We’ve planned a half-day of learning, guidance, and inspiration—all virtual. Here’s the agenda:

1. Executive coach Dorie Clark on working with the ambition you’ve got right now, whether you’re making every effort to get promoted or are taking a break from striving. She’ll help you recognize when it’s best to slow down or ramp up.
2. Organizational psychologist Ruchi Sinha’s latest research findings on trust: how to measure the amount felt between team members, and what to do if it’s imbalanced. Plus, she’ll explain the upsides of switching between different kinds of leadership styles, and she’ll illustrate how to do that.
3. DEI strategist Lily Zheng on the power of data to correct discrimination, design fair processes, and demonstrate a company’s progress toward diversity, equity, and inclusion. They’ll also describe the positive and negative moves companies are making and how to have influence within yours.
4. The Amys on…whatever guidance you and other attendees need related to leading a team, dealing with conflict, negotiating, or something else. Email your question ahead of time to [email protected], or drop it into the chat during the session.

Tickets are $60 for Harvard Business Review subscribers and $75 for everyone else. A ticket will also give you access to a replay of the event recording. Register here.

Interested in buying a bunch of tickets for your team, department, or entire company? Email [email protected] to learn about group discounts.

See you there!

If you’re in a leadership role, or any role where you’re putting yourself and your ideas out there in an outspoken and visible way, chances are that at some point people are going to criticize you, sometimes fiercely, sometimes publicly. Are you ready for that?

Two women who’ve felt the heat because of decisions they’ve made or arguments they’ve put forward—or simply because of who they are—reflect on the ways they’ve steeled themselves for harsh critiques and dealt with the fallout. Patti Neuhold-Ravikumar describes the preparation and the presence of mind she summoned as a university president communicating contentious budget cuts. Ruchika Tulshyan brings her expertise in DEI and women’s leadership to contextualize those experiences, and she describes her own experiences with online harassment and how she’s dealt with skeptics.

Listening to them recount how they responded to fierce criticism will hopefully help you think about how you might respond, both when you see it coming and when you don’t.

Guest experts:

Ruchika Tulshyan is the author of the book Inclusion on Purpose: An Intersectional Approach to Creating a Culture of Belonging at Work. She is the founder of Candour, an inclusion strategy firm.

Patti Neuhold-Ravikumar is an executive coach who was previously the president and CEO of the University of Central Oklahoma.

Resources:

• “How Leaders Should Handle Public Criticism,” by Ron Carucci
• “How to Be Resilient in the Face of Harsh Criticism,” by Joseph Grenny
• “How to Take Criticism Well,” by Sabina Nawaz
• “In a Crisis, Great Leaders Prioritize Listening,” by Erika James and Lynn Perry Wooten

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We all need to set boundaries, even in the most structured jobs, because work has its way of encroaching on the rest of our life. Ashley, a senior analyst for the federal government, recently shifted to a schedule that helps her do her most important work and have some alone time before her family gets home. Now she’s trying to figure out how to further minimize interruptions, deal with slow and busy stretches, and get out of unproductive meetings.

Amy G and executive coach Melody Wilding talk through adjustments Ashley can make and things she can say to achieve those goals. They also offer strategies for how to communicate your new limits with colleagues and how to hold the line when your boundaries inevitably get tested.

Guest expert:

 Melody Wilding is an executive coach and the author of Trust Yourself: Stop Overthinking and Channel Your Emotions for Success at Work.

Resources:

• “How to Set Healthy Boundaries When Starting a New Job,” by Melody Wilding
• “What to Do When Work Is Slow,” by Elizabeth Grace Saunders
• “How to Protect Your Boundaries When Your Company Is Struggling,” by Susan Peppercorn
• “Set Better Boundaries,” by Priscilla Claman
• “Set These 5 Boundaries Before You Go on Vacation,” by Marlo Lyons

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Trust smooths the way for collaboration, conflict resolution, and influence. But how do you build this asset? And how do you repair it when you’ve missed a series of important deadlines or otherwise messed up?

Organizational psychologist Ruchi Sinha talks with a listener who’s struggling to restore skeptics’ confidence in her and her team. Ruchi shares the three elements of trust and how to convey each one. She also offers advice on what to do if you’ve failed to acknowledge a broken promise and how to communicate practically when confidentiality prevents you from being totally transparent.

