Questioning the American Dream: Leola Lynch on Race, Motherhood, and Workplace Culture, Part 1
Leola Lynch is incredible. Equipped with a strong work ethic, she’s confident, charismatic, and sincere. With a thoughtful transparency, she shared with us the barriers she faces in her career as an external auditor – the only Black woman in her region – and how she’s using her experience to push necessary changes to improve the corporate sector. She hopes to see work environments that are rewarding, flexible, and flourishing for all employees no matter their gender, race, or background.
She bought her first rental property in college, utilizing it as a tool to acquire generational wealth. Although it’s been an exciting process, she’s dealt with a troubling reality: “Even when you're the one with the purchasing power, people will still try and demean or dehumanize you at times for literally no reason outside of your [skin] color.” But through it all, she’s continued to march forward, leaving a promising path for her children and the generations that follow.
Women of Cincy and the Women's Fund of the Greater Cincinnati Foundation are teaming up to bring you six stories spotlighting the economic mobility of Black women in Cincinnati. “Questioning the American Dream: A Look at the Economic Mobility of Black Women in Cincinnati” supports the Women's Fund's “Historical Analysis of Black Women's Labor Trends and Systemic Barriers to Economic Mobility” study.
These are the stories of Black women navigating life in Cincinnati. We believe telling stories changes things; we believe listening changes things. We promised our community we would tell their stories. It's up to you to listen. Visit womenofcincy.org/economic-mobility for the full series.
Interview by Kristyn Bridges. Photography by Chelsie Walter.
The following Q&A is based on the interviewee’s firsthand account of their experiences and opinions alone.
Look for editor's notes with additional information in [bold brackets] throughout the article.
Trigger warning: This article contains references to violence and police brutality. Note that this interview contains strong language.
Tell us about yourself.
My name is Leola; I'm 24 years old. I was born and raised in inner-city Dayton, Ohio. I went to a school for the arts and played several instruments. I went to college at U.C., which is why I moved to Cincinnati. I got my degree in accounting and international business. I stayed on campus for two years, and eventually bought a house in Cincinnati and stayed there up until literally this week – I'm moving out to Eaton, Ohio. I've been in a very interesting neighborhood, one that most people wouldn't call the nicest, but it's been a lovely home for me. I have no complaints: It got me through college and, most importantly, will help me build residual income and, hopefully, long-term wealth, which are two of my biggest goals.
I'm a proud mom of two and just found out I'm having [another] one soon. I'm on some sort of roller coaster about that, just with events going on in the world. It's an interesting time to bring a new life into this family, especially if it's an African American male, so I've just been processing that.
I work for Ernst & Young, which is a public accounting firm. We focus on audit services, talent consultant services, and tax services for external clients. I've been in that career for about a year and a half, full time.
Can you talk more about your role and what you do?
I'm an external auditor, providing professional services for public and private companies. We're most notorious for our audit services. Companies usually have an auditor, someone coming in to make sure their financial statements are accurate and true, so that’s the practice I'm primarily in, but I do offer small tax services and small consulting services as needed.
I'm also pretty involved outside of my practice. I'm working on creating the Black professionals’ network at my firm because there’s a lack of diversity there and that's something I'm very passionate about. For diverse people to grow, they need to see people that they can grow from. I'm also involved with our EY Ripples task force, which is working on community service projects and initiatives just to help the community out. I love public service and getting involved in any way to help people in the community.
You’ve mentioned before that you’re the only Black woman in your region. How is that for you?
It's a lot sometimes. Coming in, I knew a few people who were with the firm before I accepted my offer, but unfortunately, they weren't with the firm anymore by the time I started. We have a pretty much “up or out” kind of company – it's just public accounting by nature. You either get promoted to the next level or you're not performing, you're not meeting metrics, and you just kind of have to move on. It's a very high-intensity, high-performing type of [culture], which already makes it difficult.
I think I've been on 12 teams to date and there's only been one team with somebody else who looked like me. I feel like sometimes there are some biases out there and there's no outlet, there's no one I can really go to, which hinders the growth you’re supposed to have at this firm at such a fast pace. It's very easy to get behind because of outside forces or barriers you have, because you’re literally the only one in your office, in your state, or in your region.
Do you feel valued and supported in your role?
I really do love the firm. I love my job and I love EY. And I never want to downplay the initiatives they have. I feel like the firm I'm with does an exponentially better job than most corporations. We are a firm that likes to live at the forefront of change. So as things are happening, we're always trying to find ways to get in front of things and then hopefully get our clients to adapt some of our strategies. I really think the firm, as a whole, is doing a great job.
