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In the Crosshairs: A Stakeholder-First Framework for Navigating Bias and Preempting Backlash Against Women Leaders

In today’s polarized world, women leaders who have navigated immense barriers to reach the very highest levels encounter uncharted territory once they get to the top. They often face harsh judgments and heightened scrutiny. While some stakeholders may certainly be receptive, many others may either overtly or covertly raise concerns about women in leadership positions.

Drawing from her cutting-edge research, Aparna Joshi will share a stakeholder-first approach organizations can take to counteract bias and foster a more inclusive environment at the highest levels, helping to reduce friction and the spread of misinformation about women leaders in a polarized environment. She’ll discuss how mapping stakeholders and developing customized strategies based on motivations and the sources of uncertainty or anxiety can help resist or deter gender biases.

Don’t miss this opportunity to enhance your understanding of a stakeholder-first approach and its implications for building a more equitable and inclusive leadership landscape. Join us to discover actionable insights and strategies you can implement in your organization to support women’s leadership and curb bias effectively.

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About Joshi

Aparna Joshi is a Professor of Management at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business. Over the past twenty years, Aparna’s research has focused on how social differences translate into inequality with a specific focus on gender inequality across a range of professional settings such as among scientists, lawyers, engineers and chief executives. In these occupational contexts, although women and minorities have made significant human capital gains, fundamental barriers to future progress remain. Her research aims at building actionable theoretical models that can inform practices aimed at reducing barriers and enhancing inclusion in these settings. She has received numerous awards including the Cummings Award for Early to Mid-Career Scholarly Achievement, one of the highest professional honors in the field, by the Organizational Behavior Division of the Academy of Management and she was appointed a Fellow of the Academy of Managementin 2019. She has also been featured on Stanford’s list of the top 2% of research scientists in the world. Prior to joining Michigan Ross, she was on the faculty of the Smeal College of Business, Pennsylvania State University and at the University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana.