You know that feeling when you're sitting in yet another leadership meeting, and something just doesn't sit right? When the strategies being discussed feel disconnected from your values, your students, your very soul? I've been there too. We all have.

As Black women educational leaders, we're constantly navigating systems that weren't built with us in mind. We're advocating for students who remind us of our own children, our younger selves. And let's be honest—we're often burning ourselves out trying to be everything to everyone. But what if I told you there's an ancient blueprint for leadership that actually honors both our power AND our humanity?

Rediscovering Our Roots

Let me introduce you to MAAT. Not the abstract concept you might've glimpsed in a history textbook, but MAAT as a living, breathing framework for how we can lead today. She was the ancient Kemetic goddess of truth, justice, harmony, cosmic order, and balance—everything we're fighting for in our schools and districts right now.

Picture this: MAAT held an ostrich feather that weighed souls in the afterlife, measuring whether someone had lived in alignment with truth and justice. That image has stayed with me because isn't that exactly what we're doing? We're weighing the souls of our institutions, asking: Are we living up to our highest calling?

(Quick note here—I use "Kemetic" instead of "Egyptian" intentionally. Kemet means "black land," referring to that rich, fertile soil of the Nile Delta. This wisdom comes from African soil, and I want to honor that.)

Think about Queen Hatshepsut, who ruled Kemet for over twenty years around 1479-1458 BCE. She didn't lead through conquest or domination—the usual playbook we see too often today. Instead, she prioritized truth in her governance, kept things balanced in trade relationships, created harmony through public works that actually served her people. She practiced genuine reciprocity with neighboring nations and trusted in something bigger than herself. The result? Two decades of unprecedented peace, prosperity, and artistic achievement.

Sound familiar? It should. Because this is the kind of leadership our schools desperately need.

Where Ancient Meets Modern

This ancient wisdom isn't just collecting dust in museums. It's alive and well in the work of educators like bell hooks and Dr. Yolanda Sealey-Ruiz. hooks taught us that "education as the practice of freedom" requires bringing our whole selves to the work. Not the sanitized, "professional" version of ourselves, but our whole, authentic selves.

Dr. Sealey-Ruiz takes this further with her groundbreaking work on racial literacy and what she calls the Archaeology of Self™. Her recent collaboration on "All About Black Girl in Education: bell hooks and Pedagogies of Love" shows how relevant this work remains for those of us leading today.

The connection here is powerful: both ancient MAAT and contemporary scholars are telling us the same thing. We can't lead effectively by compartmentalizing ourselves. We need frameworks that integrate our spiritual knowing with our professional expertise.

The Five Principles That Changed How I Lead

1. TRUTH: Stop Performing, Start Being

Truth in MAAT isn't just about not lying (though that's important too). It's about leading from your authentic center instead of performing what you think leadership should look like.

hooks puts it perfectly: "When we discover ourselves in the act of teaching and learning, we discover ourselves in the act of freedom." Dr. Sealey-Ruiz echoes this: "Teaching is being open to other people's stories, but you have to know your own story."

Her Archaeology of Self™ gives us the roadmap for the deep self-excavation that MAAT's Truth principle demands—what hooks calls "critical consciousness."

Why This Hits Different for Us

How many times have you been told your communication style is "too direct"? That you're "intimidating"? We've internalized the message that authentic Black women's leadership is somehow unprofessional. hooks reminds us: "Sometimes people try to destroy you, precisely because they recognize your power."

Here's what Truth taught me: Your way of knowing isn't just valid—it's your superpower. Your cultural perspective isn't something to apologize for.

I think about Dr. Thompson, a principal I know who faced enormous pressure to implement a zero-tolerance discipline policy. Everything in her gut told her it would devastate her Black and Brown students. Through embracing these principles, she learned to trust her truth. She did the research, built data-driven arguments, and fought for restorative alternatives. Today, her entire district has adopted her restorative justice model. That's the power of leading from truth.

2. BALANCE: The Revolutionary Act of Caring for Yourself

Balance in MAAT isn't about perfect work-life harmony (let's be real—that's often a myth). It's about sustainable leadership that doesn't require sacrificing your well-being for effectiveness.

We've been conditioned to believe that sacrifice equals service. That we must carry the weight of representation while being twice as good for half the recognition. hooks addresses this head-on: "Sometimes people try to destroy you, precisely because they recognize your power." Self-care isn't selfish—it's revolutionary.

Dr. Sealey-Ruiz's concept of "critical love" reinforces this truth: we must love ourselves enough to challenge practices that harm us and our students.

Balance declares something radical: Your well-being isn't separate from your effectiveness. It's essential to it.

