Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Dr. Leigh Anne Taylor Knight. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Hi Dr. Leigh Anne, really happy you were able to join us today and we’re looking forward to sharing your story and insights with our readers. Let’s start with the heart of it all – purpose. How did you find your purpose?
When I was in college, I wrote my mission statement: “Improve the quality of life for others in their near and far environments.” Since then, it has grown with me along my career journey and guided each step of my path.
Pursuing my purpose has looked different in each chapter of my life, yet each step has prepared me for the next: just out of college, I taught secondary students in an alternative school. I reveled in the opportunity to make daily connections and a positive impact on the students in my classroom. My time in the classroom led to becoming Assistant Superintendent in the North Kansas City School District, where I had the ability to impact more students, as well as support educators throughout the district. My role as an administrator transitioned to an opportunity to lead the Kansas City Area Education Research Consortium, which allowed me to move even further upstream in terms of identifying policy solutions and best practices that could be applied throughout Kansas City P–20 education and beyond. Today, I’m privileged to serve as Executive Director and Chief Operating Officer of The DeBruce Foundation, a national nonprofit foundation committed to expanding career pathways.
Each time I pivoted in my career, it was because there was a unique opportunity for me to have an impact on a greater number of people. Each role informed my purpose and illuminated how I could use my skills and passions in service of our community. The journey has inspired and affirmed my belief that empowering people to succeed in their careers can be a game changer for themselves, their families, and our communities.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about your organization?
At The DeBruce Foundation, our mission is to expand career pathways. We’re all about helping people plan, pursue, and build bright careers in our ever-changing economy.
Established by Paul DeBruce in 1988, The DeBruce Foundation is a national foundation based in Kansas City, Missouri. We conduct and commission career-related research, develop initiatives, and form partnerships to equip individuals for careers. I consider myself fortunate every day to be part of the DeBruce family’s generosity and to work with such an innovative team of entrepreneurs, educators, business leaders, researchers, and specialists.
The Foundation’s latest research might be of interest to our readers or those they serve, as it explored what it takes to build careers with higher wages, less risk of unemployment, better benefits, more autonomy over work conditions, and the ability to build savings. It revealed two key factors: career literacy and network strength. In essence, knowing how to navigate a career and having a supportive network around you makes a bigger difference than many of us realize, and each of those can be taught and developed.
At The DeBruce Foundation, we love research insights, but we love acting on them even more. So, I’m not going to just tell you about our research, I’m going to give you something you can do immediately: you can increase your career literacy with our online career tools. They’re based on research, developed by our team, and available to you for free on Agilities.org as part of our charitable mission:
- Agile Work Profiler–a career assessment that provides you with a list of your current skills and interests – what we call your Agilities – as they relate to the workforce.
- Career Explorer Tools–a suite of interactive online tools with which you can learn about the income, preparation, work activities, and demand for each career.
- Draw Your Future with Agilities–a fun activity that helps you think critically about your Agilities related to your current reality, desired future, and steps to achieve your goals.
Lastly, I want to tell you about National Career Development Month. It’s coming in November, and I invite you to join us as we release our latest career research and resources to help you navigate your career and help others navigate theirs. Together, we can expand career pathways!
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
As I look back, these three things stand out as crucial to my career journey:
The first is understanding my value. All too often, it’s easy for any of us to forget the value we bring and the skills we have. Maybe you were never encouraged to notice your own value. Or, as women, we often find ourselves downplaying our value. But, I’m here to tell you: you have skills that are needed in the workforce. Whether you gained them from formal education, from caretaking, from life experience, or other chapters of your career, your skills are valuable. Know your value and champion it.
The second is having a supportive network around me. One of the best things I’ve done to nurture my growth is surrounding myself with people who care about solving the same challenges in the world. Even better is that we have very different backgrounds, lived experiences, and education levels; we come from different parts of the world and we bring different lenses to how we serve our communities. It helps me keep an openness, creativity, and risk-taking that allows me to bring new solutions to persistent challenges. In my network, we listen, share, and collaborate, and I know our work is better for being in each other’s orbit. I encourage you to build your network this season by connecting with one person who has a different education level than you, one person who has a different social experience than you, and one person who works in a different industry than you.
The third is knowing what matters to me. As we talked about earlier, my career has taken many twists and turns. If you had asked me at the beginning of my career, I wouldn’t have thought to put the pieces of it together as one cohesive path, but one step has built upon the next, and my mission statement was the common thread. The workforce of the future is changing rapidly–many of the jobs available 20+ years from now have not even been created yet. But, by knowing your strengths and interests, building a strong network around you, and knowing what matters to you, I have no doubt you’ll be on a rewarding path.
How can folks who want to work with you connect?
The DeBruce Foundation welcomes partners who are committed to expanding career pathways! As a result, universities, K12 school systems, statewide workforce development, other nonprofit entities, and more have partnered with The DeBruce Foundation to empower our workforce. We have partners throughout the United States, including 103+ partners who have adopted our career resources into their programs or curricula.
When considering a partnership, we use a framework we call the 5 A’s of intentional investment for impact:
-Alignment: Can this partnership help meet mutual missions?
-Access: Can this partnership provide access to key audiences The Foundation intends to serve?
-Acceleration: Can this partnership increase effectiveness to meet goals?
-Accountability: Can this partnership measure for impact?
-Allocation of resources: Can this partnership accomplish these things efficiently?
We invite you to learn more by attending an Agilities Tour (register for free at DeBruce.org). This is a great first step to explore working with The DeBruce Foundation.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://debruce.org/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/debrucefound/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DeBruceFound
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/latknight/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/DeBruceFound
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@DeBruceFound
- Other: https://agilities.org/
Image Credits
The DeBruce Foundation
