Tiffani Barrett left a 24-year career in education and moved from Atlanta to Denver searching for something more than just proximity to her son, who serves in the U.S. Air Force and is based in  in Rapid City, South Dakota. 

What she found through the African Leadership Group’s Leadership Africa program was a personal transformation that would reshape her approach to life, work, and community.

Barrett, now a customer service representative at United Airlines, joined Cohort 5 of Leadership Africa in March 2025 after a recommendation from a close friend who had completed the program.

“I’m finding that many different doors are opening up for me since I’ve become a part of this program,” Barrett said. She is now presenting a training program she developed to her managing director at United; something she said she never would have imagined doing six months ago.

For Barrett, a Florida native who spent her final years in education as an engagement specialist at a charter school in Atlanta, Leadership  Africa came at a critical time. The COVID-19 pandemic had left her exhausted after being one of only four staff members who continued coming to the building, visiting homes to set up computers and support families while wearing protective gear.

“I was so busy focusing on other people, I kind of lost who I was,” she said. After the school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, she made the difficult decision to walk away from education just as she was about to sign her 25th-year contract. “I had no clue how deep some of the things and some of the changes in my life were going to be,” she said.

The transformation Barrett described centers on what she called expanding her “emotional capacity,” particularly in identifying when to engage with her emotional intelligence versus her intellectual intelligence. Through Leadership Africa’s various exercises and activities, including work with the Enneagram personality assessment tool, she learned to communicate more effectively and listen more deeply.

“Having the capacity to ask people to clarify what they mean so I can get a complete understanding before I’m able to respond or give them feedback; that’s a space I truthfully would have never thought I’d be operating in,” she said. 

Leadership Africa’s exercises, she said, help participants “develop the capacity that’s already inside of you” by encouraging honest self-reflection and helping them confront aspects of themselves they might typically avoid.

One particularly powerful revelation came through the Enneagram process, where Barrett discovered that anger was her most easily displayed emotion. “When you hear people tell you, ‘I don’t know how you feel, I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I do know when you’re angry,’ and then to find out in your Enneagram that that’s one of the main behaviors you exhibit – it’s like, wow,” she said. 

But rather than leaving her with just this awareness, the program taught her how to channel that anger constructively, using it to fuel positive change.

Barrett also credited the program with helping her navigate a recent family crisis. “Emotionally, I don’t believe I would have been in the same space with Leadership Africa,” she said.

At work, the transformation has been equally notable. Barrett has received numerous commendations from customers, including a particularly moving letter from a family relocating to the United States who credited their interaction with her as part of why they believed their move was the right decision, despite current political and social climates.

Looking around at her cohort, Barrett said she observed that while many are experiencing similar transformations, she can also identify those who remain resistant to change. Her own approach was different: “I went in for a selfish reason – to help me become my best self, which in turn would be selfless to my circle.”

Now, Barrett said she feels an indebtedness to ALG and its leadership, actively volunteering to fill gaps and support the organization’s mission.

“While it’s a leadership class, the truth is, it’s about putting me in places I didn’t see myself six months ago,” Barrett said. “If it only changes one more person’s life, if they get the benefits or at least are presented with the opportunities that I’ve been afforded, then it’s worth it.”

For someone who came to Denver to be closer to family, Tiffani Barrett has found something much more profound: herself, transformed and ready to transform others in turn.