Lead from the Outside: How to Build Your Future and Make Real Change

The author Stacey Abrams holds a JD from Yale Law School and a master’s degree from the University of Texas. She was her college’s valedictorian, graduating magna cum laude from the lauded historically Black undergraduate program at Spelman College. She was one of two Rhodes Scholarship nominees from Mississippi. From her parents, she learned the values of church, family, and community service, and from her mentors, she learned the language and practice of effective leadership. Abrams became the only person of color at her law firm, Sutherland Asbill & Brennan, who specialized in tax law for tax-exempt organizations. At age 28, she worked pro bono and chaired a commission for the former mayor of Atlanta Shirley Franklin, and she was then tapped to run a division of the city attorney’s office. She became the youngest deputy city attorney in Atlanta’s history at age 29. Working closely with former Mayor Franklin, Abrams learned much about the work of an administrator and politician.

Abrams was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives, where she served from 2007 to 2017. In 2011, she was elected as the first woman minority leader and the first Black minority leader in the Georgia House of Representatives. Her bipartisanism won her the ire of her fellow Democrats, who saw her as “contrarian,” but this collaborative approach afforded her major successes like keeping the Georgia HOPE scholarship alive for Georgia high school graduates intent on a college education. In 2013, she created the New Georgia Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to voter registration. In 2018, Abrams became the first Black woman to win a major party’s nomination for a governorship, and she has been credited with “tripl[ing] the turnout of Latinos and Asian Americans [and] more than doubl[ing] the youth participation rate” (19). Moreover, Abrams “received more votes from African Americans than the sum total of Democratic voters in 2014” (19). When she lost the gubernatorial race, she delivered a “non-concession speech” and launched the nonprofit Fair Fight Action to counter voter suppression.

Instead of presenting a record of successes and career highlights, this book offers a balanced accounting of highs and lows. This narrative position suits a book that doubles as a self-help guide and memoir. After all, a reader may not be likely to take the advice of one who has never stumbled or who never admits their mistakes. By a similar token, a reader may not be likely to respect the counsel and life lessons offered by one who has not accomplished as much as Abrams has. She leverages her position as the minority leader in the Georgia House as well as her loss in the Georgia gubernatorial race. Acknowledgment of her accolades matters as much to the narrative as the admission of her missteps. Lead from the Outside welcomes the outsider, encouraging and advising an inclusive “we” who strive to attain and maintain positions of power, to clarify and plot goals for the future.