uber harvard case study

Uber Technologies Inc. v. Heller

Supreme Court of Canada Targets Standard Form Contracts.

Comment on: 2020 SCC 16, 447 D.L.R. 4th 179 (Can.)

• See full issue

When does an agreement “drive[] too hard a bargain for a court of conscience to assist”? 1 Recently, in Uber Technologies Inc. v. Heller , 2 the Supreme Court of Canada confronted this question in the context of Uber’s attempts to quash court proceedings brought by one of its drivers and compel arbitration in accordance with the contract he had signed. The Court rejected Uber’s efforts after finding the arbitration clause unconscionable and, therefore, unenforceable — a predictable result in light of the steep upfront costs arbitration would have imposed on the driver. Yet the concurring and dissenting opinions raised important questions about the majority’s wide-ranging denunciation of Uber’s standard form contract. The Court justified its treatment of the contract in part by pointing to the presence of a link between standard form contracts and unconscionability in U.S. unconscionability doctrine. In doing so, however, it overlooked divergent approaches to such contracts within the United States, an omission that underscores criticisms that charge the majority with crafting an overbroad decision.

On January 19, 2017, David Heller, a thirty-five-year-old resident of Ontario who used the UberEats app to earn money delivering food, commenced a proposed class action against Uber, 3 alleging that it had violated Ontario’s Employment Standards Act 4 by not recognizing its drivers as employees. 5 Heller, who worked forty to fifty hours a week using the app and earned CAD 400–600 a week doing so, 6 had entered into a driver services agreement with Uber in order to use the app. 7 The agreement was governed by the laws of the Netherlands and stated that any disputes would be subject to mediation and binding arbitration, 8 a process entailing upfront costs to Heller of USD 14,500. 9

The Ontario Superior Court of Justice heard Heller’s claim and granted Uber’s request for a stay of proceedings in favor of arbitration. 10 The court explained that cases where an arbitrator prima facie has jurisdiction should be referred to the arbitral authority to determine “what, if anything,” falls outside of her jurisdiction. 11 Turning to the exceptions in Ontario law from the rule on referring disputes to arbitration, the court found that the agreement was not unconscionable, 12 and thus not excepted from referral, because the court “[did] not see how it can be said that Uber preyed [on] or took advantage of Mr. Heller.” 13

The Court of Appeal for Ontario reversed the order. 14 The court expressed some uncertainty about the appropriate test for unconscionability but concluded that the arbitration clause was unconscionable under either the four-part test employed by Ontario courts 15 or the two-part test applied by the concurring and dissenting Justices in Douez v. Facebook, Inc ., 16 and that Uber “chose this Arbitration Clause in order to favour itself and thus take advantage of its drivers.” 17

The Supreme Court of Canada upheld the court of appeal’s decision. Writing for the majority, Justices Abella and Rowe 18 affirmed the unconscionability of the arbitration clause. 19 The Court, after determining which legislation governed the agreement, 20 examined the applicability of its prior holding in Dell Computer Corp. v. Union des Consommateurs 21 that challenges to arbitral authority should generally be resolved by arbitrators. 22 The Court reiterated that where only questions of fact are in dispute, courts should generally refer the case to arbitration, and that mixed questions of fact and law should be referred unless the issues can be resolved through a “superficial” consideration of the record. 23 However, it added that Heller’s case raised an issue of accessibility that justified a departure from that general rule of arbitral referral, which “did not contemplate a scenario wherein the matter would never be resolved if the stay were granted.” 24 The Court thus established that a closer review of the record may be warranted where a bona fide challenge to arbitral jurisdiction exists and there is a “real prospect” that referral would leave the challenge unresolved. 25

Turning to the merits of Heller’s claim, the majority adopted a two-part test for unconscionability that “requires both an inequality of bargaining power and a resulting improvident bargain.” 26 With respect to the first prong, the Court noted that the inequality in question need not adhere to “rigid limitations,” 27 but may result from “[d]ifferences in wealth, knowledge, or experience” 28 or “the presence of dense or difficult to understand terms” giving rise to “cognitive asymmetry.” 29 With respect to the second prong, the Court noted that “[i]mprovidence must be assessed contextually.” 30 Where the weaker party did not understand important terms in the contract, “the focus is on whether they have been unduly disadvantaged by [those terms].” 31 Finally, the Court emphasized that a finding of unconscionability need not rest on proof of one party knowingly taking advantage of the other. 32

The Court then applied this standard to Heller’s claim. In finding inequality of bargaining power, the majority pointed to the fact that Heller was powerless to negotiate the contract he signed, which was offered on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. 33 Though it noted that the presence of a standard form contract does not, “by itself, establish[] an inequality of bargaining power,” 34 the Court suggested that “[r]especting the doctrine of unconscionability has implications for boilerplate or standard form contracts” 35 because such contracts “can impair a party’s ability to protect their interests[,] . . . mak[ing] them more vulnerable.” 36 It also found that other qualities of standard form contracts render them susceptible to a finding of unconscionability, including that they are “drafted by one party without input from the other and . . . may contain provisions that are difficult to read or understand.” 37 Characterizing its extension of the doctrine of unconscionability to standard form contracts as “not radical,” the Court noted that the link between such contracts and unconscionability has been suggested in lower courts and in academia for some time, and has been present in American jurisprudence for decades. 38 The result, the Court found, was an improvident agreement with upfront costs that were roughly equal to Heller’s annual income, 39 placing arbitration out of reach and rendering Heller’s contractual rights “illusory” 40 and the agreement unconscionable. 41

Justice Brown concurred in the finding that the arbitration clause was invalid, but on the basis of public policy. 42 Casting the agreement as one “ not to arbitrate,” 43 Justice Brown found that it closed off access to the courts without providing a comparable measure of justice. 44 Underscoring the narrow nature of his opinion, he noted “[i]t will be the rare arbitration agreement that . . . acts as an effective bar to adjudication,” 45 given the Court’s acceptance of reasonable limitations on access to justice and the efficiency advantages offered by most arbitration agreements. 46 Justice Brown suggested that the doctrine of unconscionability was ill-suited to resolve the dispute at hand because it was intended to redress significant procedural deficiencies in the contract formation process, and because the only procedural shortcomings uncovered by the majority related to the presence of a standard form contract. 47 Finally, he cautioned that the absence of a knowledgeable-exploitation requirement in the majority’s unconscionability test, 48 and its embrace of “subjective, even idiosyncratic” 49 analysis with respect to the improvident-transaction prong, would create significant commercial uncertainty in Canada. 50

Justice Côté dissented, suggesting that Uber’s request for a stay of proceedings should be granted provided that the company advance Heller the funds necessary to enter into arbitration, 51 and disagreeing in the first instance with the majority’s derogation from the rule that challenges to arbitral tribunal jurisdiction should be decided by the tribunal itself. 52 Justice Côté criticized the majority for setting the threshold for inequality “so low as to be practically meaningless in the case of standard form contracts,” 53 while overestimating Heller’s vulnerability and the degree to which the costs of arbitration amounted to a barrier as compared to those associated with judicial proceedings. 54

The majority’s finding that the arbitration agreement was unconscionable is perhaps unsurprising — the agreement presented a seemingly insurmountable obstacle to Heller’s ability to vindicate his contractual rights. Yet in the Court’s desire to shift its jurisprudence toward a “modern application” of the unconscionability doctrine to standard form contracts, where “the normative rationale for contract enforcement . . . [is] stretched beyond the breaking point,” 55 it painted with a broad brush, an approach that was the subject of compelling critiques from the concurrence and dissent. And while the majority was right to note that U.S. unconscionability doctrine generally recognizes a link between standard form contracts and unconscionability, it overlooked significant diversity in state approaches, an oversight that seems to accentuate the critiques leveled by the concurrence and dissent.

The majority framed the development of unconscionability doctrine in connection with standard form contracts as “not radical,” disclaiming any attempt to issue a blanket opinion on standard form contracts. 56 Yet the concurring and dissenting Justices rightly observed that, in crafting its new standard, the majority lumped commonplace characteristics of standard form contracts, like the absence of negotiation and presence of dense language, into its doctrinal analysis. 57 The broad sweep of that approach was further amplified by the Court’s “contextual[]” assessment of the improvident-transaction prong 58 and the seemingly ineffable quality of an inquiry into whether one party has been “unduly disadvantaged” by terms produced by unequal bargaining power. 59 The majority justified linking standard form contracts with unconscionability by pointing to developments in Canadian legal academia and in lower courts. While some commentators had indeed called for the Court to take a sterner approach to such contracts, 60 others were quick to criticize the move as lacking definitional clarity. 61 Nor was the Court’s reliance on Canadian precedent immune to criticism: the majority’s opinion seemed to go beyond both the framing of unconscionability relied on by the lower courts it cited 62 and the Court’s own precedent. 63

In explaining its decision to link standard form contracts with unconscionability, the Court noted that such a link “has also been present in the American jurisprudence for more than half a century.” 64 U.S. jurisprudence made for a seemingly persuasive comparison: Canada and the United States share many of the same common law traditions that underpin unconscionability doctrine, after all. 65 The comparison also had a claim to established pedigree. The Uniform Commercial Code (U.C.C.) represented the first formal codification of the unconscionability defense in U.S. contract law, 66 and standard form contracts were the focus of the principal drafter, Professor Karl Llewellyn, who “originally intended to . . . invalidate or weaken the force of many such contracts.” 67 And since then, the doctrine of unconscionability has indeed been used to invalidate provisions in a wide variety of standard form contracts. 68

Nevertheless, the Court’s cursory reference to the link in U.S. doctrine between standard form contracts and unconscionability belied a more complicated reality. To speak of U.S. contract law, and unconscionability doctrine in particular, in a manner that suggests homogeneity is to overlook the fact that both largely grew out of state law and are thus necessarily heterogeneous across jurisdictions. 69 U.S. courts generally separate unconscionability into two elements: substantive and procedural. 70 At varying levels, U.S. courts do find that the presence of a standard form contract contributes to procedural unconscionability, but few would declare such a contract procedurally unconscionable only because it is a standard form one. 71 Instead, a vast array of extenuating and mitigating factors come into play.

Some courts, like the Heller majority, look to the presence of complex language beyond the ken of an ordinary consumer to determine whether procedural unconscionability exists. 72 Yet, even in those jurisdictions, factors extending beyond difficult-to-understand terms to elements such as the time and opportunity available to read a contract are often taken into consideration. 73 And the list goes on: courts have considered, among other factors, the “take-it-or-leave-it nature” of the contract and the presence of economic compulsion, 74 unfair surprise, 75 grossly unequal bargaining power, 76 and monopoly power 77 in assessing unconscionability in standard form contracts. Even the District Court for the District of Columbia, applying the D.C. Circuit’s archetypal consideration of unconscionability doctrine in a standard form contract setting relied upon by the Heller majority, 78 has interpreted the doctrine as requiring “something more,” in the form of “greatly disparate” bargaining power, no negotiation, and great necessity. 79 To different lengths, then, U.S. jurisdictions share the Court’s skepticism of verbiage in standard form contracts, but many look for more than a mere showing of difficult-to-read contractual language. Against this laundry list of contractual deficiencies, U.S. unconscionability analysis weighs “the practical utility and universality of [standard] form contracts,” which supports enforceability. 80 Subjectivity is the norm in this jumbled landscape. 81

The comparison drawn by the majority is therefore unlikely to inspire confidence in those who share the concerns of the concurrence and dissent that Heller “vastly expand[ed]” the scope of unconscionability doctrine 82 or pointed to the creation of an “illusory” standard 83 applicable to this extremely common species of contract. 84 More likely, the majority’s casual reference to U.S. unconscionability doctrine will reinforce the concerns of those who worry that the opinion presages a shift in Canadian contract law back to a time “when equity was measured by the length of the Chancellor’s foot,” 85 and further muddies the waters for courts of conscience trying to find the line between the hard bargain and the unconscionable.

^ Campbell Soup Co. v. Wentz, 172 F.2d 80, 84 (3d Cir. 1948).

^ 2020 SCC 16, 447 D.L.R. 4th 179 (Can.).

^ The named defendants in the suit were Uber Technologies Inc., Uber Canada, Inc., Uber B.V., and Rasier Operations B.V. They are collectively referred to as “Uber” because the distinctions between them are not relevant here.

^ S.O. 2000, c 41 (Can.).

^ Heller v. Uber Techs. Inc., 2018 ONSC 718, paras. 2, 26, 421 D.L.R. 4th 343 (Can. Ont. Sup. Ct. J.).

^ Id . para. 29.

^ Id . paras. 17–19, 27–28.

^ Heller v. Uber Techs. Inc., 2019 ONCA 1, para. 11, 430 D.L.R. 4th 410 (Can. Ont. C.A.).

^ Id . para. 15.

^ Heller , 2018 ONSC 718, paras. 3–4.

^ Id . para. 52.

^ Id . para. 74.

^ Id . para. 70.

^ Heller , 2019 ONCA 1, para. 20.

^ Id . para. 60 (describing the Ontario test as requiring “(1) a grossly unfair and improvident transaction; (2) a victim’s lack of independent legal advice or other suitable advice; (3) an overwhelming imbalance in bargaining power caused by the victim’s [disadvantaged position] . . .; and (4) the other party’s knowingly taking advantage of this vulnerability”).

^ 2017 SCC 33, para. 115, [2017] 1 S.C.R. 751 (Can.) (Abella, J., concurring in the result) (requiring inequality of bargaining power and unfairness for unconscionability); id . para. 145 (McLachlin, C.J. & Moldaver & Côté, JJ., dissenting) (same); see Heller , 2019 ONCA 1, para. 61.

^ Heller , 2019 ONCA 1, paras. 62, 68–69.

^ They were joined by Chief Justice Wagner and Justices Moldaver, Karakatsanis, Martin, and Kasirer.

^ Heller , 2020 SCC 16, para. 4.

^ It found Ontario’s Arbitration Act, S.O. 1991, c 17 (Can.), rather than the International Commercial Arbitration Act, S.O. 2017, c 2, sched. 5 (Can.), to be applicable because the dispute was “fundamentally about labour and employment.” Heller , 2020 SCC 16, para. 19.

^ 2007 SCC 34, [2007] 2 S.C.R. 801 (Can.).

^ Heller , 2020 SCC 16, paras. 31–46.

^ Id . para. 32.

^ Id . para. 38. In this case, the Court found that “staying the action in favour of arbitration would be tantamount to denying relief for the claim.” Id . para. 39.

^ Id . paras. 44, 46. It conceded that determining whether there was a “real prospect” of the challenge never being resolved would require “some limited assessment of evidence,” id . para. 45, a level of scrutiny beyond the assessment of “facts that are either evident on the face of the record or undisputed,” which the Court’s precedent had associated with superficial review, id . para. 36, but warned that the assessment “must not devolve into a mini-trial,” id . para. 45.

^ Id . para. 65. In defining its test, the majority rejected Uber’s suggestion that it adopt a four-part requirement similar to the prevailing test in Ontario courts. Id . para. 82.

^ Id . para. 67 (quoting John D. McCamus, The Law of Contracts 429 (2d ed. 2012)).

^ Id . (citing Mitchell McInnes, The Canadian Law of Unjust Enrichment and Restitution 524–25 (2014)).

^ Id . para. 71 (quoting Stephen A. Smith, Contract Theory 343–44 (2004)).

^ Id . para. 75 (citing McInnes , supra note 28, at 528).

^ Id . para. 77.

^ Id . para. 84.

^ Id . para. 93. The Court also made note of the “significant gulf in sophistication” between the two parties and the absence of any information regarding the costs of mediation and arbitration in the agreement. Id .

^ Id . para. 88 (citing S.M. Waddams, The Law of Contracts 240 (7th ed. 2017)).

^ Id . para. 87.

^ Id . para. 89. The Court here offered that some mitigating factors, such as the involvement of “sophisticated commercial parties” or “[s]ufficient explanations” that “offset uncertainty,” could help standard form contracts survive unconscionability analysis. Id . para. 88.

^ Id . para. 89 (citation omitted).

^ Id . para. 90 (citing Williams v. Walker-Thomas Furniture Co., 350 F.2d 445, 449–50 (D.C. Cir. 1965)); see also id . para. 87 (discussing the perspective of the Uniform Commercial Code’s (U.C.C.) primary drafter on standard form contracts).

^ Id . para. 94.

^ Id . para. 97.

^ Id . para. 98.

^ Id . para. 101 (Brown, J., concurring).

^ Id . para. 102.

^ Id . paras. 115–19. In these limited circumstances, Justice Brown suggested courts should be allowed to conduct more than a superficial review of the record, but disagreed with the majority’s conclusion that a contested hearing on the issue was necessary or beneficial. Id . paras. 127–28.

^ Id . para. 130.

^ Id . paras. 129–30.

^ Id . paras. 157–62.

^ Id . para. 166.

^ Id . para. 170.

^ Id . paras. 164–67, 170.

^ Id . para. 199 (Côté, J., dissenting).

^ Id . para. 222. She also disagreed with the majority’s conclusion regarding the applicability of the Arbitration Act. Id . para. 218.

^ Id . para. 257.

^ Id . paras. 257, 264, 282–86.

^ Id . para. 90 (majority opinion) (alteration in original) (quoting Margaret Jane Radin, Access to Justice and Abuses of Contract , 33 Windsor Y.B. Access to Just . 177, 179 (2016)).

^ The majority’s decision to do so was made all the more puzzling by the presence of uncommonly pernicious contractual deficiencies unique to Uber’s contract, like the exclusion of key contractual terms, which would seem to provide a narrower basis for a finding of unequal bargaining power in this case. See supra note 33 and accompanying text.

^ Heller , 2020 SCC 16, para. 75.

^ See, e.g ., Jean Braucher, Unconscionability in the Age of Sophisticated Mass-Market Framing Strategies and the Modern Administrative State , 45 Can. Bus. L.J . 382, 383 (2007). But see Russell Korobkin, Bounded Rationality, Standard Form Contracts, and Unconscionability , 70 U. Chi. L. Rev . 1203, 1259 (2003) (“The suggestion by some courts that adhesive contracts are particularly prone to terms that are undesirable for buyers arises from a fundamental misunderstanding about how the market disciplines sellers.”).

^ See Jassmine Girgis, The Expansion of Unconscionability — The Supreme Court’s Uber Reach , ABlawg (July 23, 2020), https://ablawg.ca/2020/07/23/the-expansion-of-unconscionability-the-supreme-courts-uber-reach [ https://perma.cc/P95E-LBEC ].

^ See Heller , 2020 SCC 16, para. 90 (citing Davidson v. Three Spruces Realty Ltd. (1977), 79 D.L.R. 3d 481, 493 (Can. B.C. S.C.) (assessing unconscionability by looking at six factors, in addition to the presence of a standard form contract, including whether the plaintiffs’ attention was “drawn to the limitation clause . . . [and whether] representations [were] made which would lead an ordinary person to believe that the . . . clause did not apply”)); see also Braucher, supra note 60, at 383–84 (noting Canadian unconscionability doctrine “require[d] a term to be both unusual and onerous, as well as poorly disclosed,” and could therefore be “viewed by the judiciary as one to be invoked very sparingly and only against terms considered way beyond the pale,” id . at 384).

^ See Douez v. Facebook, Inc., 2017 SCC 33, paras. 47, 50–53, [2017] 1 S.C.R. 751 (Can.) (declining to apply unconscionability doctrine to invalidate forum selection clause in standard form contract); see also Heller , 2020 SCC 16, para. 162 (Brown, J., concurring) (criticizing the majority for relying on the Douez concurrence to justify its holding and noting that “[the] Court has never before accepted that a standard form contract denotes the degree of inequality of bargaining power necessary to trigger the application of unconscionability”).

^ Heller , 2020 SCC 16, para. 90 (majority opinion).

^ See S.M. Waddams, Unconscionability in Canadian Contract Law , 14 Loy. L.A. Int’l & Compar. L.J . 541, 541 (1992).

^ Colleen McCullough, Comment, Unconscionability as a Coherent Legal Concept , 164 U. Pa. L. Rev . 779, 792 (2016).

^ Id . The Heller Court found this history to be significant. See Heller , 2020 SCC 16, para. 87 (“As [U.C.C. drafter] Karl N. Llewellyn . . . explained: ‘Instead of thinking about “assent” to boiler-plate clauses, we can recognize that so far as concerns the specific, there is no assent at all.’” (quoting Karl N. Llewellyn , The Common Law Tradition 370 (1960))). The U.C.C. provisions on unconscionability in the end did not reflect Llewellyn’s desire to link the doctrine explicitly to standard form contracts. See McCullough, supra note 66, at 793.

^ McCullough, supra note 66, at 795–96.

^ See Susan Landrum, Much Ado About Nothing?: What the Numbers Tell Us About How State Courts Apply the Unconscionability Doctrine to Arbitration Agreements , 97 Marq. L. Rev . 751, 758 (2014).

^ See Melissa T. Lonegrass, Finding Room for Fairness in Formalism — The Sliding Scale Approach to Unconscionability , 44 Loy. U. Chi. L.J. 1 , 11 (2012). The Heller Court used the terms “inequality of bargaining power” and “improvident bargain” to describe an analogous test. Heller , 2020 SCC 16, para. 65.

^ See McCullough, supra note 66, at 782; see also Korobkin, supra note 60, at 1258 n.201 (citing California, Montana, and Mississippi court decisions as examples equating standard form contracts with procedural unconscionability, but noting that “[t]he majority of courts, however, find that the fact that a contract is adhesive is not alone enough for a finding of procedural unconscionability”).

^ See McCullough, supra note 66, at 807.

^ Quilloin v. Tenet Healthsystem Phila., Inc., 673 F.3d 221, 235–36 (3d Cir. 2012) (quoting Salley v. Option One Mortg. Corp., 925 A.2d 115, 125 (Pa. 2007)).

^ See, e.g ., East Ford, Inc. v. Taylor, 826 So. 2d 709, 716–17 (Miss. 2002) (finding arbitration clause printed in miniscule fine print procedurally unconscionable).

^ See, e.g ., Sun Tr. Bank v. Sun Int’l Hotels Ltd., 184 F. Supp. 2d 1246, 1261–62 (S.D. Fla. 2001) (finding forum selection clause presented to hotel guest at check-in unenforceable).

^ See, e.g ., Entergy Miss., Inc., v. Burdette Gin Co., 726 So. 2d 1202, 1208 (Miss. 1998) (finding indemnity clause drafted by monopoly-holding energy supplier procedurally unconscionable).

^ See Heller , 2020 SCC 16, para. 90 (citing Williams v. Walker-Thomas Furniture Co., 350 F.2d 445 (D.C. Cir. 1965)).

^ Samenow v. Citicorp Credit Servs., Inc., 253 F. Supp. 3d 197, 205 (D.D.C. 2017) (quoting Ruiz v. Millennium Square Residential Ass’n, 156 F. Supp. 3d 176, 181 (D.D.C. 2016)).

^ Lonegrass, supra note 70, at 10.

^ See Paul Bennett Marrow, Squeezing Subjectivity from the Doctrine of Unconscionability , 53 Clev. St. L. Rev . 187, 192, 199–206 (2005–2006).

^ Heller , 2020 SCC 16, para. 103 (Brown, J., concurring).

^ Id . para. 257 (Côté, J., dissenting).

^ See, e.g ., Korobkin, supra note 60, at 1203 (“[N]early all commercial and consumer sales contracts are form driven.”).

^ Heller , 2020 SCC 16, para. 153 (Brown, J., concurring).

