759: The Way to Build Collective Power, with Ruchika T. Malhotra

Coaching for Leaders

Dave Stachowiak

Education, Business, Management, Self-improvement, Careers

4.8 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 17 November 2025

⏱️ 38 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Ruchika T. Malhotra: Uncompete
Ruchika T. Malhotra is the founder of Candour, a global inclusion strategy firm that has worked with some of the world’s biggest organizations. She’s been recognized multiple times by Thinkers50 and co-wrote one of Harvard Business Review’s top 100 most-read articles in history: Stop Telling Women They Have Imposter Syndrome. She is the author of Inclusion on Purpose, MIT Press’s top-selling book of 2022 and now her newest book, Uncompete: Rejecting Competition to Unlock Success (Amazon, Bookshop)*.

A lot of people think about work as a competition for resources. But what if, by inviting others to the table, you created more for everyone? In this conversation, Ruchika and I explore the opportunity for all of us to uncompete.
Key Points

Many of us are so socialized to compete that we don’t realize the benefits of collective collaboration.
Reach out to someone who inspires you. Praising someone for something awesome about them, without an accompanying ask, is so rare.
Display genuine curiosity. Don’t confuse “nice” small talk for depth. Ask bigger questions that get to the heart of who people are.
As you build trust, talk numbers. In the professional context, real relationships of trust demand this kind of transparency.
Take regular stock of relationships. Take people at their word and also watch how their actions line up – or don’t.
Invite others to the table. The bigger your circle, the more you create for everybody.

Resources Mentioned

Uncompete: Rejecting Competition to Unlock Success by Ruchika T. Malhotra (Amazon, Bookshop)*

Interview Notes
Download my interview notes in PDF format (free membership required).
Related Episodes

End Imposter Syndrome in Your Organization, with Jodi-Ann Burey (episode 556)
How to Create Inclusive Hiring Practices, with Ruchika Tulshyan (episode 589)
Doing Better Than Zero-Sum Thinking, with Renée Mauborgne (episode 641)

Discover More
Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic. To accelerate your learning, uncover more inside Coaching for Leaders Plus.

Transcript

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0:00.0	A lot of people think about work as a competition for resources.
0:05.2	But what if, by inviting others to the table, you created more for everyone.
0:11.0	In this episode, the opportunity for all of us to uncompet.
0:16.2	This is Coaching for Leaders, episode 759.
0:20.8	Produced by Innovate Learning, maximizing human potential.
0:29.2	Greetings to you from Orange County, California.
0:32.5	This is Coaching for Leaders, and I'm your host, Dave Stahoviac.
0:37.4	Leaders aren't born, they're made. And this weekly
0:40.6	show helps you discover leadership wisdom through insightful conversations. You know, one of the things
0:46.8	that, as I reflect on my career, is a human being as a leader, as an employee, like how often I have seen the word competition
0:58.3	come up in my work, in the organizations, and also in my own thinking. And oftentimes,
1:05.7	as much as we talk about leadership and as much as we talk about teamwork and working together in community,
1:13.3	we often default to somewhere else. Today, a conversation on how we can build collective power
1:20.7	through relationships and through thinking about this word compete in a very different way.
1:26.6	I am so pleased to welcome back to the show,
1:29.0	an expert who's going to help us to hopefully shift our mindset, just a little bit on this,
1:33.2	and take the next step to help us all do a bit better. I'm pleased to welcome back,
1:37.9	Ruchika T. Mahatra. She is the founder of Kander, a global inclusion strategy firm that has
1:44.1	worked with some of the
1:45.3	world's biggest organizations. She's been recognized multiple times by Thinkers 50 and co-wrote
1:51.0	one of Harvard Business Review's top 100 read most articles in history. Stop Telling Women
1:56.6	They Have Imposter Syndrome. She is the author of Inclusion on Purpose, MIT Press's top selling
	...

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