Alyson Meister

Professor of Leadership and Organizational Behavior

Alyson Meister is Professor of Leadership and Organizational Behavior. She helps organizations to develop inclusive and resilient leaders, teams, and workplaces. Her research specialty includes topics surrounding identity and diversity as well as workplace stress, mental health, and wellbeing. She was named on the Thinkers50 Radar list in 2021 and subsequently nominated for a Thinkers50 Distinguished Achievement Award.

Meister’s inclusion on the Thinkers50 Radar list was in recognition of her research on how people can navigate, manage, and overcome bias throughout their careers, and how feeling marginalized, stereotyped, or mislabeled impacts stress, wellbeing, and job performance. Diversity and inclusion are an important strand of her work with leaders, who she says need to examine how their identity and core values shape not only their own self-perceptions, beliefs, and behavior, but also how they perceive, label, and interact with others.

Given the massive changes over the last few years to how, where, and when we work, it is critical that leaders learn to manage themselves to more inclusively manage others and cultivate thriving workforces in their organizations.

Her shortlisting for the 2021 Thinkers50 Distinguished Achievement Award was closely linked to her research on leader origin stories. This work explored the personal stories of 92 leaders to shed light on how the stories people hold onto and tell others shape their leadership motivations and behaviors, and how this differs for men and women.

Her practitioner articles regularly appear in Harvard Business Review and I by IMD, and her research has been published in influential management journals such as the Academy of Management Review, the Journal of Management, the Journal of Organizational Behavior, Human Relations, the Journal of Management Studies, and Leadership Quarterly.

Meister leads IMD’s Future Leaders program and has coached thousands of executives, teams, and organizations across a broad range of industries from mining and engineering through to professional services and technology, and working with clients such as Lenovo, Maersk, Julius Baer, Sandvik, CMS, BHP Billiton, LEGO Group, Hilti, and Cisco.

She was recently appointed as Chair of the Scientific Advisory Council for One Mind at Work, an organization that focuses on advancing mental health in the workplace and serves on the executive committee of the Managerial and Organizational Cognition Division of the Academy of Management and on the editorial board of the Academy of Management Review.

Canadian-born Meister has lived and worked on five continents – North and South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia – and describes herself as a “global nomad”. Having had a wealth of practical experience before entering academia, she joined IMD as a professor in 2019 after previously working as Assistant Professor of Leadership and Organizational Behavior at the Universidad de Los Andes in Bogotá, Colombia.