Guest expert:

Ruchi Sinha is an associate professor of organizational behavior at the University of South Australia Business School. Her research explores how voice, conflict, and power dynamics influence work relationships and performance outcomes.

Resources:

• “New to the Team? Here’s How to Build Trust (Remotely),” by Ruchi Sinha
• “How High-Performing Teams Build Trust,” by Ron Friedman
• “10 Pitfalls That Destroy Organizational Trust,” by Frances X. Frei and Anne Morriss
• “What to Do When You Don’t Trust Your Employee,” by Dina Denham Smith
• “How to Build Trust at Work,” from the HBR on Leadership podcast

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Executive presence is a mix of gravitas, communication skills, and appearance. But how do you learn to command a room if you only have a few opportunities to be in front of your colleagues, except for the occasional video call? This is the situation that one of our listeners is in. She joins Amy B and two other women who’ve each cultivated a strong executive presence, Megan Bock and Laura Sicola, to get advice on what hers can look and sound like.

In this episode, you’ll learn how to improve your own influence and impact, keep a virtual audience engaged, and grow while staying true to yourself.

Guest experts:

Megan Bock is the chief operating officer at Federato, a company that uses machine learning to assess risk. Cultivating an executive presence helped her rise up through the insurance industry and into tech.

Laura Sicola is a cognitive linguist who coaches leaders on communicating strategically. She hosts the podcast Speaking to Influence, and she wrote the book Speaking to Influence: Master Your Leadership Voice.

Resources:

• “The New Rules of Executive Presence,” by Sylvia Ann Hewlett
• “If You Want To Lead, Master This Skill,” by Dina Denham Smith
• “Gravitas Is a Quality You Can Develop,” by Rebecca Newton
• “To Sound Like a Leader, Think About What You Say, and How and When You Say It,” by Rebecca Shambaugh

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Sexism is everywhere in workplaces, from people’s expectations about how women look and act to companies’ inadequate or unfair parental leave policies. Still, it can be shocking when you realize—or suspect—that you’re the target of that bias. Perhaps you sense someone is interrupting you over and over because you’re a woman. Or, you receive an end-of-year rating that just doesn’t align with your actual performance, and no one can (or will) explain the discrepancy.

Is there any way to know for sure whether something that a colleague or client did—or neglected to do—is sexism? When is confronting that person worth it? And if you’ll never know what drove their actions, how do you make peace with the uncertainty? Amy G talks through these questions with two professors who study perceptions and gender stereotypes.

Guest experts:  

Katie Coffman is an economist and professor at Harvard Business School, where she studies how stereotypes impact our beliefs about ourselves

Michelle Duguid is a professor and the associate dean of diversity, inclusion, and belonging at Cornell. 

Resources:

• “Dismantling ‘Benevolent’ Sexism,” by Negin Sattari et al.
• “Unconscious Bias Training That Works,” by Francesca Gino and Katherine Coffman
• “Why Most Performance Evaluations Are Biased, and How to Fix Them,” by Lori Nishiura Mackenzie et al.
• “Research: How Bias Against Women Persists in Female-Dominated Workplaces,” by Amy Diehl

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It’s a question that so many of us are grappling with. Should I quit the corporate life that may not feel quite right for me, and pursue my passion project?

You may have worries about the financial risks, stability, and what your future looks like with less of a roadmap. Today we’ll help you think through the possibilities and trade-offs, as we learn from one woman’s experiences leaving corporate life to build her own business.

This episode is from New Here, a new podcast for young professionals from Harvard Business Review. Each week, host Elainy Mata shares stories, tips, and advice from trusted experts and the people who help her figure out career challenges—like her therapist and mentors. Season One focuses on those “big firsts” that happen in any new job—like your first big mistake or how to ask for a raise.

In this episode, we follow Jemma Sbeg as she leaves her successful consulting career to pursue her passion project—her now-hit podcast, The Psychology of your 20s. First we hear from Jemma on her first day of working for herself—to learn how she made the decision to leave her full-time job and what her hopes and fears are for her new work life. Then Jemma returns for a second conversation, after she’s been working on her own for five months.

You’ll learn which of Jemma’s fears were warranted, how she battled loneliness, managed her money, and whether or not she is actually happier working for herself.

You can listen to all of season one of New Here at https://hbr.org/podcasts/new-here or wherever you get your podcasts.

