Progress Through Tiered Leadership Development
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The prompt for this round of the FEDforum is federal workforce goals in 2022. This week, hear from the African American Federal Executive Association (AAFEA).
Founded in 2002 by William A. Brown Sr., Tracey Pinson, Dr. Lenora Gant and Catherine Bland, the African American Federal Executive Association (AAFEA) celebrates its 20th anniversary this month. AAFEA remains the leading non-profit organization dedicated to preparing and supporting African Americans for advancement into and within the senior ranks of the United States Government. In doing so, we support our members in multiple facets, but primarily focused on their career development, professional leadership development, and preparedness and readiness to move into the executive ranks.
AAFEA’s mission is spearheaded today by its President, Tyra Dent, a retired Senior Executive Service (SES) employee with more than 40 years as a career civil servant. As Dent points out, AAFEA strives to ensure that the federal workforce reflects the diversity of the nation it serves.
“As our nation becomes more diverse, AAFEA's mission is to ensure that federal leadership at the highest levels reflects the diversity of talent that is abundant in America,” Dent said.
AAFEA's structure aims to achieve this by offering development opportunities in tiers where we offer development opportunities in tiers to ensure each builds on the other and to support and advance the cultivation of highly qualified future leaders. This development manifests in a variety of ways including recurring monthly programs, webinars and coffee talks.
AFFEA offers a signature fellowship program that brings together 20 to 30 individuals at the GS-14 and 15 levels, who participate in a rigorous and intensive leadership development. Paired with a mentor, the fellows prepare a capstone project, participate in mock interviews, write their executive core qualifications, and obtain real-time oversight in preparation. Through this annual program, fellows are competitive for all senior executive positions that fall within it within their experience or expertise. This program started in 2008. In our 12th year, we have over 100 graduates.
Our most recent career development program was launched just prior to the pandemic. The Next Generation Career Development Program aims to develop a pipeline of African Americans who will come into senior management positions, starting at the GS-13 level, to the SES.
The column from the African American Federal Executive Association is part of the FEDforum, an initiative to unite voices across the federal community. The FEDforum is a space for federal employee groups to share their organizations’ initiatives and activities with the FEDmanager audience.
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