Newsletter

Dionicia Roberson: Leadership is demonstrated through integrity, humility, and a willingness to adapt

Reflections from the Lenfest Constellation News Leadership Initiative

By Dionicia Roberson

December 5, 2024

The Lenfest Constellation News Leadership Initiative launched in 2020 as a professional development fellowship supporting mid-career media professionals of color in Philadelphia. We reached out to program alumni to reflect on how their careers have evolved since participating in the program. Dionicia Roberson is a member of the Constellation class of 2022-2023.

When I was very young, I knew I wanted to always be reading, writing, and helping other people find the right words. My dreams were vivid, robust, and full of hope as they almost always are in children; at the same time, the circumstances of my reality couldn’t ensure my day-to-day survival. Envisioning any future at all required a leap of the imagination, to say the least. 

Somehow, I made those leaps, and kept making them until they translated into real life. Eventually, I landed a job in journalism at Resolve Philly, with a focus on community narratives. By 2022, I was still early enough in my career that none of it felt quite real, even though I had been with Resolve for two years at that point. At the same time, I was beginning to wonder about my place in the landscape. I still considered myself an interloper in many ways, but every day that I spent amplifying community voices through narrative empowerment and actively encouraging others to own their lived-experiences, it was becoming harder to see the value in remaining silent. 

The opportunity to participate in the Lenfest Constellation News Leadership Initiative materialized around this time. I was invited to apply, and the idea of myself as a leader sounded so much less far-fetched when it was suggested to me than if I had conceived it myself. 

The magic of that moment is that it was both inspiring and exceptionally validating, as I was  moved to speak candidly — and quite revealingly — about my hopes for the future of journalism through the lens of my past experiences which, up to that point, had always felt very isolating and unsafe to talk about.

Therefore, the invitation to apply was delightfully shocking, and it triggered the first significant shift in my perspective: I’d never before imagined myself in those terms, but if others could identify leadership qualities in me, then maybe those qualities existed. 

My experience in the program only reinforced that validation. My colleagues in the Fellowship held a vast range of experiences, responsibilities, and leadership roles. However, everyone was so generous with their expertise and the exchange of ideas was free-flowing — the sense of hierarchy I was slightly apprehensive about simply never happened.

That was the second pivotal moment for my perspective on leadership: In the past, I’d misinterpreted the definition of leadership, and lifted up credentials over qualities. For the eight months of the Fellowship, however, our cohort community showed me that leadership is demonstrated through integrity, humility, and a willingness to adapt and learn from mistakes; respect and humanity toward others; and the ability to inspire others to strength, bravery, or kindness. 

Now, roughly a year and a half down the line, I get to do justice to those qualities in a new way. Earlier this year, I joined my friend and Fellowship colleague Monique Curry-Mims at her outlet, Generocity, as Managing Editor.  The imposter syndrome I expected never happened. I feel comfortable with all the dimensions of leadership that this role can touch. Thanks to my participation in the Fellowship and the relationships that were born from it, I have the context to recognize the opportunities for impactful leadership, along with the resources and support to meet those opportunities with aplomb.