• Contract Law
• Foreign & Comparative Law
• Private Law

May 10, 2021

More from this Issue

California v. epa.

Ninth Circuit Adopts Per Se Rule for Modification of Injunctions Based on Superseded Law.

United States v. Miselis

Fourth Circuit Finds the Anti-Riot Act Partially Unconstitutional.

Swain v. Junior

Eleventh Circuit Holds that a Florida Jail Was Not Deliberately Indifferent to the Spread of COVID-19.

More From Forbes

Uber's gender pay gap study may show the opposite of what researchers were trying to prove.

• Share to Facebook
• Share to Twitter
• Share to Linkedin

Photographer: Krisztian Bocsi/Bloomberg

Uber has conducted a study of internal pay differentials between men and women, which they describe as “gender blind.” Aired on a podcast by Freakonomics' Steve Dubner, the researchers (one woman, four men) took great pains to explore whether a pay gap between men and women exists (it does) and how to explain it.

The study found a 7% pay gap in favor of men. They present their findings as proof that there are issues unrelated to gender that impact driver pay. They quantify the reasons for the gap as follows:

Where : 20% is due to where people choose to drive (routes/neighborhoods).

Experience : 30% is due to experience. More experienced Uber drivers make more. N.B. There is a significant gender turnover gap at Uber, over a six-month period, 60% of men quit, 76% of women

Speed: 50% was due to speed, they claim that men drive slightly faster, so complete more trips per hour. N.B. in the study, speed = “distance divided by time on the trip in a given driver-hour." This measures efficiency, not speed. It could be more dependent on route choice than driving speed, a skill developed through experience, see above.

As always in these sorts of debates, the data can be interpreted in many different ways, partly depending on who is doing the research, and why they are doing it.

The Uber paper was written by five economists—two employed by Uber, two Stanford professors; and the chairman of the University of Chicago economics department, who “moonlights as head of the ubernomics team at Uber.” One of the economists is Jonathan Hall , who leads the public policy and economics team at Uber.

It could be noted that Uber is probably not uninterested in improving the company’s image on gender issues, sexism and class action suits pending on sexual harassment of passengers by drivers, as well as simply dangerous driving .

The conclusion of the discussion is that, in the end, there is a simple, rational explanation based on choices, preferences, and behaviors of women vs. men. So this study can (and will) be used to rationalize existing pay gaps. It’s just the way women are, again. We will hear many reactions like this one from the comments section:

“So you end with a call for sexism? 'Wouldn’t it be interesting if one form of gender imbalance — higher tips for women — wound up closing the gender-pay gap at Uber?'  Because women are not as successful at a job - for their own choices and/or genetic differences - let's tip women more? So reward them for not working the worst hours, areas and being slower. Like as a disincentive? While men keep doing the hard work, the bad hours, the crappy areas and still being more effective, and you tip them less. That's 'fair" and "balancing'? You're not well... Feminism really is a form of cancer.”

The podcast sounds eerily like the discussions I hear among the executive teams we work with in large companies around the globe. They look at the simple, factual data about gender in their own companies, and come up with very similar, supposedly rational interpretations for their own pay gaps, or the gender imbalances in leadership, in development or in promotion statistics.

They will point to not dissimilar arguments:

Where: women choose to work in lesser paying sectors, functions, or responsibilities eg. Women "choose" to work in staff rather than line jobs, they don’t "want" senior roles and the associated pressures and sacrifices.

Experience : choices for promotion are always "gender-blind," but if the man has more experience than the woman, you have to promote based on competence, so he has more.

Speed : men are rewarded for following traditional career trajectories (up or out, linear, unbroken), where women (or parents) whose careers were affected by family responsibilities are forever labelled "slower" and thus "less ambitious."

What is missing in these debates, and this report, is an acknowledgment that the environment and culture of the company itself may be impacting men and women differently. When you put a minority of women into a system designed by men (Uber could check the gender balance of the teams that designed their "gender blind" algorithms), you usually get systems normed for male preferences and perspectives.

The fact that Uber can barely retain anyone—male or female — would give any employer pause. From a low base of 27% female drivers, they suffer a female turnover rate of 76% . This is not good for women drivers, and it hasn’t proven particularly good for women riders. Experience and speed are likely related to driver turnover. Women would be more likely to stay if it weren’t for the company’s toxic and female-unfriendly culture, and to the general dubiousness of the ethics of the company’s business model and roll out practices, trailing fights with cities and governments around the globe. The company has constantly been in the news for sexual harassment abuses and the former HR director, Liane Hornsey, resigned after an internal investigation over how she handled racial discrimination issues. So did CFO Prabir Adarkar on similar issues. And while the company under its new CEO Dara Khosrowshahi is trying to clean up its culture , the new COO he brought in from Expedia, Barney Harford, had to be "coached" to learn to stop making misogynistic and racist remarks .

I asked Jennifer Cobbe, a Cambridge University researcher and the Coordinator of Cambridge’s Trustworthy Technologies research initiative, what she thought of the conclusions in the report. She noted the inherent value judgment in people getting paid more to drive faster.

“When they say that women are paid less in large part because they don’t drive as fast as men, they’re shifting the blame for women being paid less onto women themselves – as if this was an obvious, ‘rational’ explanation for the difference in pay which required no further analysis. As if paying faster drivers more was just the natural order of things. But, of course, it isn’t.”

“In fact, “speed” here also means  risk . And let’s not forget that women have long been known to be safer drivers than men (despite the stereotypes). I think it’s strange that, in a service to which people entrust their lives, faster, riskier drivers are paid more than safer drivers, and I think that’s a reflection both of Uber’s culture specifically and of society’s culture more generally.”

“Why are safer drivers not paid more than riskier drivers? Why is performance evaluated in terms of speed and not other metrics like safety? What kind of values are they encoding in their performance criteria? And what role does the fact that as a company Uber is dominated by men have in determining which values are encoded? None of these questions are asked. And it’s very easy to dismiss 50% of the pay gap here if you uncritically accept that speed is a good thing.”

The company’s reputation has been affected by its sexist and unprofessional corporate culture, and its continued lack of gender balance won’t help. Nor, I suspect, will its insistence, with research conducted by its own staff to prove it, that the pay gap is fair. This simply adds insult to obnoxiousness.

But then, why would we have expected any different? The Uber case study’s conclusions may actually be almost the opposite of what they were trying to prove. Rather than showing that the pay gap is a natural consequence of our gendered differences, they have actually shown that systems designed to insistently ignore differences tend to become normed to the preferences of those who create them.

It’s a recurring challenge confirms Cobbe. “You often see this in supposedly ‘rational’ analyses. They’re grounded in so many value-laden assumptions that themselves are rarely acknowledged and never challenged in any meaningful way. There’s nothing rational about this kind of analysis at all. But then ‘rationality’ has for centuries been a way for men to assert the inherent  correctness  of whatever it is they’re saying, regardless of evidence to the contrary or the shallowness of their view, and to dismiss whatever wholly reasonable concerns women are discussing.”

This has far broader consequences than just Uber. Our entire world is being shifted and designed by the tech platforms we are beginning to discover we are at the mercy of. They have overwhelmingly been designed by white men working in Silicon Valley. The culture of the Valley is not unlike the culture of Uber and is famously male-dominated, and normed to a particular sort of bro-masculinity. CEOs, like Dara Khosrowshahi at  Uber , are increasingly hired to move companies into more balanced, 21st-century cultures, but some under-estimate the task. It takes an aligned, skilled leadership team to redesign and balance companies and systems designed by men. Uber is not quite there yet. It will have to throw more than company-funded research at this one.

• Editorial Standards
• Reprints & Permissions

Submit to Digest

Federal circuit flash digest – cases in brief, by ben gunning – edited by rocky li.

Waymo LLC v. Uber Tech., Inc. , No. 2017-2130 (Fed. Cir. Sept. 13, 2017).

The Federal Circuit affirmed an order of the District Court for the Northern District of California denying a motion by Uber Technologies and Ottomotto LLC to compel arbitration with Waymo LLC.

At issue in the case was whether Uber could compel Waymo to arbitrate their pending litigation, based solely on an arbitration clause in the employment agreements between Waymo and intervenor Anthony Levandowski. Judge Newman, writing for a unanimous panel, found that the district court correctly applied the test set forth in Kramer v. Toyota Motor Corp. , 705 F.3d 1122 (9th Cir. 2013) in deciding against compulsory arbitration. According to Kramer , a non-signatory’s ability to enforce an arbitration agreement requires that the signatory-plaintiff’s claims are “‘intimately founded in and intertwined with’ the underlying contract” or “allegations of interdependent misconduct … founded in or intimately connected with the obligations of the underlying agreement.” Applying this test to Waymo’s claims against Uber, which contend that Levandowski downloaded 14,000 Waymo documents and used them for Uber’s benefit, the Federal Circuit confirmed that Waymo’s trade secret claims do not rely on Levandowski’s employment agreements with Waymo and that Waymo’s allegations of collusion are not intimately connected to the underlying agreements.

The Federal Circuit emphasized Waymo’s disclaimer of any reliance on the employment agreements and distinguished between Waymo’s reference to the agreements to demonstrate “reasonable measures to safeguard its trade secrets” and a reliance on the agreements to make its claims. The court similarly found insufficient connections between Waymo’s allegations of misconduct and Levandowski’s employment agreements to satisfy the second prong of the Kramer test. Consequently, the court held that equitable estoppel did not permit Uber to compel arbitration.

This decision does not determine whether Uber or Waymo will ultimately prevail if the case goes to trial. As Dennis Crouch of Patently-O writes, this decision simply means that Waymo’s lawsuit may continue before the district court. For further commentary, IPWatchdog provides a more detailed analysis of the Federal Circuit’s application of Kramer .

Ben Gunning is a 1L student at Harvard Law School.

• Order Status
• Testimonials
• What Makes Us Different

Uber Technologies Harvard Case Solution & Analysis

Home >> Harvard Case Study Analysis Solutions >> Uber Technologies

Introduction

Uber-a ridesharing company started its operations in San Francisco, with an aim to offer easy travel services in the market. The company, since its initiation in 2015, targeted the US market through strong value proposition of offering a better advantage to the drivers. It considered drivers as its Partners inorder to create abetter bond amongthe different stakeholders.

In doing so, the company charged 25% on each ride. Perhaps, Uber developed a competitive edge by pursuing cost leadership strategy and volume sales earning profits while maintaining the customer satisfaction level and ultimately, achieving customer (passenger) satisfaction, increasing word of mouth and ultimately, the sales.

Though till now Uber has maintained a strong comparative position globally, however the legal law litigation and along with the unionization ofdriversrhave made it difficult for Uber to pursue the similar strategy in the market. Also the increasing competition from Lyft and Didi has made the market shrink , limiting the profit margins and also devaluingthe brandimage. Perhaps, the main issues lies in evolving and sustaining its position in theexercising markets through sustained operational base, alongwith the properstrategy to deal with the government  regulations and international organizational structure and values.

In such an ambiguous situation, Uber has to develop such a strategy that would allow  to maintain its distinctive brand image in the US market and  attract potential drivers so as to increase the word of mouth and develop an extensive carpooling network throughout the US and other markets.

Uber Technologies Harvard Case Solution & Analysis

Problem Statement

“Uber is facing legal litigation against the business model, leading torestricted access in the markets . In addition, the companyhas failed to maintain its ethicalbrandimage in the market, leadingto controversies.Lastly, the company has started facing internal threats from drivers in the form of unionization andexternal threat from the increasing competition from the similarbusinessplayers such as Lyft.

Since Uberhas developed a strong brandimage and global stance in the market, followingare the strategies proposed for Uber in order to deal with the driver unionization, employee satisfaction andgovernment support,so to make theplan sustainable and growing.

