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Call & Response: 10 Leadership Lessons from the Black Church

In Recognition of Black History Month

Through rich storytelling, this keynote shares how powerful Black women (and men) in the Fortune 500, education, arts, and entertainment trace their earliest leadership lessons back to the church.

Did you know that humming a gospel tune before walking into a high-stakes meeting can rewire your brain to lead more effectively? The act triggers a release of dopamine, oxytocin, and serotonin—regulating emotions, lowering anxiety, and activating the reward center to halt fear from taking over your executive decision making..and not just any music can do this. It’s neuroscience. But for many Black professionals, it’s simply ritual—a practice rooted in the traditions of the Black Church.

We've practiced powerful, emotionally intelligent leadership for generations—without calling it that. Until now.

What the Audience Will Take Away

● A contemporary leadership framework rooted in both legacy and research
● A reintroduction to the practices that shaped them—and the science that validates them
● A call to lead with conviction, cultural intelligence, and heart—without apology

About the Author

L. Michelle Smith is an award-winning author, Fortune 100 C-Suite advisor, certified global executive and personal coach, and the CEO/founder of no silos communications llc, a media, coaching, and consulting company that develops high-performing executive leaders, with a specialty in women and women of color. She is a contributor to HuffPost VOICES, and the executive producer and host of The Culture Soup Podcast® and the Substack podcast Her Next Power Move.

A’Lelia Bundles is the author of Joy Goddess: A’Lelia Walker and the Harlem Renaissance (Scribner, June 2025), the first major biography of her great-grandmother, and of On Her Own Ground: The Life and Times of Madam C.J. Walker, a New York Times Notable Book and bestseller about her great-great-grandmother, an early 20th century hair care industry entrepreneur and philanthropist.   She is the founder of the Madam Walker Family Archives, the largest private collection of Walker photographs, memorabilia and ephemera. A’Lelia worked in network television news for thirty years, first at NBC News where she was a producer for news and magazine programs, and then at ABC News where she was a World News Tonight producer, Washington, DC deputy bureau chief and director of talent development.

Her book, On Her Own Ground, received the Association of Black Women Historians’ 2001 Letitia Woods Brown prize for the best book on Black women’s history and was named a Black Caucus of the American Library Association’s Honor Book and a Hurston/Wright-Borders Books Legacy Award finalist in 2001. This deeply researched non-fiction book was the inspiration for Self Made, the fictional four-part 2020 Netflix series starring Oscar-winner Octavia Spencer. A recipient of an Emmy and a du Pont Gold Baton for her television news work, A’Lelia has participated in writing residencies at Yaddo and MacDowell and was named to Forbes Magazine’s 50 Over 50 Impact list.

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