But where I'm at and my experience now is that – and this is not a secret to them – I don't feel valued. I don't feel I have the support of my team; I don't feel like I have the support sometimes from the firm about my growth. And I attributed it to so many factors at first. I started at an abnormal time for most staff; I started a little bit later so that put me a little behind. But when I started, I was kind of thrown around to multiple teams and I thought this was the norm until my first promotion.
So you're getting promoted yearly, you kind of don't know what's going on, and you have a schedule that's created by the firm: You don't control your schedule and you just kind of go wherever they say. I think I trusted them to put me in front of good opportunities and to make sure the clients I was on made sense. And I realized they weren’t doing that. They were just kind of throwing me wherever there was a need. Which is okay sometimes, but you have to understand how that might hinder my growth versus my counterparts’. My starting class had 13 people in it, but I'm the only one being thrown around. I've had 12 clients to date; the most many of [my colleagues] have had is maybe five, but the majority of them have had three. And the majority of them have had recurring clients – so they haven't had to learn new industries and new knowledge, apply the technical skills, do the audit, and then never see it again. That's been, historically, what I've had to go through.
Unfortunately, I've had to have that conversation a year and a half later with talent consultants, with partners, with my counselor, and people who are supposed to support me at the firm – and I am getting the support at those levels now. But it's the everyday things when I'm with the client, and when I initially switch to the team. This is a new group of people I'm almost having to make comfortable with my presence, and it's up to them whether they get comfortable or not; it's up to them whether they invest in me or not, and I just don't feel like most of them care to invest in me. I feel like most of them have formed some opinion based on performance, based on just meeting me, based on maybe nothing at all, and they have let that opinion steer them in the direction of what they're going to do. It's been a really awkward and tough conversation to have, but I appreciate that I have people at the firm (even if it is all the way at the partner level, all the way at the talent consultant level) who are willing to hear what I'm going through.
In light of the newer situations going on in the world, I know my firm has done almost a full 180 on diversity and inclusion, more specifically around African Americans. So, I'm hoping, as tragic as what has happened is, that it's creating an environment where we can have more conversations.
What are some of the steps you've seen your company take in reaction to the protests? How have they been thinking about diversity and supporting Black employees more?
I know one of the things they're doing is upfront commitment of $4 million to historically Black colleges and universities, which we have not recruited from historically. They're just not target schools. I know they've also committed $3 million to an organization fighting against injustice. They have now committed Martin Luther King Day as a day of service for anybody who wants to take it. (Historically, Martin Luther King Day is not a holiday at our firm.) We actually don't celebrate many holidays due to our crazy busy season, but for them to make that a holiday... I thought that was pretty cool.
From the D&I [Diversity and Inclusion] standpoint, I think they're not trying to push African Americans to the front and then forget about all of the other ethnicities, though they are refocusing their efforts. They are now taking a look at the school-to-college-to-recruitment pipeline and how getting students interested in accounting is a systemic problem they want to combat at the elementary, and now high school, levels. I thought those were a lot of great steps in the right direction. But these are all new rollouts in response to George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery and all the things going on with that. I would love to see how it comes to fruition and if they stick to the change once the hype dies down. I hope they can still realize that this is an issue bigger than just two names.
In your past work experience, have you ever felt taken advantage of or unappreciated by your job?
Oh yeah, this has happened to me at several companies for several different reasons. I guess that's where my problem with corporate life has been: People seem to care more about the outside things you have going on than your actual ability to do your job. It's just frustrating.
The first internship I ever had, I did one year, and I went back the next year and found out about my son. I told them [about the pregnancy] the week before the internship was over because [we had been discussing my returning the next year and] I couldn't realistically do a busy season because my son was due two days before it started. I needed them to move me to a summer internship, which is less likely, but still doable. So, I performed, I did everything I needed to do, but of course I had to tell them. And the next week, I ended up not getting an offer at all – after we'd been talking about an offer the whole time.
[I thought:] Okay, what was that? What happened? What did I do? I went back and tried to retrace my steps: Well, they said it was this but that doesn't make sense because my grades got better. They said it was this, but I managed the entire team of people they hired so it doesn't make any sense that they hired all of them and not me. What is it about me?
And once I realized what it was, it honestly broke my heart. You hear about it, but you think that it's far-fetched or that's what they used to do. But in 2016, I found out it's very real, it was happening, and, honestly, there's nothing you could even do about it. Because you signed a contract saying you're an at-will employee so they can fire you because your shirt is blue. It's this weird fine line between “Do I fight this?” and “Do I get back up and say, ‘No, this career isn’t for me’?” And that's how I ended up where I am now. I'm in the same field; I am still in the Big Four; I am still in public accounting; I am still in audit. But it's like, people will chip it away from you and call it everything else when it's honestly their own internal bias. Maybe you felt like I couldn't do this as a mother; maybe you saw I didn't have a ring and said, “Oh, will she be a single mother?”; maybe you thought I wouldn't even graduate because I was pregnant. I don't really think it's fair.