Operational Strategy

Under the operational strategy, Ubershould adopt a strong differentiation strategy, in which, it charges the driver’s $0.99 flat rate commission as compared to the 20% to 30% each-ride-commission charge. In addition to this and the operational strategy, the company should focus on easing and benefiting the drivers. In doing so, it should offer flexible working hours and schedules to drivers, which increases the performance and satisfaction level of the drivers, ultimately, allowing the company to gain a substantial word of mouth in the market and thus, extended customer satisfactions (riders).

Also, Under the operational strategy, Uber should focus on the core fact that by benefiting the driver through a boost strategy, in which, the rider can offer a high bid price for the offered driver from a low boost area, it can attain satisfaction from both ends, that is, the rider can get low fare rates at the peak hours as compared to other services and the drivers may receive higher fee as compared to operating in low boost areas, thus, developing a two way profit strategy..............

This is just a sample partical work. Please place the order on the website to get your own originally done case solution.

Related Case Solutions & Analyses:

Hire us for Originally Written Case Solution/ Analysis

Like us and get updates:.

Harvard Case Solutions

Search Case Solutions

• Accounting Case Solutions
• Auditing Case Studies
• Business Case Studies
• Economics Case Solutions
• Finance Case Studies Analysis
• Harvard Case Study Analysis Solutions
• Human Resource Cases
• Ivey Case Solutions
• Management Case Studies
• Marketing HBS Case Solutions
• Operations Management Case Studies
• Supply Chain Management Cases
• Taxation Case Studies

More From Harvard Case Study Analysis Solutions

• YALE UNIVERSITY INVESTMENTS
• Browser Wars--1994-98
• The LEGO Group: Envisioning Risks in Asia
• Genzyme Center (B)
• Why Dick and Jane Don't Ask: Getting Past Initiation Barriers in Negotiations
• Concord Center
• GSKs Acquisition of Sirtris: Independence or Integration

Contact us:

Check Order Status

How Does it Work?

Why TheCaseSolutions.com?

Noah Askin

Lisa Simone Duke

Recommended cases.

Fertile Ground for Expansion: Nabta Health’s Global Reach

Reference 6782

Published 24 Jun 2024

Length 20 page(s)

Topic Responsibility

Region Middle-East

Industry Hospital & Health Care ,  Medical Devices

Accelerating Change Management at CEB: The Roots of Change Run Deep

Reference 5743

Published 29 Nov 2010

Length 19 page(s)

Topic Leadership & Organisations

Region Europe

Industry Consulting ,  Information Technology and Services

Fiona and Frédéric Bonner

Reference 6080

Published 25 Sep 2017

Length 9 page(s)

Region North America

Recently Viewed

Board Process Simulation (A)

By   Stanislav Shekshnia

Birkenstock: Exit the Family. Enter a Professional CEO

By   Morten Bennedsen ,  Mark Stabile ,  Brian Henry

Rasurel: Reviving an Ageing Brand

By   Amitava Chattopadhyay ,  Séverine de Wulf

MOVING SALE — Save 50% Off Select Books This Month

Convicting the Innocent

Where Criminal Prosecutions Go Wrong

Brandon L. Garrett

Harvard University Press books are not shipped directly to India due to regional distribution arrangements. Buy from your local bookstore, Amazon.co.in, or Flipkart.com.

This book is not shipped directly to country due to regional distribution arrangements.

Pre-order for this book isn't available yet on our website.

This book is currently out of stock.

Edit shipping location

Dropdown items

• Barnes and Noble
• Bookshop.org
• Waterstones

ISBN 9780674066113

Publication date: 09/03/2012

Request exam copy

On January 20, 1984, Earl Washington—defended for all of forty minutes by a lawyer who had never tried a death penalty case—was found guilty of rape and murder in the state of Virginia and sentenced to death. After nine years on death row, DNA testing cast doubt on his conviction and saved his life. However, he spent another eight years in prison before more sophisticated DNA technology proved his innocence and convicted the guilty man.

DNA exonerations have shattered confidence in the criminal justice system by exposing how often we have convicted the innocent and let the guilty walk free. In this unsettling in-depth analysis, Brandon Garrett examines what went wrong in the cases of the first 250 wrongfully convicted people to be exonerated by DNA testing.

Based on trial transcripts, Garrett’s investigation into the causes of wrongful convictions reveals larger patterns of incompetence, abuse, and error. Evidence corrupted by suggestive eyewitness procedures, coercive interrogations, unsound and unreliable forensics, shoddy investigative practices, cognitive bias, and poor lawyering illustrates the weaknesses built into our current criminal justice system. Garrett proposes practical reforms that rely more on documented, recorded, and audited evidence, and less on fallible human memory.

Very few crimes committed in the United States involve biological evidence that can be tested using DNA. How many unjust convictions are there that we will never discover? Convicting the Innocent makes a powerful case for systemic reforms to improve the accuracy of all criminal cases.

Garrett’s book is a gripping contribution to the literature of injustice, along with a galvanizing call for reform… It’s the stories in his book that stick in the memory. One can only hope that they will mobilize a broad range of citizens, liberal and conservative, to demand legislative and judicial reforms ensuring that the innocent go free whether or not the constable has blundered. —Jeffrey Rosen, New York Times Book Review

Garrett’s book zooms out the view to give the reader a sense of the scope of the problems in our justice systems. But he does so in a way which I find both earnest and charitable. —Andrew Cohen, The Atlantic

A uniquely valuable part of Garrett’s book is a statistical appendix that provides a quantitative overview of the false convictions, their consequences, and the factors that contributed to them… It is hard to imagine seven pages more damaging to the claims of our system of criminal justice. —Richard C. Lewontin, New York Review of Books

Looking at the 250 people exonerated through DNA as of February 2010, Garrett aimed to determine how often…malignant factors had warped the criminal justice process at the expense of an innocent person (and to the benefit of an actual criminal who went unpursued). Garrett tracked down court transcripts and dug into case files. He then sliced, diced, sifted and collated the data. Some law professors would take a pass on this kind of grunt work. Garrett did not, and our justice system can be the better for it. —Kevin Doyle, America

This book details some of the worst miscarriages of justice in U.S. history and describes how DNA evidence helped to right those wrongs… The book, what must be the most thorough treatment yet of wrongful convictions, is a first-rate examination of the human foibles and conflicts of interest hampering the pursuit of justice. —A. C. Mobley, Choice

While false convictions are a recognized phenomenon, Garrett focuses much needed attention on potential solutions, offering concrete suggestions for reform. —Publishers Weekly

For six years now I have worked diligently within the innocence movement, and I often hear the question: ‘How do wrongful convictions happen?’ Convicting the Innocent gives all the answers. It is a fascinating study of what goes wrong, and it clearly shows that virtually all wrongful convictions could have been avoided. —John Grisham

DNA testing is revolutionizing our system of criminal justice: this book shows why. By digging deep into the case files of exonerees, Brandon Garrett uncovers what went wrong in those cases and probably in many more we simply can’t know about. Garrett makes a powerful case for how to improve criminal justice so that we dramatically reduce the number of wrongly convicted. —Barry Scheck and Peter Neufeld, The Innocence Project

This is an invaluable book, a comprehensive, highly readable but well-researched work examining the hows and whys of the law’s ultimate nightmare—convicting the innocent. —Scott Turow, author of Innocent

It’s common to say that DNA exonerations of innocent defendants provide a unique window on the weaknesses in our system of criminal investigation and trial. But what exactly do we see when we look through that window? Until now the answer has been pretty sketchy. Brandon Garrett has produced a far more detailed and complete picture of the lessons of DNA exonerations than anything else to date. This is an indispensable book for anyone wanting to understand or improve American criminal justice. —Samuel R. Gross, Thomas and Mabel Long Professor of Law, University of Michigan

How can we stop sending innocent people to our prisons? As you turn the pages of this important and startling book, you will come to realize that wrongful convictions are not accidents. They are the tragic result of a criminal justice system in deep need of reform. —Sister Helen Prejean, author of Dead Man Walking

• Brandon L. Garrett is the L. Neil Williams, Jr., Professor of Law at Duke University School of Law.

Book Details

• 6-1/8 x 9-1/4 inches
• Harvard University Press

From this author

End of Its Rope

Too Big to Jail

Recommendations.

Justice Abandoned

Criminal Justice in Divided America

A Pattern of Violence

Prisoners of Politics

Sorry, there was an error adding the item to your shopping bag.

Expired session

Sorry, your session has expired. Please refresh your browser's tab.

Main navigation

An item has been added to the cart

Added to shopping bag

• Copy to clipboard

Set your location

It looks like you're in   . Would you like to update your location?

Unavailable

Harvard University Press titles are not shipped directly to India due to local distribution arrangements.

Unavailable in country .

Shopping Bag

Your shopping bag is currently empty. Add items to your shopping bag, to complete check out.

You are now being redirected to bestq.info....

Pardon Our Interruption

As you were browsing something about your browser made us think you were a bot. There are a few reasons this might happen:

• You've disabled JavaScript in your web browser.
• You're a power user moving through this website with super-human speed.
• You've disabled cookies in your web browser.
• A third-party browser plugin, such as Ghostery or NoScript, is preventing JavaScript from running. Additional information is available in this support article .

To regain access, please make sure that cookies and JavaScript are enabled before reloading the page.

• Harvard Business School →
• Faculty & Research →
• May 2016 (Revised January 2018)
• HBS Case Collection

Airbnb, Etsy, Uber: Acquiring the First Thousand Customers

• Format: Print
• | Language: English
• | Pages: 17

Related Work

• Faculty Research
• Airbnb, Etsy, Uber: Acquiring the First Thousand Customers  By: Thales S. Teixeira and Morgan Brown

• SUGGESTED TOPICS
• The Magazine
• Newsletters
• Managing Yourself
• Managing Teams
• Work-life Balance
• The Big Idea
• Data & Visuals
• Reading Lists
• Case Selections
• HBR Learning
• Topic Feeds
• Account Settings
• Email Preferences

Share Podcast

Are You Ready to Be a Leader?

If you want to lead, ask yourself these questions first.

• Apple Podcasts

What distinguishes a leader? How do you know if you’re ready to lead? And how do you make the transition into a leadership role?

The shift from being part of a team to leading one isn’t like flipping a switch. It’s a process, and it can be awkward. It can be especially difficult your identity differs from other leaders in your organization — for example, if you’re a young leader in an organization dominated by older leaders, or a woman in a male-dominated organization.

In this episode, two leadership coaches, Amy Su and Muriel Wilkins of Paravis Partners, explain how to develop a leadership presence that’s both authentic to you and resonates with others. You’ll also learn some deeper questions to ask yourself during your transition into leadership.

Key episode topics include: leadership, gender, authenticity, leadership presence, transitions, influencing others, leadership style, leadership journey.

HBR On Leadership curates the best case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, to help you unlock the best in those around you. New episodes every week.

• Listen to the original Women at Work episode: Seeing Ourselves as Leaders (2019)
• Find more episodes of Women at Work .
• Discover 100 years of Harvard Business Review articles, case studies, podcasts, and more at HBR.org .

HANNAH BATES: Welcome to HBR on Leadership , case studies and conversations with the world’s top business and management experts, hand-selected to help you unlock the best in those around you.

The shift from being part of a team to leading one isn’t like flipping a switch. It’s a process…and it can be awkward. Convincing other people that you can and should lead is hard enough. But how do you convince yourself?

And that can be especially difficult if none of your identity groups – whether gender, race, class, geography, or age – have helped to define the cultural norms of leadership.

No matter who you are, the transition into management can raise difficult questions. Today we bring you a conversation about what distinguishes a leader, how to know if you’re ready to be one, and how to make that transition – with the help of two leadership coaches: Amy Su and Muriel Wilkins of Paravis Partners.

In this episode, you’ll learn how to develop your leadership presence in a way that’s authentic to you and resonates with others.

You’ll also learn about the deeper questions you should ask yourself as a leader.

This episode originally aired on Women at Work in December 2019. Here it is.

