. I will no longer lead in silence or with armor. I will lead with gold in the cracks, visible, intentional, unashamed.
Call to Awareness
Leadership is not defined by titles or by proximity to power. It is measured by the courage to stay present when things fall apart. Whether in a city awaiting a new mayor, a campus yearning for accountability, or an island facing the force of nature, the lesson is the same: repair begins with awareness.
May we each find the courage to lead from the cracks, to build communities that remember our shared humanity, and to hold the gold that binds us together.
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