Applying Human Resource Development to county elected officials as a profession, to explore background and career development for women and women of color.

Abstract

Contemporary problems call for contemporary organizations to rise and build toward a collective future for generations to come. Global, national, and local challenges continue to intensify across all dimensions and metrics, and in the United States, built-in leadership positions exist across our communities that can transform systems of oppression into systems of compassion through democracy and representative governance. County elected officials can and should be the built-in leaders, visionaries, and problem-solvers who can compassionately lead through today’s constructed chaos and into a shared future that prioritizes people and the public good. County governments intersect with people’s daily lives, deliver services to those in need, and advance our shared future. Counties can play a consequential role in meeting today’s challenges, but only when women collectively take their turn at county elected leadership. This novel research utilized Human Resource Development (HRD) concepts and mixed methods to develop findings for women and women of color to view county elected official as a viable career chapter, through the exploration of background and career development from women serving as county elected officials at the time of the study. Due to the United States’ historic and persistent exclusion of women in politics, alongside the alarming political and institutional dynamic intensifying against women, people of color, transgender people, and neighbors born outside of the country—it is necessary to promote and nurture compassionate and accountable matriarchal leadership, embodied timelessly by women and women of color for generations.