AMY BERNSTEIN: I remember the first time I was really challenged to stop being, you know, a follower and be a leader. A colleague saw me in a context where I was supposed to be leading, and I evidently wasn’t because she came up to me afterwards and she said, what are you waiting for? Who are you waiting to say, and now Amy is the leader?

AMY GALLO: Right.

AMY BERNSTEIN: And you were, you were given every opportunity, and you just blew it.

AMY GALLO: Huh.

AMY BERNSTEIN: And she was so right. She was so right. I mean, I felt like crap when she said it. But you know, that prompted a lot of soul-searching.

AMY GALLO: And what did you do differently?

AMY BERNSTEIN: I looked for opportunities to steer and to offer guidance. And instead of asking a question, I would offer my view, here’s what I would recommend. It was really sort of a — I had to switch the channel from being, you know, I guess I viewed myself as just one of many people on the team to taking ownership and recognizing that if this thing we were working on failed, I would be the one to blame. And it was really like that self-generated thing, where you realize that it’s up to you to make it work.

AMY BERNSTEIN: You’re listening to Women at Work from Harvard Business Review. I’m Amy Bernstein.

AMY GALLO: I’m Amy Gallo.

NICOLE TORRES: And I’m Nicole Torres. Making the transition from being one of many on a team, an individual contributor, a follower — however you’d like to think of that role — to being a leader is a process. It’s a process of not just convincing other people to see us as leaders, but also of convincing ourselves that we can and should lead. This episode we are going to be exploring this process of becoming a leader, including the soul-searching that women in particular often have to do to get there. Our guests are experts on leadership development and friends of the show. You might remember Muriel Wilkins from our episode on visibility and Amy Su from our episode on claiming credit. They founded the executive coaching firm Paravis Partners and wrote a book together called Own the Room. And Amy Su just came out with a new book, The Leader You Want to Be.

AMY BERNSTEIN: I was away when this interview happened. So, Amy G. and Nicole will take it from here. I’ll be back later in the episode.

AMY GALLO: Amy and Muriel, thank you so much for joining us.

MURIEL WILKINS: Thank you.

AMY SU: It’s great to be here.

AMY GALLO: My very first question is, do you remember the first time that you were being seen as a leader — but like the moment you realized, Oh, actually other people see me as a leader?

MURIEL WILKINS: Hmm, that’s a great question. I have to think about that one for a little bit. It was my first supervisory job, which, looking back now, I was naively very young and thrusted into this role and having to supervise individuals who were far more experienced than I was. And while I knew that I was there as a supervisor and as a manager, I certainly didn’t see myself as a leader — but everybody else did. And it took a couple of big fails for me to step into the leadership role and recognize that it was much more than just making sure that people were doing what they were supposed to be doing. So, I do remember it. And now in hindsight probably a little bit more painfully than I’d like to.

AMY GALLO: How about you, Amy Su?

AMY SU: There was a day when I had really lost it on somebody who worked with me and you know, later when I debriefed with that person and you realized how much you were able to cause a bad day for somebody else. There’s just this moment that, wow, you know, perhaps I’m a leader now and my temperament and mood and state of being is actually going to impact the way others feel.

AMY GALLO: Right, that ripple effect. It sounds like for both of you it was not very positive and I think, you know, as we’ve been discussing this topic, we’ve talked about how it’s a bit like an awkward growth spurt to go from someone who’s an individual contributor focused on learning, absorbing, to someone who’s now seen as a leader. I’m curious if that’s how you think of it in your writing and your work with coaching clients. Is this sort of an awkward phase, an exciting phase? How do you characterize it?

MURIEL WILKINS: Yeah, yeah. I, you know, I never quite thought of it as awkward, but certainly an uncomfortable phase, which, as we all know, that’s where most of the growth happens. And it’s hard because on the one hand you want to go back to what you are comfortable with and what has made you successful up until now. And on the other hand, you know that you can step into the role that you’re currently in, the potential that you have. So certainly uncomfortable, can definitely be awkward. And at the same time, I think one of the inflection points that is really great for growth for anyone.

NICOLE TORRES: So, I see two challenges or two things that make this such an uncomfortable phase. And the first thing is like, do you see yourself as a leader? So kind of the stories you were describing when you’re placed into a position where you’re suddenly managing people, if you don’t think of yourself as a leader, you kind of have to get into that mindset and realize that your behaviors are going to be interpreted differently because you’re a leader and because you’re managing people. But then the other challenge is if you see yourself as a leader, but other people do not. So maybe you’ve stepped into a managerial role or maybe you’re leading a project and you see yourself as being the one making decisions, but you don’t necessarily feel like other people perceive you as that leader. Do you see those two challenges play out?

AMY SU: Nicole, I think, you know, both sides of that equation Muriel and I have definitely seen, where there’s both your own shift internally around realizing that you are a leader and that you are bringing a different business judgment and a different set of decision-making skills to the table. And at the same time as you mentioned, it’s also interesting to see how perception follows along with that. And I think in our coaching work we’ve always seen that the internal shift often happens sooner, quicker, with a greater pronouncement than perhaps how others view you.

AMY GALLO: Let’s take each of those in turn because I think the internal one, while it may happen quicker seems really, for many people, especially women, hard to make that leap. And I’m curious, when you coach clients who are making that leap, how do you help them? Like what are the major obstacles and how do you help them get there?

MURIEL WILKINS: In anything, right, the internal piece is the harder part. But it’s also the one that is most sustainable in terms of achieving the transformation or the change or the shift that you want to make, whether it’s in your career, or, quite frankly, even in your personal life. And I think with clients, one of the big things they really need to embrace is that being a leader or acting as a leader doesn’t necessarily require the hierarchical position. And so, a lot of them wait till they get the promotion, right? Till they’re the vice president, till they’re managing a team, assuming that that’s when they need to be quote unquote “leaderly.” As though it’s like, OK, it’s a rite of passage, you’re promoted, now you can wear your leadership hat. Whereas in reality, you should be preparing for this from day one. And I think with women, part of the challenge is that they are not necessarily conditioned for leadership positions early on, so they don’t get a ton of practice before they even enter the workplace. Right, if you look at the research even around, you know, the ability for women to raise their hands in classroom — or not women, young girls — you start seeing that dissonance very early on. And I think that follows women into the workplace. So a lot of what we have to work with them on is not just the mindset in terms of seeing themselves as a leader — what does that mean, how do they want to lead, how do they want to be known? — but also starting to understand that there are some specific skills that help in terms of establishing your leadership, asserting your leadership primarily around your communication skills, your ability to speak up, your ability to listen, your ability to ask good questions, how you lead your work and drive your work, as well as even your physical presence, right? How you hold yourself in a room, in a conversation, and can you do it in a way that again, makes you feel like you’re a leader and makes others feel like they’re in the presence of a leader as well?

AMY GALLO: One of the challenges for women is that many of them get the messages that in order to be a leader, you need to, you know, use typically masculine traits. I mean, this is one of the most popular articles we’ve ever published on HBR.org is about why so many incompetent men become leaders, and so much of it is about how we value confidence and assertiveness. And I think for some women, me included, the hesitancy to step into the role in the way you’re talking about is like, Do I have to do that? Right? Do I have to be assertive and aggressive and authoritative in order to be a leader? How do women get over that hurdle? How do we think about that?

MURIEL WILKINS: That is a big sort of life-asserting question that you’re posing here, right? Because the struggle and the tension is between what the world expects you to be and who you are. And so even this, you know, this concept of leadership looks one way, which is, quite frankly, the white masculine way,

NICOLE TORRES: Mhm.

MURIEL WILKINS: And so, from my standpoint, in working with women, it’s to A) get them to understand that it is a myth, that the real work starts from within, to understand who are you, what do you stand for? What are your principles? What is your way of being in the world, and the behaviors that make you who you are? And then it’s really getting them away from what their default behaviors and skills might be — again, how they’ve habitually created who they are right now and how they act — and more start to get them to think about what do they want? Right? So, the minute I have a client who says with real conviction that they do want to lead, that’s actually the biggest breakthrough. Because they have to own it. Once we understand that, then we can work backwards to say, Alright, so how do you do this in a way that supports who you are, while at the same time being relevant and resonates with those who you need to lead?

NICOLE TORRES: Are there specific examples of things that you tell clients who come to you and they say, I want to lead, and you know, you want to send them out and have them practice different styles of leadership? What are some things you tell them to do to establish themselves as leaders if they don’t have, you know, the title that denotes certain responsibility, but they want to start embodying a leader? What do you tell them to do?

AMY SU: I think Nicole, the word “embodiment” is really important. We could tell somebody all we want that we’re a leader, we’re a leader, let me tell you, I’m a leader — and it’s really about the felt experience of the other person. So, for example, you might be somebody who historically asked a lot of questions or asked for advice from others. And so, for example, Nicole, maybe in the past I would say to you, Hey Nicole, how do you think I should price this proposal? And instead, I think in a more leader stance, I might come to you now with what I call the “comment and the question,” where I’m sharing with you my business judgment first and then asking a question. So instead, I might say, Nicole, I’m thinking we should price this proposal this way. I think it, you know, inherently keeps the value of our firm and at the same time mitigates risks on renewals. But I really value your perspective. Do you think I’m missing anything here? So there’s a big difference in when our stance is historically, wow, I don’t have the answers, so I’m going to go ask others and follow, versus I’m a leader, I’m going to share with you my judgment, but then hold openness to other perspectives.

NICOLE TORRES: I love that.

MURIEL WILKINS: And then if I can add to that, I think if a client is working in a specific organization that has their own model of what it looks like to be an effective leader in that organization, at a very practical level, I ask them, Do you even know what it means to be an effective leader in this organization? If the answer is no, then they have to go on a little field trip to HR and ask, right, what does the leadership model look like here? Is there one? And usually it’s made up of, you know, eight to 12 skills, and we start working on those skills.

AMY GALLO: We probably have people who are listening and saying, I’ve nailed the internal, I know I want to be a leader, I’ve looked at the competencies, I’ve started doing, you know, exhibiting the behavior, but people around me still don’t see me as a leader. Do you have any advice for women in that situation, where they feel like they’re pushing to be a leader, but yet they’re not getting the response they want?

AMY SU: The word you use, they’re “pushing” really says a lot. I think when we are coming from a place of trying to prove ourself, people can smell that and there’s actually a tremendous amount of insecurity that sits underneath of that. So, there’s a distinction for me between, I really own my expertise and I understand the business knowledge and skills and experience that I bring to the table. I think that feels very different than when you come to the table with, I need to prove that I’m an expert and I hope they see me as an expert. Somehow, folks can smell the difference. And so, I think we need to really push ourselves to say, Is the pressure to prove we’re being an expert actually getting in the way?

MURIEL WILKINS: And I think it’s important to also bring people along, right? Many times, individuals are not pushing back on you trying to grow your leadership wings, spread your wings, if you will. It’s that they’re not used to it. They’re used to operating with you and experiencing you in the way that you have been. I think that it’s actually really helpful to have a couple of advocates, champions, sponsors who are excited for you to spread your wings, and who you rely on in terms of getting advice and counsel and mentoring, however you want to call it, as you’re going through this passage, that way they are coming along with you. And I think for women in particular, depending on where they are in their career, this is especially important. If you have had a male boss or mentor. I’ve seen many women get caught up in a bit of this like father daughter relationship in the manager, you know, when their manager or their mentor is a male. And as you’re growing and spreading your wings, you know, is that really the dynamic that you want to have, whether it’s conscious or unconscious. So bringing people along, being even very explicit that this is what you want, that you want to grow as a leader, that you see yourself in a leadership role, that this is your intent as you go into that next position, how can they best support you in doing that, and asking for their support can be really healthy in helping move through that transition.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. I mean, I’ve seen that dynamic play out between two women, where the boss wants to protect the person who’s rising up —

AMY SU: Yes.

