For Lisa Ling, Being a Minority Woman at Work Means Standing Up for Herself

Lisa Ling shares her personal cellphone number with every person that she interviews. “I’m not great about setting boundaries,” she says with a laugh. Ling’s interview subjects tend to be people who are marginalized and might otherwise not be asked for their stories—sex workers, incarcerated people, former gang members, teenagers who are registered sex offenders.

It must make for a diverse contact list. But Ling wouldn’t have it any other way. “For these people to have shared their deepest hearts and lives with me,” she tells Glamour, “it would be unbecoming and really inconsiderate for me to just collect their stories and then leave.” She’s made a career trying to show “the humanity of these people who our culture has cast aside.” It’s not a 9-to-5. And she likes it that way.

Ling is only in her 40s, but she’s been a working journalist for decades—since she was a 16-year-old cast on a teen-led news show. She’s been a host on The View and a reporter for CNN, and had her own show on the Oprah Winfrey Network and on National Geographic. Now she’s working on Take Out, a new show with HBOMax, a documentary that will look at a slice of American culture through the kitchens of Asian restaurants. And on October 10, the eighth season of her show This Is Life With Lisa Ling will premiere on CNN.

Ling’s résumé reads like someone for whom professional life has just come easy. In fact, it’s been grueling hard work and the task of proving, again and again, that she’s tough enough and talented enough to do her job. “I certainly have felt, that because I’m a minority woman, I’ve been on the receiving end of some pretty demeaning behavior in some of my superiors,” she says. “Even when it wasn’t overt, when I think back on it, I think, Yeah, they probably wouldn’t have treated someone who was of a different background the same way.”

She’s dealt with it. “At a certain point I realized that I have to assert myself and make sure that my voice is taken seriously and that I’m not overlooked,” she says. “I think a lot of Asians are afraid they might be perceived as bragging. But there’s a pretty big difference between bragging and standing up for yourself.”

Ling has been standing up for people—with compassion, nonjudgment, and deep interest—for her whole career. For Glamour‘s latest edition of Doing the Work, she takes us through her perfectionist habits, her psychological relationship to coffee, and why it’s hard for her to ask for help. 

My first ever job

My first ever job was hosting in an Italian restaurant in Los Angeles in the summer, as a teenager. My mom was working a lot, and so it was decided that I should get a job working the same hours that she worked. That same year, when I was 16, I auditioned for a show called Scratch, and got that job. So that year I worked both as an Italian hostess and as the host of a local show that went national.

The best quality in a boss

I really appreciate when my boss gets me and doesn’t just treat me like I’m someone who is on the payroll, but really takes my suggestions, my opinions, and my thoughts seriously. I appreciate those who are compassionate and recognize that employees have a lot of things that are happening in our lives. But at the same time, I always like when a boss has high expectations of me—it definitely drives me and pushes me to work harder.

The worst qualities in a boss 

The worst qualities, I would say, are condescension and being demeaning. 

My morning routine 

The one essential part of my routine is: I need to consume my coffee before I do anything else! I make a beeline for the coffee. It might be just psychological, ’cause at this point I don’t know if the caffeine really affects me at all. I need to smell it! I need to taste it! I need it go into my system before I feel alert enough to tackle the day.

For Lisa Ling, Being a Minority Woman at Work Means Standing Up for Herself
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