I just want to change the narrative. Why is this the way it is? And why do you feel like you should deprive people from a great experience solely based on your own bias?
I had an experience at another company where I did great, I met a lot of great people, and I really wanted to go for their biggest financial management program. I worked really hard for it, but the whole entire time, my counselor's telling me, “You know, everything about you is great, but this is just not the opportunity for you.” I never understood.
When it came down to it, I didn't go to a target school. And I was like, okay, so here I am, this first-generation college student; I'm excited about going to a university; I'm excited about my career, the path I chose; I got an internship here, just like everyone else; I worked my ass off to show that I'm very capable of being a part of this program. And you mean to tell me, because I picked the “wrong school,” I don't get to have my dream job? This was a heartbreaking moment again.
I've done all this hard work – I've done this, I've done that – and it came down to, I went to the wrong school? But then you go, “Well that person went to my school too, and they're in the program, so that doesn't make any sense.”
“Well, they went through this certain little program that's got some deal,” and just all this stuff.
And it's like, no one teaches us about this stuff. So, it's almost like we have to go into these spaces blind and hear, “This is how the game is played,” or “That's just the way it is.” And those are literally the worst words I've ever heard in my life, yet I run into them at every single company I go to. I just want to change the narrative. Why is this the way it is? And why do you feel like you should deprive people from a great experience solely based on your own bias? I check every single box, but maybe it’s because I don't check the right school, or because now I check the “mom” box and maybe that's too many boxes. So I can be African American, I can be a woman, but a mother? Mmm, too much. You can be a college student, you can go to college, but if you don't go to this college, you don't get this opportunity. And it's like, how many more barriers before I can just be? [Laughing.] I just want to be.
How can employers better support Black women in the workforce?
This is actually a question my partner charged me with and I put it back in her court, and I put it back in the talent consultant's court because I feel like that's a question I'm asking myself every day. I am a Black woman and I do feel unsupported, so I'm going to work every day asking, “Why do I feel this way? What can someone do to help me not feel this way?”
I've realized just being an ally is enough. If you can just try to be understanding, even if it's not happening to you, then that is how you can support me. Maybe you don't understand why we can't have a 4 p.m. meeting because there's a mom on the team whose day care is going to close at 6 p.m. so if you go past 5 o'clock, she's going to miss the last 20 minutes of the meeting. But maybe it's jumping in front of that and saying, “Hey, let's just do 3:30; let's not make a big deal about it. Let's give this person the flexibility they need.” I know one thing my firm prides itself on is the ability to be flexible and, to be honest, we're probably the most flexible company there is.
Different perspectives are not a crime.
But you have to understand: When you are recruiting diverse candidates, their needs will be diverse, as well. You can't want the diversity because of my color or because of my gender or me being a mom, my sexual orientation, whatever it may be, and not want to invest in me the way I need to be invested in. And if I figure out what that is (because we always try to figure out what it is), I need to be taken seriously.
I think my last altercation went so badly because I was telling this person the way he wants to teach me is not how I learn. I really tried to say this in so many ways, but he only knows how to teach one way. So now we have a huge disconnect that makes things go much slower, it makes things inefficient, it creates free work, and, of course, it's pushed down. I'm the staff and he's the senior, so now I need to learn how to learn his way in order for me to thrive, when that's not fair. You, as my leader, should understand different learning styles. You, as my leader, should be able to at least find a common ground. Maybe I won't get all the way to you and you won't get all the way to me, but for me to at least see that you're trying to take some of the advice I gave... that makes me feel empowered to be here. That makes me feel supported, that makes me feel like I belong. But if you put me in survival mode, I will only survive. And that's it. But if you put me in an environment where I can thrive, I will thrive, and I will find new ideas and I will probably show you things in a way you've never seen.
Different perspectives are not a crime. And they really shouldn't create fear, but they do, whether it's because of what I look like, because of what I'm doing, or how I'm saying something, even though I'm just talking in my normal voice. So just delete them, whatever your fears are, because we walk this earth with so many fears every single day. The last place we need to feel like we're being feared is at work. I spend almost 80 hours a week with you guys. I see you more than I see my children. I need to feel welcome. I need to feel supported. I need to feel like sacrificing time away from my kids is worth it. And when you walk into an environment where everything you say or do just creates a fear, it's toxic. It makes it hard to breathe.
How was your experience in school? Elementary, middle, high school.