3. HARMONY: When Your Inside Matches Your Outside

Harmony creates coherence between who you are and how you show up in the world. It ensures your leadership practices actually reflect your deepest beliefs about education, equity, and human potential.

hooks notes that "the classroom remains the most radical space of possibility." Dr. Sealey-Ruiz talks about "interruption"—disrupting systems that perpetuate inequity while creating new possibilities.

When your inner values align with your outer actions, people feel it. Students sense it. Your staff knows it. Parents recognize it. And real transformation stops being a dream and becomes inevitable.

4. RECIPROCITY: Leading is Relationship, Not Position

Reciprocity flips the script on traditional leadership. It's not about giving until you're depleted—it's about creating mutual nourishment. Receiving feedback, support, love, and wisdom from the people you serve. Understanding that leadership is fundamentally about relationships, not positions.

hooks' concept of "love as political resistance" is crucial here. In "All About Love," she writes: "Love is an action, never simply a feeling—and that action is always moral action that recognizes the humanity of all persons."

Here's something that shifted my perspective: When we don't allow ourselves to receive, we rob others of the opportunity to contribute their gifts. The most powerful leaders I know are simultaneously teachers and students, givers and receivers.

5. DIVINE ORDER: Remembering Why This Work Matters

Divine Order reminds us that education is sacred work. We're not just delivering curriculum—we're nurturing souls. As Cynthia Dillard beautifully expresses: "Education is not simply what we do; it is a way of being. It is sacred work." It's having faith that when we align with our highest purpose, the right opportunities, people, and resources show up to support that work.

hooks expresses this in "Teaching to Transgress": "The classroom, with all its limitations, remains a location of possibility. In that field of possibility we have the opportunity to labor for freedom."

Dr. Sealey-Ruiz's research shows that when educators engage in Archaeology of Self and develop racial literacy, they create transformation that extends far beyond test scores and traditional metrics.

You're not just managing a school or district. You're stewarding a space where miracles happen every single day.

Making This Real: Your Daily Practice

These principles work best as a daily compass, keeping you aligned with what matters most. I've developed these check-in questions that have become part of my morning routine:

Truth: How can I show up authentically today? How can I practice what hooks calls "critical consciousness"?

Balance: How can I practice "revolutionary self-love" today?

Harmony: How can I create the "beloved community" hooks envisions in my educational space?

Reciprocity: How can I practice "love as political resistance" in my leadership today?

Divine Order: How can I embody "education as the practice of freedom"?

You Don't Have to Do This Alone

hooks writes in "All About Love": "We are healed in community." Her vision of "beloved community" gives us a framework for the relationships that sustain transformative leadership.

Dr. Sealey-Ruiz's Racial Literacy Roundtables Series shows the power of creating spaces where educators do deep work together. Actively seek out other Black women leaders committed to authentic, soul-aligned leadership. This work is too important—and honestly, too challenging—to do alone.

Your Sacred Assignment

Beautiful sister leader, your presence in educational leadership isn't an accident. Your ancestors who fought for the right to learn, who believed education was liberation itself, are with you in this work. Their dreams live through your leadership.

bell hooks gives us a vision of "education as the practice of freedom." Her concept of "love as political resistance" reminds us that our very presence as authentic Black women leaders is revolutionary. Dr. Sealey-Ruiz's scholarship provides concrete methodologies—her Archaeology of Self gives us tools for authentic leadership, while her Racial Literacy Development Model offers pathways for creating the critical love and interruption capabilities our communities desperately need.

Your presence in educational leadership is a sacred assignment. With MAAT as your compass, hooks' vision of love as transformative force, and Sealey-Ruiz's practical frameworks, you can be both powerful and purposeful, both excellent and equitable, both a leader and a healer.

The time for playing small is over. The time for performing leadership that doesn't feel like you is over.

The time for liberated soul leadership is now.

 

References

Dillard, C. B. (2021). The spirit of our work: Black women teachers (re) member. Beacon Press.

Grillo, L. M., Jones, S., Andrews, M., & Whitehead, L. (2022). A Pouring Into: Theorizing Black Women's Educational Leadership through the Afrocentric Epistemological Lens. Educational Foundations, 35(1), 33-51.

hooks, bell. (1994). Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom. Routledge.

hooks, bell. (2000). All About Love: New Visions. William Morrow.

Sealey-Ruiz, Y. (2021). Advancing Racial Literacies in Teacher Education: Activism for Equity in Digital Spaces. Teachers College Press.

Sealey-Ruiz, Y., et al. (2024). All About Black Girl in Education: bell hooks and Pedagogies of Love. Teachers College Press.

Dr. Angela Crawford is the founder of Liberated Soul Leadership and Wellness, supporting Black women educators in reclaiming their authentic power while transforming educational systems.

Remember: You are not broken and in need of fixing. You are whole and worthy of honoring. Lead from that truth, and watch how everything changes.