Being on a board is a chance to grow—your mind, your skills, your network, your impact. It’s also another time commitment to fit in, and, for some women, another environment where they have to fight to be heard. So, is the payoff worth the effort?

Yes, according to the eight women who volunteered to speak about their experience serving on boards of companies, nonprofits, and schools. They share how they landed a seat, gained confidence in the role, and found unexpected personal and professional benefits in the work. We hope that their perspectives and advice will inspire you to consider trying it yourself some day.
Ellen Zane, who runs a Harvard workshop for women interested in board work, provides further insight based on her years of experience as a director for nonprofits and private and public companies.

Guest expert:

Ellen Zane directs the Women on Boards: Getting on and Adding Value annual program through Harvard’s School of Public Health (here’s the application for the next one, April 18–19, 2024). She’s the former CEO of Tufts Medical Center, and she’s on the board of directors for several nonprofits and private and public companies.

Resources:

• “Research: Board Experience Is Helping More Women Get CEO Jobs,” by Catherine H. Tinsley and Kate Purmal
• “How Women on Boards Navigate the ‘Warmth-Competence’ Line,” by Tiffany Trzebiatowski et al.
• “Research: How Women Improve Decision-Making on Boards,” by Margarethe Wiersema and Marie Louise Mors
• “Are You Ready to Serve on a Board?” by Anthony Hesketh et al.
• “10 Proactive Questions Every Board Member Should Be Asking,” by Andrew White et al.

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What if one of your first assignments at a new job was to fire people? What should you do if the person leading a project you’re on isn’t giving clear direction, demands that you work nights and weekends, bristles at your feedback—and leadership tells you to fall in line? These are two of the five situations that Amy B and Amy G talk through in this episode. They offer advice to the women who wrote in with their questions, with the hope that it will help them and anyone who’s been in a similar situation, or might be one unfortunate day. 

Resources:

• When You Work in a Male-Dominated Industry, from Women at Work
• “Begin with Trust,” by Frances X. Frei and Anne Morriss
• “When You Have to Carry Out a Decision You Disagree With,” by Art Markman
• “A Tool to Help You Reach Your Goals in 4 Steps,” by Heidi Grant
• “Getting Along: My Coworker Is Sabotaging Me — and My Boss Won’t Help,” by Amy Gallo
• “How to Recover from a Toxic Job,” by Melody Wilding

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Holding in anxiety, anger, or despair for the sake of appearing professional can feel impossible. When the emotions are just too much—your boss’s dismissive tone infuriates you, a direct report unloads, you can’t hold back tears in a meeting, a tragedy happens and you’re leading an all-staff tomorrow morning—what do you do?

Liz Fosslien believes “the future of work is emotional.” The Amys revisit our 2020 conversation with her and fellow organizational consultant Mollie West Duffy about the good that can come from being vulnerable with colleagues, then Fosslien returns to help us reassess where the line between vulnerability and oversharing is today.

Resources:

• No Hard Feelings: The Secret Power of Embracing Emotions at Work, by Liz Fosslien and Mollie West Duffy
• Big Feelings: How to Be Okay When Things Are Not Okay, by Liz Fosslien and Mollie West Duffy
• “Handling Negative Emotions in a Way that’s Good for Your Team,” by Emma Seppälä and Christina Bradley
• “How to Control Your Emotions During a Difficult Conversation,” by Amy Gallo
• “New Managers Shouldn’t Be Afraid to Express Their Emotions,” by Kristi Hedges

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If you’re engaged, this question is probably going to come up. Have you ever thought about what you would do (if you have plans to marry), or reflected on the decision you made (if you’re already married)? To what extent did your professional accomplishments and aspirations factor into your decision to keep or change your last name?

Our associate producer, Hannah Bates, is engaged, and she talks out the rationale behind her decision to keep her name with three recently married women (one who kept her name and two who changed theirs), and they share what the decision-making process was like for them. Hannah and the Amys then join former co-host Nicole Torres, who first raised this question on our show and encouraged us to do this episode in the first place.

Resources:  

• “How to Change Your Name and Keep Your Professional Identity,” by Dorie Clark
• “8 in 10 Women Married to Men Still Take Husband’s Last Name, Survey Finds,” from Pew Research Center
• “The Japanese Public Broadly Supports Legalizing Dual-Surname Option for Married Couples,” from the Stanford’s Asia-Pacific Research Center

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