Women at Work Harvard Business Review

Eight women who’ve been on boards share how they landed a seat, gained confidence in the role, and found unexpected personal and professional benefits in the work. We hope their perspectives and advice will encourage you to consider trying it yourself some day. Ellen Zane, who runs a Harvard workshop for women interested in board work, gives further insight based on her deep experience as a director for nonprofits and private and public companies.

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

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

If you plan to get married, do you see yourself keeping or changing your last name? How much, if at all, does your career factor into that decision? Our associate producer, who’s engaged, spoke with three recently married women about the professional considerations that factored into their decisions. Hannah and the Amys then join former co-host Nicole Torres to discuss how their names are connected to their personal brands.

Two women who have ADHD—one’s a psychologist and the other a life coach—describe what the disorder is and how it messes with the brain’s executive functions, like inhibition and emotional regulation. They give advice for managing the symptoms, asking for help at work, and what to do if what we’re talking about sounds an awful lot like your life.

Meredith Koch and Nicole Bettè are engineers who’ve bonded over conversations about their apparent and non-apparent disabilities. They recount how at different moments in their careers they’ve gotten the understanding and assistive technology necessary to do their jobs—and when they haven’t, all with the hope that you’ll be able to better advocate for yourself and your colleagues.