Women at Work

When managing other people for the first time, what should we expect, and how can we prepare? Three new managers describe their growing pains, reflect on what they find most rewarding, and talk through their latest challenges — with an assist from Amy B’s managerial wisdom. You’ll come away with a better idea of what becoming a boss means and confident that you can do it too.

To cap off our Getting Along series, Amy Gallo shares advice, in front of a live audience, on how to deal with all different types of “difficult” coworkers — from the tormentor to the know-it-all.

How do you bring about positive change — or just keep a workplace functional — when the person in charge won’t listen? Amy Gallo recommends tactics to try and phrases to use.

How do you interact with a senior person who should be mentoring you but is instead giving you every reason not to trust them? Amy G recommends tactics to try and phrases to use.

How do you stay in the loop when someone keeps kicking you out? Amy G recommends tactics to try and phrases to use.

How do you work with someone who’s encroaching on your job, bad-mouthing you, and refusing to acknowledge there’s any tension or problem? Amy G recommends tactics to try and phrases to use.

Our free-spirited, entrepreneurial co-host is applying advice from all our episodes on side gigs, freelancing, starting a small business — and quitting — to her own life. Emily reflects on her decision to leave her design job at HBR to fully focus on a long-time creative passion, as well as how she's thinking about her career going forward.

How do you address a falling-out with a teammate when they either won’t acknowledge you or just lash out? Amy Gallo brings her conflict management expertise to a coaching session for a woman whose project manager and former work friend went from helpful to hostile. The approaches that come out of the conversation are ones that anyone facing tension in a work relationship can use to find a way forward.

Let’s be real: You can’t do everything yourself. Delegating to others helps you manage your workload and helps your colleagues who take on the tasks, decisions, and responsibilities to learn and grow. That doesn’t mean it’s always easy to do though. A leadership coach shares practices that will ensure the work gets done and will leave you and the person you delegated to feeling good about the experience.

Having a healthy, mutually beneficial relationship with your boss doesn’t require accommodating their every quirk, demand, and weakness. We discuss respectful, constructive ways to meet in the middle, set boundaries, and help them achieve their goals while making your competence known.

We all need to sell others on our ideas and offerings. Oftentimes that requires planning, perspective taking, and patience. A social psychologist highlights principles and tactics that’ll help you preempt colleagues or clients from doubting your expertise and get them to start or stop doing something.

Advice from a manager at Google whose full-time job is finding solutions to the problems that make employees want to quit. She shares what to say and do when a valuable team member seems to have one foot out the door. We also discuss the types of proactive conversations about career paths and compensation that managers should have with their people to keep them from being poached.

Entrepreneurs Stacey Abrams and Lara Hodgson share hard-won lessons from starting and running three companies together. They reflect on what makes their long-term partnership work and how they manage self-doubt and guilt. They also give tips for networking, hiring and retaining employees, learning the ins and outs of finance, and developing an exit strategy.

A satisfying career requires that we make thoughtful decisions, through self-reflection and strategic planning. But sometimes (like in 2021) plowing through our jobs day after day is the only thing that feels manageable. A reunion with three guests starts a conversation about the tension between wanting to fulfill our potential and needing to conserve what’s left of our energy.

What are the psychological and social skills freelancers need to achieve the self-made career they envisioned? Two researchers break down the common existential and interpersonal challenges that come with working in the gig economy. They share routines and practices that help independent workers keep themselves motivated, productive, and developing professionally.