MURIEL WILKINS: Right.

AMY GALLO: And so they, you know, don’t give them too much work to do or they, you know, go to the meeting instead of them because they have too much on their plate or, and I think there is something to be said for saying to your mentor, sponsor, manager, I got this. Right? This is what I want. I want to move forward. Yes, it’s a lot. But I got it.

AMY SU: And also, I think Amy, to remind your boss or sponsor or mentor how that growth in you actually benefits them because you’re now able to take more off their plate.

AMY GALLO: Right, right.

NICOLE TORRES: Yeah. But how hard is it to get, you know, a manager or someone who’s mentoring you, someone who’s mentoring you and trying to give you advice for how to grow and be a better employee — how do you get them to stop thinking of you as someone who needs a lot of direction and guidance? How do you get them to start seeing you as someone who can give direction to others?

MURIEL WILKINS: I think if there’s been a trusting relationship up until now, you acknowledge and show gratitude for the support that that person has given you, and you make the request that they let you try it out on your own. Right? So, it’s a both. You don’t want to shun them because they’re supportive and that’s an asset. And you don’t want to let go of that asset. So, I don’t think it’s so much demonstrating, I think it’s actually having that explicit conversation with that individual.

AMY GALLO: That’s making me think Muriel too, that you also have to be specific because if you say to your manager, mentor, sponsor, I want to be seen as a leader, that could mean a zillion different things.

MURIEL WILKINS: Yes.

AMY SU: Absolutely.

AMY GALLO: Right, so you need to say, I want to be able to make the decision on X. I want to be someone who people seek out for expertise on Y, right. I want to, you know, people to value my opinion when I speak up at a meeting, I think be more specific and as you say Muriel, making a request of here’s how you can help me do that —

AMY GALLO: — is really powerful.

MURIEL: Right. And you can also ask in a specific way, right? Seek counsel and say, Manager, I really want to work on my ability to be seen as a leader, you know, six months from now, what would be some of the hallmarks that you’d want to see that you’d expect from me if that’s my goal?

AMY GALLO: Right. You’re also making me think of, when you mentioned the trip to HR earlier about figuring out what the competencies are, I also have seen people and have done myself a lot of observing of other people. And I noticed once that someone, I, that many people thought of as a leader, often said at the end of the meeting, let me know if you want me to weigh in on that. And I was like, Oh, I should use that. That’s a good line because it demonstrates, I have expertise, I’m willing to help if you want my opinion. But it’s not necessarily, you know, if it’s helpful, I will weigh in. And I thought that was like such a nice way to establish this person who had expertise, this was someone people typically sought their opinion from, and it sort of said, I’m a leader without having to be like, I’m in charge, right.

NICOLE TORRES: Yeah.

AMY SU: And I think, Amy, you’re mentioning something here that does distinguish a leader, where you begin to see at more senior levels, people are just more comfortable batting ideas around with each other in a much more peer-to-peer stance. And oftentimes you see somebody who’s still trying to make that turn because they’re still walking in with the over-packaged document, or the over-packaged presentation, and they feel like they can only speak when it’s about their area. And I think part of being seen as a leader is the willingness to bring your judgment, bring your acumen, bat things around in a much more informal way.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. Well and I know you both, you talk about in your book Own the Room about also, you know, trying to make connections between — so as you get a broader view of the organization you’re trying to make connections between departments or units or different initiatives. So sometimes it’s even about asking questions like how does this impact so-and-so’s project, or how are these two things connected?

AMY SU: And in fact, one of the exercises that I really like to give clients is, as you are stepping into a bigger role or a new role, or you’re thinking of showing up as a stronger leader, what is the percentage of lead and percentage of learn that you need to have as an equation? And so, there’s some part of our work that is, yes, we are leading, we are bringing our skills, we are bringing our decision-making, we are bringing our clarity. But there’s as much a percentage that’s about learning from other parts of the organization and holding a more open stance and actually being planful about that. Who are the other people or functions I could get more information from, what networks might I want to build in this next role? So, it’s important to think about what’s my lead learn in any given situation.

AMY GALLO: I love that.

AMY GALLO: Because not only does that help you transition to doing more leading, but it also, you know, prevents the risk that you just become so focused on leading that you stop learning.

AMY SU: Right.

NICOLE TORRES: And that you think you have all the answers.

AMY GALLO: Yup.

NICOLE TORRES: But does that balance change, you know, over the course of your career? Like something that my friends and I talk about a lot is if you have, you know, kind of come of age in one organization, if you came of age professionally at one company, you know, maybe you started as an intern or you started at, you know, another entry level position and you stayed there long enough and you’ve kind of grown a lot, at least on paper in your role, but also in how you see yourself and how you understand the company. I think a big challenge is still like how do you get people to stop seeing you as that intern, you know, who started like five years ago, and start seeing you as someone who has a pretty good understanding of what the company needs right now and how this organization operates, and can make good decisions to help lead it forward. I’m wondering if you have worked with clients who’ve faced that similar challenge and how you get them to, how you help them overcome it?

AMY SU: It is a challenge I think when you’re homegrown, right? Where you’ve, the organization has seen you at many stages of your development. And so, I think many of the things we’ve already discussed here, number one, you yourself staying updated to who you are and where you’ve been and where you are now is very important. Some of the things that Muriel shared earlier around making sure that you’re keeping others under the tent and being clear on your intentions of growth. And I think really trying to make the advantage of that you have institutional knowledge, you have a loyalty to the organization, you have a history of relationships. And so, as you continue to talk about your career development within that organization, how do you keep bringing those strengths and those benefits to bear in terms of the next difference you want to make. And I think you have to be careful to keep your eyes out for cues. So if your organization keeps hiring external folks into roles that you want, or if you find that folks continue to treat you as if you are a version of yourself from 10 years ago, those are cues that you want to pay attention to and make sure you’re not stagnating.

NICOLE TORRES: And if you are seeing those cues, if you feel like you are stagnating, what do you do?

AMY SU: I think first you try to have conversations with folks about your career development that you do have a loyalty in history, you do feel like you add value, be clear on the difference you hope to make next. And if still, if nothing happens, then I think all of us, and women especially, need to understand that you have market value outside of your organization, and it might be worth having some conversations outside to see what might be possible.

MURIEL WILKINS: You know, this is where I think — and I don’t want to speak in general terms that all women are like this — but this is just my anecdotal experience in having worked with clients, and as you said, like talking to friends. One of the areas that I don’t think women tend to look out for as much as I see their male counterparts do is when they are assigned a new position or role or project, do they make the assessment of, have they been set up for success? And so to this point around when you’re homegrown, using that actually as an advantage if you are, if you are offered a new role, a new position to really take a step back before accepting and negotiating what you can to make sure that you’re set up for success. And so, what does that mean? Right? In practical terms, for example, if you have a concern that the peers, that the people who used to be your peers are now going to be reporting to you and how’s that gonna play out? Being able to get your boss or your manager to explicitly show your support and have that person help get buy-in from those peers, now direct reports, sort of smoothing the stage before you get on is a way of setting up conditions to help you be more successful. We tend to have this mindset that when we’re offered these roles, you know, the mindset tends to be, Oh my God, we’re so thankful, you know, we’re grateful — Oh, lucky me that I made it this far, versus what I tell my clients, I tell myself, I tell my kids like, No, like you’re lucky to have me. Right? [LAUGHTER] You’re lucky to have me. Right? I’m bringing value. I’m bringing it on. I am excited to be here. You are excited to have me here. You offered me the role, so let’s, you know, let’s kick this thing off and really make sure it works for everybody.

MURIEL WILKINS: And I think that’s a mindset that really helps in terms of being able to get that support and getting people to, getting people to see that you are also excited. You’re not stepping into it hesitantly. You’re stepping into it because basically, you know, it’s almost like I’ve been ready for this, right? The time is now. Let me go for it. And at the same time, as Amy said, use all the social capital and institutional knowledge that you have as a benefit rather than as a crutch.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. I was asked a question recently by a woman of color, a black woman who said that she worked in an organization where she just felt like she was never going to succeed because of her race and her gender. And she said, how do I know when it’s just not going to happen? You know, where I’m not going to be seen as a leader because of these biases versus, you know, I haven’t done enough yet. And I’m curious if you have advice for someone in that situation.

MURIEL WILKINS: I would look at what are the signs that she’s getting. Number one, you know, when she looks ahead of her in terms of the different ranks, what does that look like? Are there any other women or people of color or, you know, bingo, bonus, women of color that are more senior? So, is there a track record there? Secondly, is she getting support even in the role that she’s in? Right? Is she being offered, even if she has to ask, opportunities to be able to get not only visibility, but also more experience and exposure because those are the things that will actually get you ahead? It’s the visibility, the social capital, as well as the knowledge capital, which only comes through experience. So, has she had enough at-bats at that? And are there possibilities for her to get that? If she’s getting knocked down every time she asks, well then that’s another sign. The other is, you know, is she able to attain a sponsor even if it’s an informal sponsor within the organization? So, what I would say is if, you know, all things being equal, if your performance is great, right? Let’s assume the performance is really top notch, and we’re not questioning that. But if you’re able to sort of do everything that you can in these other areas that I spoke of and over some time, it doesn’t seem like it’s leading to anything, then you do need to have, you know, a frank conversation with yourself around whether this place is the place that’s going to set you up for success in terms of the goals that you want. And you also have to ask yourself, you know, what’s your time limit? And everybody’s is different, right? I do think that some people opt out too early. But I also think that you need to set a time range, and sometimes you don’t really know till you go elsewhere.

NICOLE TORRES: So I really like your advice on having explicit conversations with managers or whoever that you know, lets them know that you want to lead and here are all the things that you’re willing to do and here are ways that you could use their support to get better. But I’ve also gotten the advice from people to like just start leading, you know, like just, if you’re given like the task to be in charge of something, then like really assert yourself in leading that. So, schedule meetings, like start sending emails about those things, you know, like really attach yourself as the person who’s responsible for a given project. And I’m wondering if you know, are there certain moments when you should just do that?

AMY SU: Nicole, I think that moment exists every day, and I would encourage people to just do that. Right? When you take any project that you’re working on, I think the push to ourselves to say, Am I thinking about this project simply as a set of activities that I need to execute well, or am I pausing to think about it differently? If I looked at the same business problem, but now I put it on a three-year horizon, or if I thought about the risks involved, or if I thought about the competitive benchmarks. I think there’s so much more that we can each do every day to bring a different level of strategic thinking to the work we do, to the way we communicate. Are we framing up in a more senior level way? So, I think the world of possibilities to demonstrate a higher order of leadership is available to all of us at every moment, whether somebody gives us permission or not.

NICOLE TORRES: Yeah. How do you stay, I know we all have those moments of doubt — we talk about imposter syndrome on this show. But if you are, you know, a leader, if you start seeing yourself as a leader, and you sense that other people doubt you — you know, people think that you have progressed too fast, they kind of still see you as someone who needs training wheels — like how do you just preserve your own sense of confidence so that you know you can lead and some people are just wrong about you.

MURIEL WILKINS: I mean, one of the things that I think is really helpful, particularly when you take on a management role for the first time and you start leading a team really upfront, very, very early on, getting on the table, what people’s hopes and aspirations are in terms of you being the leader, but also understanding what their concerns might be, right? And that ability to listen upfront around the concerns gives you an added advantage in terms of being able to not get the defensive but address them. And also hearing what the expectations are because the more that you can start being in tune to those expectations and potentially meet some of those expectations and get some quick wins — that starts building your credibility. The biggest watch-out is to get defensive. Because if you get defensive, it’s just going to alienate everyone, right? And you don’t want to be in that position.

AMY GALLO: What if you’re not sure if you want to lead? What if you’re on the fence about taking on more responsibility? How do you decide whether this is actually something you want to do?

MURIEL WILKINS: I think you need to, this is where you really need to think through what, you know, what do the next couple of years look like for you? I don’t think it’s a lifetime decision, right? Some people look at it as what do I want to do with my life. And I, for one, I really think just look at things in a three to five-year horizon. Five years seems like a very long time to me. So really focus on the next couple of years rather than this is for the rest of my life. And from that standpoint, one of the best ways that you can do that is to look ahead, right? What could be the possibility five years from now? What are the different scenarios? And which ones sits better in terms of being more aligned with what you want? What you don’t want to have happen is, I don’t want to follow that particular scenario out of fear. And that’s a very different way of opting out. I remember early on in my career, I recognized that I was getting very close to really being in a position to gun for partner at a consulting firm. And while I did believe that I could do it, the question was, did I want to do it? And those are two very different things. So, I think the first question is, do you think you can do it? The second is, do you want to do it? And while I believed that I could do it, I recognized after a lot of just my own self-searching and talking to others and looking at those who are ahead of me, even those that I greatly admired, that that was not what I wanted. And the reason I didn’t want it is that that wasn’t the way that I wanted to make an impact. Right? And so, having the ability to sit back and think about those two questions — do I believe I can do it, and do I want it — are very critical.

AMY SU: And I think there’s, you know, people out there similarly who, in the question of do I want to do it, end up being guided by a should, that career success looks like being a leader and having this many direct reports and as long as that universe keeps growing, then somehow I’m successful. So, I think Muriel’s point around do I want to do it? Does this make sense for this next phase of my life? I had a colleague recently who went from leading a team of 50 people, an organization of 50, and she and I talked about how at this stage of her life, as she looked at the next four years, both of her kids are in high school, and she realized that she went to her boss and said, Over the next four years I want to be home more, I’m finding that I miss some of the work I got to do day-to-day because now I’m really managing other people. So, she’s moved back to an individual contributor role. And that’s what works for her at this time. So, is she any less leaderly? No, I think this was just a woman who was very in touch with what this next phase of life meant to her and what was the work that was going to feed her as well as feed her family.

AMY GALLO: I like that because I think we often have this idea that leadership is just a, you know, straight incline, and you just acquire more things to — more initiatives, more people, and that’s the only way to grow. And I love that she’s not any less a leader, she’s just stepping back from those particular responsibilities.

NICOLE TORRES: Amy, Muriel, thank you so much for joining us. This has been super helpful.

AMY SU: Thanks so much for having us.

MURIEL WILKINS: Thank you. This was great. Thanks for having us.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Well what does it mean to be seen as a leader to you?

NICOLE TORRES: I think it’s a term that we throw out there. Like some people are like leaders, like I can think of a handful of people who are like so commonly referred to as leaders, and other people who I’ve never heard called leaders — even though the actual work they do, like there’s a lot of managing and leading.

AMY BERNSTEIN: I don’t think you’re talking just about yourself —

NICOLE TORRES: Yeah, yeah.

AMY BERNSTEIN: — I think you’re talking more universally, but I think you might be surprised at how many people in roles of authority view the people you’re talking about, who don’t have the formal authority, as leaders.

AMY BERNSTEIN: And that’s why they keep going back to them to take on new initiatives. That’s being seen as a leader by leaders. Right?

NICOLE TORRES: Right.

AMY GALLO: In my experience, I’ve either been doing it before people have formally accepted it, and I’m just sort of going for it, hoping they’ll catch up, or I notice way too late and I’m like, Oh, this was an opportunity where I should have been more leaderly and I thought of myself as a follower.

AMY BERNSTEIN: See I notice it in its absence, when someone whom I expect to manage — and we don’t need to get into the difference between management and leadership — but someone whom I expected to lead a project failed to take ownership. And that shows up as asking for guidance on every single decision that I would have trusted her to make.

AMY GALLO: Or sitting back — I’ve done this myself of just sort of sitting back and waiting for the group to move things forward, and rather than taking the lead, you know, and being in control and determining this is the next step, this is what we’re doing.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Oh that’s so, yeah, that’s really smart because the other way I’ve seen it show up is someone who’s been put in charge of a project and thinks that the right way to make decisions is to take a poll of the room rather than to make the decision. You put someone in charge of a project generally because you trust her judgment. Right?

AMY BERNSTEIN: And you trust her to get all of the information and insight she needs to make the best decision.

AMY GALLO: Yeah.

NICOLE TORRES: And speaking of like decision-making and how confident people are in your decisions, the things I think about that would, you know, assure me that people see me as a leader are people listening to my opinions and respecting the decisions I’m making, or is there like a lot of waffling? Like are my judgments not trusted? Is there a lot of questioning over what I’m trying to offer?

AMY BERNSTEIN: And I think that gets to the heart of why it’s difficult for women often to assume leadership roles because it’s difficult for us to be heard sometimes.

AMY GALLO: Right. Well, and also, I mean we know from lots of studies that when we think of a leader, we think of a man. And so, there’s sort of this extra hurdle for women trying to make this transition to do all of the things we’re talking about and also challenge what we think of when we think of leadership.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Without coming across as a cold witch.

NICOLE TORRES: Right. Yep.

AMY GALLO: Yep. This isn’t exactly leadership, but when, after I wrote the book about conflict, I was starting to talk to people about doing talks about the book and I just didn’t see myself as an expert. And I think a lot of leadership is about being, you know, having expertise, being someone people look to for insights or judgment, as you were saying, Amy B. And I actually had a trick where I wrote on a Post-it Note “I am an expert,” and just put it above my computer. And anytime I was going to have a call where I needed to remember that I’m in charge — and I think it could work, right? Write a little Post-It: “I am a leader.” You don’t have to put it right on your desk, but I think that sort of gentle mantra reminder is super helpful.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Well, waiting for someone else to give you permission —

AMY BERNSTEIN: — you know, isn’t going to get you where you want to go. Right?

AMY GALLO: Yes.

NICOLE TORRES: Yep.

AMY GALLO: Well and you have to embrace it. And I actually remember the day where I took the Post-It and threw it away because I was like, I don’t need this anymore.

AMY BERNSTEIN: I have arrived.

NICOLE TORRES: It’s in here.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. Like, I believe it. I don’t —

AMY BERNSTEIN: I’m off the train, I’m in the station.

AMY GALLO: Right. I remember during my consulting days I actually would get bored in client meetings, and one of the ways to trick myself into being more engaged was to act as if I was in charge and what would I say right now?

AMY BERNSTEIN: I want to try that!

AMY GALLO: And like sort of play out, what would I say now? How would I direct this? What would I do? And I think it really changed the way I was viewed because my insights were that much more insightful, or that much more helpful. And I felt like I was in a driving role as opposed to a contributing role.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah. Because you were getting out ahead of it.

AMY BERNSTEIN: You were really, you were trying to steer the car.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Instead of just riding in the backseat.

NICOLE TORRES: But did you get any pushback for that? Like was that seen by people as you were trying to hijack things that were owned by other people?

AMY BERNSTEIN: No, not really. I mean, I think the — partly I was doing in a very emotionally intelligent way of not just like raising my hand every two minutes, we should do this, we should do this. I think I was gauging when was appropriate, watching for reaction. Sometimes it would be that the partner on the project afterwards, I’d just say in the, you know, taxi ride back to our office. I’d be like, you know what I thought of during that meeting was this, this, and this. Sometimes it wasn’t even saying it out loud in the moment, it was just thinking about what would I have done. And it was literally a trick to get me to stop being bored, but it really did set me up to be much more of a leader. And I got a promotion soon after. I think that —

AMY BERNSTEIN: But you also weren’t worrying about what people thought because you were trying not to be arrogant and you were focusing on what you could control, which was the attitude that you brought to it and your openness.

AMY GALLO: Well, and it didn’t, it also helped that I didn’t, I wasn’t trying to prove myself. I was trying to do something totally different, and in the process, I happened to prove myself.

AMY BERNSTEIN: But I think that sometimes people are reticent, and women are often reticent because they’re afraid of appearing too pushy.

AMY BERNSTEIN: And in that way they’re holding themselves back. And most of the time when we fail to emerge as leaders, I think it’s because we tap the brakes too much on ourselves.

NICOLE TORRES: But sometimes like that fear of being perceived as pushy, like that’s a legitimate fear. Like if you are pushing for things, you can be seen as being too aggressive and not getting along with others.

AMY BERNSTEIN: But if you’re pushing for things for the right reasons, then who cares?

AMY GALLO: Well, I think to your point, Nicole, I think what we understand from the research is that women are penalized when they seem to be pushing on behalf of themselves. When they push on behalf of the collective — so if you’re trying to further the initiative, help your team, you know, realize the organization’s mission — we tend to allow women to drive a little bit more. And I mean, personally for me, I feel more engaged when I’m doing that, when it’s on behalf of a group, not just myself.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Oh, it’s so much, it’s so much easier to advocate for the group or the project.

AMY GALLO: And wouldn’t we all be better off if everyone, not just women, advocated on behalf of the collective rather than themselves?

AMY BERNSTEIN: Oh my god. What would we do?

AMY GALLO: But Nicole, you’re on this cusp, you’re going through, we talked about with Muriel and Amy that it was sort of this awkward growing pains. Like how are you feeling about it right now?

NICOLE TORRES: Yeah. I’ve been thinking a lot about this. It’s, I think it’s true — this is an awkward growing phase that is part like me having to deal with myself and make sure that I’m not the one holding myself back in terms of seeing myself as a leader and having the confidence to lead, but at the same time like I was really curious in that interview with them, like what about all of the external stuff? Like even if I see myself as a leader and I know I’m in a leadership role — other people around me and their perceptions and how they regard me like that really matters in my ability to be a leader and also see myself as a leader. One of my experiences of, you know, realizing that that external side was really important was I was leading a project, or I thought I was leading a project, and in a meeting, when we were talking about ideas, like someone, you know, I said something and someone didn’t like my idea and they just told me I was uptight.

AMY BERNSTEIN: What?

AMY GALLO: Oh my gosh.

NICOLE TORRES: Like in front of the whole room. Like I was the uptight one, even though I was advocating an idea for this, like larger project.

AMY BERNSTEIN: OK, but you know that that was obnoxious.

NICOLE TORRES: Oh, totally, totally. But in my mind, I was like, I thought I was leading this, and I had, I thought that that was clear. But then I realized like because that statement was made, like maybe that is not so clear.

AMY BERNSTEIN: So, before this meeting, was the rest of the team informed that you would be leading?

NICOLE TORRES: Not really.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah.

AMY GALLO: But I think that happens a lot.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah, but see that’s not good.

AMY GALLO: No, I mean it’s not, but it happens a lot. And I think there’s many times we have to lead through that ambiguity to respond to hopefully less vicious forms of attack. Right? And we can’t let that comment, that type of comment stop us from leading.

AMY GALLO: Because you just, you, yeah. I mean, I totally, that stinks, basically. That’s what I want to say.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah, but here’s the thing. I mean, when someone does something like that, you just have to reflect it. They’re in a pretty bad place, you know, to launch that rocket at you.

NICOLE TORRES: There are only some things you can control.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Exactly.

AMY GALLO: Exactly. So, what should have Nicole said in that moment to be seen as a leader? When someone says something like that? Like what’s a, what’s the leaderly thing to do when someone —

AMY BERNSTEIN: That’s such a good question. What is the… Well, first of all, I don’t think, I think engaging with it is a mistake.

NICOLE TORRES: Just get out!

AMY GALLO: Yeah, you can leave now.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Or what you can do is try to disarm them with humor.

AMY BERNSTEIN: You know, just make it clear that the comment was noted, but more important, the attitude was noted.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. Are you criticizing me or are you criticizing my idea? Because I thought we were talking about ideas here.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah. Or you know, switching to a more constructive line of conversation — you know, something like that.

AMY BERNSTEIN: There’s a way to call them out without calling them out. I would, I don’t know. I sort of — of course, it’s so easy to say when I had absolutely nothing to do with the situation, but you know, talking to that person afterwards and saying, what was that?

