The Three Votes Framework: A Career Playbook for Women of Color in Male-Dominated Industries
If you're a woman of color with career ambitions in a male-dominated industry, you intimately know the resource everyone says you're short on: power.
Not power over other people. Power over your own choices.
Call it agency. Call it sovereignty. Either way, it means you govern your own choices — especially when the system is built to make you feel like you don't have any.
You are still the one who rules your choices, and therefore your career. Full stop.
So how do we put this power into action? I call it the Three Votes Framework. Being sovereign over your career means you get to vote: for yourself, with your tribe, and with your feet.
These three votes shape how you show up in negotiations, exits, promotions, business building, and every major career decision you make.
Vote #1: Vote for Yourself
The first vote is the most foundational: you vote for you.
For many of us, the "before" version looks like this:
Stuck in a job that doesn't fit.
Replaying frustrating conversations with a boss or colleague you don't respect.
Internalizing biased feedback as proof something's wrong with you.
Waiting for someone to notice your work and reward it.
That's what happens when your locus of control is external — when you let other people's opinions, moods, and blind spots decide how you see yourself.
Voting for yourself means:
Assessing your value objectively — your contributions, strengths, results — without filtering them through a toxic boss's opinion.
Taking off the blinders of gender, race, and minority bias, and recognizing these inequities as signs of a broken system, not proof you're not enough.
Deciding from who you're becoming, not just who you've been or how you were socialized to behave.
When my client Sarah-Neel did this work, she went from a toxic academic environment where she felt stuck and underpaid to first securing a 7% raise in a new industry, then a 50% increase in another new field—and launching her own income-generating course.
She brought the locus of control inside, while growing her income, autonomy, and satisfaction. It all started with her voting for herself.
Vote #2: Vote with Your Tribe
Most big career decisions aren't made by one person in a vacuum. They're made in rooms, literal or virtual, where multiple stakeholders weigh in: bosses, skip-levels, boards, clients, partners.
Influential leaders know this and act on it. If your company sets budgets in Q3, you don't wait until December to raise your hand.
Voting with your tribe means:
Meeting with key people before formal decisions get made.
Making sure 51% of the decision-makers know you want the opportunity — and see you as the best fit for it.
Treating self-advocacy as a service: showing exactly how your raise, promotion, or proposal benefits them and the org.
One of my clients, Jen, a communications expert, did exactly this when she realized she was only earning 60% of her consulting revenue under a toxic “mentor.” Instead of going to war with him, she quietly engaged her real supporters: clients who already valued her work. By voting with her tribe and navigating her non‑solicitation clause carefully, she exited, became her own boss, and very quickly doubled her income.
Vote #3: Vote with Your Feet
The third vote is the one we're most afraid of — and the one that gives you the most leverage: voting with your feet.
Your willingness to exit is your leverage.
That doesn't mean storming out. It means being willing to walk away from environments that:
Repeatedly refuse to acknowledge your professional value.
Are chronically toxic or abusive.
Are so biased they undercut their own growth by underestimating the talent in front of them.
Voting with your feet looks like:
A "same page" audit: are you and your organization actually headed where you want to go?
Building a sovereign fund — financial independence so your survival isn't tied to one boss's opinion.
Designing exits that include severance, extended health coverage, consulting retainers, references, or hardware. All of it is negotiable.
My client Grace, a technical project manager, is a beautiful example of this. She negotiated a raise by assigning her CEO the task of finding more budget for her. When it became clear the firm still couldn’t see the value of her seven‑figure idea, she chose to build it herself. She voted for herself, with her tribe — and ultimately with her feet.
You are not at the mercy of one person's opinion or one company's culture. You have options. You have agency. You have votes.
Use them.
Ready to reclaim your agency and accelerate your growth with real support behind you? Book a complimentary hour-long consult and we'll map your custom roadmap together.