Alisha White Madison has worked for Northrop Grumman for 12 years, first as a consultant and now as a manager of the global security firm’s business acquisition process.

She is also CEO of the Bella Network, an initiative she launched in 2016 to work more closely with women.

Through this network, she conducts an annual three-day conference in Los Angeles as well as quarterly events and one-on-one coaching and counseling. The network currently has 1,100 members.

White Madison started doing small group training sessions for an African-American task group at Northrop Grumman, and an executive asked her to be a keynote speaker at the company’s summit in Washington, DC.

Opportunities followed for her to conduct a series of monthly talks that went viral and reached thousands.

She said management liked her candid and frank approach and that she often said the kinds of things they wanted to express but feared to be too honest or viewed as not politically correct.

White Madison covers a myriad of issues and situations that arise in the workplace and tells employees that as in life, everything is not fair in the workplace, that workers need to understand how to ingrain themselves into an organization, why it’s important to have a presence at as many company functions as possible, and not to be overly defensive or aggressive.

“My approach is, you need to figure how to talk to your leadership and have them embrace what you have to say,” she said.

Sometimes the problem is not with leadership; the problem is with you, is an example of White Madison’s assessment of an employee’s displeasure with the workplace. “Let’s work on us before we try to get the other person to change.”

When not engaged by a corporation to provide training, White Madison and her associates through the Bella Network charge individuals $50 a month and entrepreneurs $100 a month for counseling services in addition to a $150 application fee. She said individuals are interviewed first to determine their needs and to ensure they can assist them.

White Madison said she’s observed differences in Whites and Blacks in the workplace that reflect culture and upbringing.

“Whites are told to ask, ask anybody,” she said. “As a culture, [African Americans] are told don’t ask questions, don’t let people know we don’t know something, we don’t want to appear like we don’t have the answer.”

African Americans maneuvering through corporate America should also be mindful of advice from their oldest mentors: their mothers.

“The persons we’ve been mentored by the most are our mothers. Many of our mothers have never been part of corporate America. They give emotional advice. Emotional advice is not going to benefit you in the corporate world,” she said.

“Our mothers should be our cheerleaders and not our mentors. We need to look outside for mentors who can relate to the situation you are going through and give accurate advice.”

There are also body language and facial expression issues that many people are unaware of that come into play at work. In the half-day workshops that she conducts, White Madison videotapes each participant, asking about things they enjoy and things that frustrate them. Most don’t realize the subtle facial and body language cues they are showing.

“We tend to show micro-expressions,” she said, adding that people will flash an expression indicating they are displeased or not on board during a discussion. “You are clueless you did it. Most come from childhood. As African Americans, our expressions are bigger, our facial features are more expressive. You have to be in control of how you appear.”

Click here to learn more about Alisha White Madison and the Bella Network.