AMY BERNSTEIN: If you’re comfortable enough with that person to say it. I mean —

NICOLE TORRES: Yeah. I mean something I wish I did was like have just a conversation afterwards to say that really wasn’t cool, and I don’t know if you meant it like that, but like that isn’t cool and it doesn’t sound good to me and to other people who hear that.

NICOLE TORRES: Instead of like go home and tell my boyfriend about it and complain and tell all my friends, could you believe this happened? And now talking about it on this podcast! [LAUGHTER] I think there are ways I could have handled it.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Well, in another couple of decades you’ll have worked it out.

NICOLE TORRES: Yeah, totally.

AMY GALLO: Because clearly we have.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah, right. I mean I can remember all the slights I felt when I was, you know, when I got promoted and someone came up and said, Well, why do you think you got promoted? I mean that was like 30 years ago.

AMY GALLO: Yeah, I mean we do, those things stick with us.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah. Yeah. That Facebook friend request is still sitting in my inbox. [LAUGHTER]

AMY GALLO: You don’t hold a grudge.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Not at all. [LAUGHTER]

AMY GALLO: You see me as a leader when I want to be seen as a leader or I will not be your Facebook friend.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah. Who’s promoted now, bitch? [LAUGHTER]

NICOLE TORRES: Oh, this does, we didn’t, hey, we didn’t talk about this, but now you’re making me think of it. What if you are like a senior leader, whatever, mid-level leader and you, there are other leaders in the company too, and you all kind of have to work together? Like who, who wins out? What if there’s a conflict there? Have you ever been in that situation?

AMY BERNSTEIN: But you don’t approach it as a conflict situation. I mean, when I’ve been in this situation, one of the things we talk about, or I will bring it up is, Alright, so who’s doing what here? You have to, you know, you have to have that conversation at the beginning of a project. It’s the roles and responsibilities. Because when you don’t, when those aren’t clear, you’re not going to get anything done. And you know, I’m thinking about how to handle the next meeting where it’s not clear that you’re the leader. Maybe you open it up by saying, So the boss, Bob, has asked me to organize this team to do X, Y, and Z. And here’s the brief he gave me. So, let’s talk about how we’re going to get this done together. You know? And make it clear that you’re assuming leadership because the responsibility is yours.

AMY GALLO: I think establishing upfront, either as explicitly as that or just taking charge of the meeting. So, you know, starting by saying, OK, we’re here. Our goal is to do this. Everyone on the same page about that? Great. I have some ideas. I’d love to hear some ideas from the group. You know, just sort of taking control of that moment and being the facilitator.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Particularly if you’ve prepared. I think that’s a great approach. Because so much of leadership in the workplace and you know, 2019, 2020, is about leading through influence without formal authority.

AMY BERNSTEIN: We’re all doing it. Right? And so, you have to be able to show that, you know, you’re the one who’s really thought through this project and how it’s going to run its course.

NICOLE TORRES: I will say the most common advice that I keep getting and talking about this is like, don’t ask for permission. Just if you want —

AMY BERNSTEIN: Oh my god. Don’t.

NICOLE TORRES: If you see yourself as a leader and you want to be leading something, then you own that and take charge of it and start leading. And someone gave me, I was talking to a coworker, and she gave me really good advice. Because I was kind of saying, you know like, I’ve tried that and it just didn’t work, I can’t just take control of something. She was like, Why not? And I said, you know, maybe I don’t have certain things, certain skills that leaders need to have. Like there are parts of these projects that I don’t really like doing. I don’t feel super organized. I don’t like doing all of the organizing of people. And she was like, Leaders don’t have to do that all the time. Like your leadership style maybe means you get someone else to do all of that stuff. That blew my mind.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah, well, first of all, delegate. But secondly, I mean, no one does it all well. You have to recognize what you do well, and you know, the stuff you hate or that you don’t do well — and usually those are the same things. I hate process. I am so glad that my closest colleague on the magazine goes to process, you know, immediately and is really, really good at thinking it through.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. And I think that’s an important point is that being a leader doesn’t mean you have all of the skills already.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Right.

AMY GALLO: And that you like doing it all, right? Like it’s OK to be ambivalent about lots of parts of this.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Well, I mean, you know, one of the things about leadership is there are a lot of tough conversations and there’s a lot of — you’re not going to make everyone happy. You’re not going to be a good leader if all you want to do is make everyone happy.

AMY GALLO: Well that, OK, we didn’t talk about that with Muriel and Amy, but that is a huge piece of it, is that being a leader is about sometimes making people mad, disappointing them, and being OK.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yes. I grappled with that the first time I really took a formal leadership role, and I had to go from, you know, wanting to be liked by everyone to figuring out how I could get myself past that. Because a lot of what I was promoted to do was to institute change. And that makes people really, really unhappy.

AMY GALLO: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, and to make all the decisions that we’re talking about and to be, you have to make tough calls.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Oh yeah.

AMY GALLO: Right? And you have to, you have to ask people to do things they don’t want to do. You have to tell people, No. You have to, you know, move things from one part of the organization to another. So, there’s losers and you know, you can’t be so focused on being liked. I actually think that’s a huge transition point.

AMY BERNSTEIN: It’s huge. And also, you have to sort of figure out how you want to show up. This is what you were getting at before. You have to think about what really matters to you. And, you know, maybe the way to do it is to figure out what you admire in leaders you admire. I mean, what is it about the people whose leadership you really look up to that makes you look up to them? And that’s a conversation you have to have with yourself. It takes some thought and it takes some analysis. And then it takes some commitment. I mean, sometimes you have to do things that make you super uncomfortable, but you do them because you know it’s the right thing to do.

NICOLE TORRES: But I guess, what advice do you have then when you are, when you’re doing that and like you get pushback from people? Like how do you not waver in your confidence when you have to make the hard calls? Like if people are just doubting you and your judgments on those calls?

AMY BERNSTEIN: So, remember that because you’re leading a project, it doesn’t mean you have to make all the decisions on your own. You’re seeking input from a lot of different people. So, you want to have confidence in your decision. There are a lot of decisions you make in the role where, you know, it could have gone one way or the other. And I think transparency helps a lot. We could’ve gone this way, but I think we need to go this way. Here’s why I think we need to go this way. I recognize what makes the other way preferable, but this way you know, is going to handle more of what we need to handle. Something like that. Just owning that this was on the bubble. Because no decision is often way worse than the suboptimal decision.

AMY GALLO: And if people are saying that won’t work, you’re making the wrong decision, say, Why? What are the risks? OK. How do we mitigate those risks? What would have to be true for this to be successful?

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah. And turning the objections into a more constructive conversation. I think you’re so right, Amy.

AMY GALLO: Yeah. Because sometimes those objections are genuine and they’re pointing out true risks that — great. That’s helpful to think those through, do what you can to avoid them. And sometimes they’re questioning because they are trying to undermine you. And when they’re trying to undermine you, focusing on the content is, I find the best way to go around that.

AMY BERNSTEIN: The content and the purpose. You’re so right about that.

NICOLE TORRES: I’m going to listen to this next time I go into a meeting.

AMY GALLO: Well, and I think that you’re in that spot where you’re going to have your confidence questioned. And I think in some ways it’s just a matter of sticking to the course, knowing you’re going to get pushback, knowing people aren’t always going to say, Yep, here’s this leader opportunity, go ahead and make the most of it. You’re going to have to take it.

AMY GALLO: And it’s not always going to be great.

AMY BERNSTEIN: But the other thing is that you want to be seen as — I’ll guess, fair and thoughtful, and you know, committed to getting the job done well and committed to the team. You know, it’s, those things will shine a lot brighter than making sure that Mary likes you, right?

AMY GALLO: Well, and that’s a good point too, is that as you’re moving into this role, it’s not a bad idea to write down what kind of leader do you want to be, what are the values? Because you can return to that.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Yeah. That’s on the next Post-It Note. [LAUGHTER] You threw out “You are a lead” — or “You are an expert,” right?

AMY GALLO: Right. Now it’s fairness, equity, thoughtfulness — right.

AMY BERNSTEIN: Whatever you want to be the points of your compass. Those might be the things you write down.

NICOLE TORRES: Yeah. I like that exercise. I feel like this turned into a career coaching session. [LAUGHTER]

AMY GALLO: Nicole’s on a couch. You can’t see it, but — [LAUGHTER]

NICOLE TORRES: With my guides!

AMY BERNSTEIN: With snacks.

AMY GALLO: With snacks. Always. Always with snacks.

HANNAH BATES: You just heard Amy Su and Muriel Wilkins, founders of the executive coaching firm Paravis Partners in conversation with Amy Bernstein, Amy Gallo, and Nicole Torres on Women at Work .

We’ll be back next Wednesday with another hand-picked conversation about leadership from Harvard Business Review. If you found this episode helpful, share it with your friends and colleagues, and follow our show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. While you’re there, be sure to leave us a review.

When you’re ready for more podcasts, articles, case studies, books, and videos with the world’s top business and management experts, you’ll find it all at HBR.org.

This episode was produced by Amanda Kersey, Anne Saini, and me, Hannah Bates. Ian Fox is our editor. Music by Coma Media. Special thanks to Adam Buchholz, Rob Eckhardt, Maureen Hoch, Erica Truxler, Ramsey Khabbaz, Nicole Smith, Anne Bartholomew, and you – our listener.

See you next week.

• Subscribe On:

Latest in this series

This article is about leadership.

• Authenticity

Partner Center

Using Public Participation GIS to Assess Effects of Industrial Zones on Risk and Landscape Perception: A Case Study of Tehran Oil Refinery, Iran

• Gheitasi, Mahdi
• Serrano Giné, David
• Fagerholm, Nora
• Pérez Albert, Yolanda

Petrochemical clusters are forms of industrialization that use compounds and polymers derived directly or indirectly from gas or crude oil for chemical applications. They pose a variety of short- and long-term risks to the environment and the people who live nearby. The aim of this study is to determine whether there is a correlation between the degree of perceived technological risk and the emotional value generated by the contemplation of the petrochemical industry landscape in order to try to establish strategic lines of action to mitigate the perception of risk and improve the emotional well-being of the population. This study uses manipulated pictures and a Public Participation Geographic Information System (PPGIS) survey to assess changes in perception and emotional response in residents in Teheran (Iran). Key findings show an insignificant relationship between technological risk and landscape value perception in both original and manipulated pictures. However, taking into account that, in general, in manipulated pictures, there is a more significant relationship, designing the landscape could help to mitigate the technological risk perception. This study contributes to the broader discussion about industrialization and its environmental and social consequences. It emphasizes the importance of considering public perception when planning and developing industrial areas, so as to balance industrial functionality and environmental and aesthetic considerations for long-term urban development.

Course Pack: NSEC 6601 Intro to National Security (Fall 2024)

Educator Access

A review copy of this case is available free of charge to educators and trainers. Please create an account or sign in to gain access to this material.

Permission to Reprint

Each purchase of this product entitles the buyer to one digital file and use. If you intend to distribute, teach, or share this item, you must purchase permission for each individual who will be given access. Learn more about purchasing permission to reprint .

Class: NSEC 6601 Intro to National Security  Semester:  Fall 2024 Instructor:  Jeffrey Treistman, PhD, University of New Haven

Included Cases:

• Case #1605.0:  Congressional Oversight and Presidential Prerogative: The 1991 Intelligence Authorization Act 
• Case #2133.0:  Rise of China
• Case #1834.3:  The Accidental Statesman: General Petraeus and the City of Mosul, Iraq (Abridged)
• Case #144.0:  The Coming of the Cold War

Related Cases

Course Pack: GSEC 501 (Fall 2024)

Course Pack: CORE 104 (Fall 2024)

Security Planning for the 2004 Democratic National Convention (A)

Security Planning for the 2004 Democratic National Convention (B)