The Real Meaning of ‘Woke’ (and Why CHRO’s Should Care)

In this holiday season, as we celebrate the birth of Jesus amid the din of political rhetoric, it is helpful to return to something deeply human: the dignity within every person. This is also where the idea of wokeness, -stripped of distortion, naturally intersects with postmodern leadership.

Jesus was woke. He saw beneath labels. A clear example is his encounter with the Samaritan woman at the well (John 4). She was someone society judged, avoided, and dismissed, yet he saw her story, her struggle, and her isolation. He spoke to her with dignity when others wouldn’t speak to her at all. He saw the human being behind the reputation.

That is what wokeness truly is: refusing to reduce someone to the simplest version of their identity.

Understanding Wokeness: Returning to its Original Meaning

In recent years, the term woke has been twisted into a pejorative; -shorthand for “too sensitive,” “too political,” or “too far left.” But this modern distortion ignores its origin and dilutes its meaning.

“Woke” comes from African American Vernacular English (AAVE), a past-tense form of “wake” or “awake.” It originally meant staying vigilant to racial injustice and social inequity. Blues musician Lead Belly used “stay woke” in the 1930s urging awareness of systemic injustice surrounding the Scottsboro Boys trial.

The core meaning was simple: be aware of the world as it truly is, not as you want it to be. In leadership, especially postmodern leadership, this awareness is indispensable.

Wokeness is not political activism as it is typically framed. It is perceptiveness: the ability to recognize that people carry histories, traumas, fears, identities, and lived experiences that shape how they move through the workplace. It is a leader being awake to the complexity of the human condition.

Why Wokeness Matters to the Postmodern Leader

Postmodern leadership rests on several key pillars. Each of them requires and reinforces a woke mindset.

1. There Is No Single, Objective, Stable Truth

Meaning is constructed and always open to interpretation. Leaders can no longer rely on slogans or simple narratives.

People experience the workplace through their own cultural, social, economic, and historical lenses. A newly hired woman, for example, may enter the workplace with warranted trepidation: Will I be treated fairly? Are there hidden traps? Will I be taken seriously?

A postmodern leader acknowledges multiple truths, -not just the official one.

2. Meaning Is Negotiated, Not Declared

This leads to a second pillar: meaning is rarely fixed and often negotiated.

Consider the well-intended phrase: We’re like family here. It can land very differently depending on someone’s background.

• A high performer hears: I belong here.

• Someone from a loving family hears comfort.

• Someone from a toxic family system hears: No boundaries. No dissent.

• A person of color might wonder: If I don’t conform, will I be labeled a bad fit?

A woke leader recognizes that the same words can produce radically different meanings.

3. Identity Is Fluid and Performed

A third pillar expands the leader’s lens further: identity is not fixed, -it is often performed in response to social risk. Examples include:

• A Black woman code-switching to avoid a stereotype threat

• A gay employee managing disclosure based on psychological safety

• A neurodivergent employee masking exhaustion to appear “professional”

• An employee with a minority political viewpoint concealing their beliefs

A woke leader sees the performance (as in the way that employee shows up) without judgment and understands that identity management is often self-protection and not duplicity.

Their goal is to reduce the identity tax people pay in order to belong.

4. Authority Is Mistrusted and Must Be Earned Continuously

A fourth pillar reminds us that authority is never neutral. Historically marginalized groups have generational reasons to mistrust power.

A woke leader understands that:

• Skepticism is not personal

• Employees’ reactions are shaped by collective memory

• The burden is on leadership to demonstrate fairness and consistency

When disciplining an employee of color, for example, a leader must be mindful of the historical dynamics that may shape how that interaction is experienced.

Wokeness here is simple awareness: authority carries with it a social history, not just an organizational one.

5. Reality Is Fragmented and Multi-Platformed

A fifth pillar highlights the fragmented realities people inhabit in modern workplaces. Wokeness recognizes that who you are affects which “organization” you experience:

• Women are interrupted more often than men (typically)

• LGBTQ+ employees navigate different psychological terrain

• Immigrant staff experience cultural and legal fragility

• Lower-wage workers experience a different institution than senior leaders

A woke leader asks:

• Which culture does this team live in?
  (A surgical unit lives in a high-intensity survival culture; finance lives in an audit-ready predictability culture).

• Who benefits and who pays the price?
  (A speak-up culture rewards extroverts but disadvantages those raised with deference to authority).

• How do we bridge fragmented experiences?
  (A leader standardizes communication norms so hybrid and remote employees aren’t left in an information deficit.)

Wokeness enables leaders to navigate multiple realities rather than assuming one shared experience.

6. Stories, Symbols, and Images Carry as Much Power as Facts

A woke leader refuses to lead with assumptions, -they lead with awareness instead. This final pillar speaks to interpretation, perception, and symbolic meaning. Examples include:

• A leader’s silence about discrimination is perceived as endorsement

• A diversity statement without action becomes symbolic violence

• Acknowledging someone’s lived experience creates profound psychological safety

• Who speaks first, who gets credited, and who is heard shapes culture more than policies?

In postmodern leadership, symbols often speak louder than strategy and a woke leader understands this.

The Deeper Truth

These interpretations are valid because they are real to the people experiencing them.
Leaders can no longer assume shared meaning. Meaning must be co-created.

Wokeness returned to its original meaning becomes essential.

It is humility instead of certainty. Curiosity instead of judgment. Empathy instead of projection.

Some employees walk in with generational trauma.
Some with years of subtle exclusion.
Some used to being overlooked.
And others with pain the world assumes they don’t have.

Wokeness is the discipline of remembering that every human being has a backstory, one that did not begin the day they joined your organization.

Wokeness Is Not a Political Stance, -It’s a Leadership Posture

In a fragmented, diverse, multi-platform world, leaders succeed not by enforcing a single narrative, but by understanding many. They recognize that meaning is constructed, identity is performed, and belonging is unevenly distributed.

To be a woke leader is to be a perceptive leader, -one who sees the invisible, hears the unspoken, and understands that fairness, dignity, and belonging are lived experiences.

In this holiday season, amid cultural noise and political distortion, wokeness calls leaders back to something profoundly human: an awakened awareness of the stories people carry and the responsibility we have, as leaders, to honor them.

That is the work of postmodern leadership. And frankly, the work of being fully human.