I went to public school; I'm an advocate for public schools. I think there's just so much to be learned through interacting with so many different people. My dad took education very seriously. We got money for grades: $5 for an A, $1 for a B, 50 cents for a C. We strove to keep our grades high. I went to a predominantly white school in elementary school and had an interesting experience when I switched to the school for the arts for middle and high school. My art school was very diverse: 50% white and 50% other. Just so many other different races, so many different people. The lovely thing about being in art school is being able to express yourself. I didn't really have a problem with being myself because we've always been able to express ourselves through art. I really think that helped shape my educational experiences.
I also had great teachers. My math teacher is probably why I'm an accountant. She would explain things four different ways and then she would give you a real-world example. That's the part that clicked for me; very rarely will teachers let you know how the isosceles triangle is used in real life. She would make things tangible and realistic and that made my mindset go “wow” and fed my want to learn.
For college, I was really conflicted between an H.B.C.U. [Historically Black College or University] and a P.W.I. [Predominantly White Institution]. Unfortunately, I feel I sold myself short and I really wish I would have gone to an H.B.C.U. I had too many outside biases about that and that's why I've gotten adamant about deleting biases of all kinds. I felt like I wouldn't have gotten the same great opportunities if I had gone to an H.B.C.U., which is absolutely false. But I still enjoyed being at the art P.W.I. We had a very sad experience while I was there with Sam DuBose and U.C.P.D., so that sparked a series of protests on campus that I got to be a part of. And we really got to be the “Irate Eight.” Maybe we are only 8% at that university, but we were there, and we are still African American, we still matter, and we were able to accomplish a lot of things. I value my experience. I think my education is exactly why I am where I am.
As a working mom, have you ever had trouble finding child care? If so, what made it a tough process?
Oh yeah, child care is at the top of the struggle. I don't know why people don't talk about child care costs as the most expensive cost of a child. I can combine everything else I've ever bought for my kids and it does not equate to the amount I pay in child care. And I'm getting a significant discount in that my mom keeps my kids. With the career I have where you're going in at 8:30 a.m. and you don't get off until midnight, it's very, very hard to find a child care provider that's willing to work with those sort of hours and also not completely throw you off the pay scale. [Daycare for one child can cost about $300/week or $15,000/year in Cincinnati where the median income is just over $38,000.]
When I was in college, it was a lot easier. Being a full-time student, I got government assistance and I was able to use voucher programs. I had access to a really nice day care and paid literally nothing for it. But after I graduated, I realized very quickly how expensive it is to pay for day care. The day care my son was going to at the time was $1,800 a month – for just him. This was probably the most top-notch-quality day care I've ever seen in my life. But I knew I didn't have that amount for two, so when I got pregnant with my daughter, I immediately thought about child care. And honestly, it was all up in the air until my grandmother passed away in August and I started my job in January, so my mom – who was taking care of her full-time – ended up not really having much to do.
The first thing I thought as soon as I saw the [most recent] pregnancy test was, “How am I going to pay for three people to go to day care?” That's expensive. And even with my son starting preschool, how do I get them to day care, him to preschool, go to work… this is just expensive. Now I'm at a point in my career where they think that I make enough money to be okay and I don't, but the state laws and levels think I do. So I've just been trying to wing it and figure it out. I know my mom will be very supportive if I need the help or need the assistance anywhere, but that's my only plan for day care for now. [To be initially eligible for child care assistance, a household’s monthly income cannot exceed 130% F.P.L. (Federal Poverty Level). That's just under $22,000/year for a two-person household.]
What do you think could help with that barrier – the process, access, etc. – for parents?
I really did like the voucher program. It was income based, but the fact that they think I make enough [now], lets me know the scale is flawed in some way. If companies or corporations could try to offset some of that day care cost, there are plenty of moms who want to go to work. There's also plenty of dads who want to go to work – I don't want to downplay stay-at-home dads – and people don't understand that. People want to get back to work but it comes down to opportunity cost.
If I go to work at McDonald's, I'm making $11 an hour. My checks are maybe $600 a week but day care is $400 a week; but rent is $600 a month; but food is $250. And if I have to take them to day care, or if I have to pay for the food at day care, that might be more. Never mind they won't watch my kid if they're sick. Never mind if my kid does anything wrong to another kid, I may have to leave work and go get them. Never mind my job might not be understanding that I have to go get my kid.
There are too many factors, honestly, for there to only be one sane solution. It all comes back to understanding and really making a person feel like they belong. I feel like all companies have that in them, but they just don't have that in them for every person.
This is Part 1 of Leola’s story. Read part 2 here. Continue exploring “Questioning the American Dream: A Look at the Economic Mobility of Black Women in Cincinnati” at womenofcincy.org/economic-mobility.