Selected publications
Article
The science of choking under pressure
MindfulnessStress Management
Choking under pressure, where one freezes and underperforms when it matters most — even despite deep expertise and years of practice — is well known in the world of sports. But we hear less about t...
7 April 2022
Article
Athletes are shifting the narrative around mental health at work
PsychologyWork-life Balance
Recent instances of high-profile athletes prioritizing their mental health, along with organized efforts from the sports industry, have triggered an important shift in the narrative of mental healt...
24 September 2021
Article
Staying mindful when you’re working remotely
MindfulnessPsychology
Remote work is taking its toll in the form of chronic stress and burnout. Cultivating mindfulness in our online environment is a way to combat this depletion of energy. The authors recommend applyi...
16 March 2021
Article
Is your organization digging trenches or building bridges?
TeamLeadershipCulture
Entrenchment happens when an attitude, habit, or belief becomes so firmly established that it morphs from “what I believe” into “who I am,” and it can lead to polarization within teams and organiza...
22 January 2021
Article
Now you see me, now you don't: A conceptual model of the antecedents and consequences of leader impostorism
LeadershipEmotion ManagementDiversity and Equity and Inclusion
Impostorism, a phenomenon whereby a person perceives that the role they occupy is beyond their capabilities and puts them at risk of exposure as a “fake,” has attracted plentiful attention in the e...
1 September 2022
Article
What's your leadership origin story?
Leadership
Origin stories come in many forms: tales of how we entered a profession, personal chronicles explaining how and when we became part of an organization, accounts of how we met our significant other,...
10 August 2020
Article
The stories that make us: Leaders’ origin stories and temporal identity work
Diversity and Equity and InclusionLeadership
The stories we tell about our origins can shape how we think and act – helping us make sense of and communicate who we have “become” over time. To better understand the role that origin stories pla...
1 August 2021
Article
Toward a temporal theory of faultlines and subgroup entrenchment
Organizational Behavior
A wealth of scholarship shows that faultlines drive important outcomes for groups. However, despite mounting calls for incorporating time in the group literature, our understanding of faultlines is...
1 December 2020
Article
Identities under scrutiny: How women leaders navigate feeling misidentified at work
Leadership
The identities of women leaders can fall under intense scrutiny; they are often confronted with other's perceptions of them—perceptions that may not be wholly accurate. Through in-depth qualitativ...
30 January 2017
Article
Feeling misidentified: The consequences of internal identity asymmetries for individuals at work
TeamPsychology
At work, individuals have an enduring interest in how others perceive them and a fundamental desire for others to affirm and verify their salient work-related identities. Internal identity asymmetr...
8 October 2014
Academic publications
Article
How feeling misidentified can drive negative attitudes yet increase performance: The role of appraisals
PsychologyEmotion ManagementPerformance Measurement
Internal identity asymmetry is the uncomfortable experience of having one's identity mistaken—feeling being misidentified—by others at work. Through two longitudinal field studies of working indivi...
9 May 2023
Article
My place: How workers become identified with their workplaces and why it matters
Human ResourcesCorporate Governance
Where we work – our workplaces – have enormous effects on our work attitudes and behaviors. As workplaces become increasingly mobile, remote, multiple, and uncoupled from the organization for which...
15 November 2022
Article
Gender gap in parental leave intentions: Evidence from 37 countries
Diversity and Equity and InclusionPsychologyPoliticsCulture
Despite global commitments and efforts, a gender-based division of paid and unpaid work persists. To identify how psychological factors, national policies, and the broader sociocultural context con...
20 October 2022
Article
Now you see me, now you don't: A conceptual model of the antecedents and consequences of leader impostorism
LeadershipEmotion ManagementDiversity and Equity and Inclusion
Impostorism, a phenomenon whereby a person perceives that the role they occupy is beyond their capabilities and puts them at risk of exposure as a “fake,” has attracted plentiful attention in the e...
1 September 2022
Article
Microaggressions, interrupted: The experience and effects of gender microaggressions for women in STEM
LeadershipTechnology ManagementDiversity and Equity and InclusionEthics
Women continue to remain underrepresented in STEM, and this gender disparity is particularly pronounced in leadership positions. Through in-depth, qualitative interviews of 39 women leaders in STEM...
5 August 2022
Case Study
LOGSTOR’s rebirth: Leading through crisis
Leadership
LOGSTOR is a Danish company that is a global supplier of pre-insulated pipe systems. This case focuses on the leadership of Kim Christensen, a former board member who became CEO in 2017. The compan...
16 February 2022
Article
Thinking of you thinking of me: An integrative review of meta-perception in the workplace
Psychology
Decades of research demonstrates a fundamental human tendency to care about how one is seen by others, and for good reason; the perceptions and appraisals of others affect a wealth of important out...
1 February 2022
Article
The stories that make us: Leaders’ origin stories and temporal identity work
Diversity and Equity and InclusionLeadership
The stories we tell about our origins can shape how we think and act – helping us make sense of and communicate who we have “become” over time. To better understand the role that origin stories pla...
1 August 2021
Book Chapter
Defining the good, the bad, and the evil
LeadershipEthics
This chapter offers a framework that distinguishes between “a leader” (a formal or informal role) and “leadership” (a complex psychosocial behavioral process). We suggest that virtually all leaders...
3 April 2021
Article
Toward a temporal theory of faultlines and subgroup entrenchment
Organizational Behavior
A wealth of scholarship shows that faultlines drive important outcomes for groups. However, despite mounting calls for incorporating time in the group literature, our understanding of faultlines is...
1 December 2020
Article
Paradox versus dilemma mindset: A theory of how women leaders navigate the tensions between agency and communion
Leadership
A wealth of literature documents that women leaders can face simultaneous and yet conflict demands for both agency and communion, due to the in-congruence of their leader role and gender role deman...
26 April 2018
Article
Identities under scrutiny: How women leaders navigate feeling misidentified at work
Leadership
The identities of women leaders can fall under intense scrutiny; they are often confronted with other's perceptions of them—perceptions that may not be wholly accurate. Through in-depth qualitativ...
30 January 2017
Article
Feeling misidentified: The consequences of internal identity asymmetries for individuals at work
TeamPsychology
At work, individuals have an enduring interest in how others perceive them and a fundamental desire for others to affirm and verify their salient work-related identities. Internal identity asymmetr...
8 October 2014
Insight for Executives
Article
4 types of employee complaints — and how to respond
General ManagementTeam
Do you have a chronic complainer on your team? Most of us have worked with someone who can find something negative in every situation and loves to discover others who will commiserate with them. (A...
3 May 2023
Article
How your physical surroundings shape your work life
Organizational Behavior
All work occurs in a place, and the debate about where and what that place should be remains contentious. Workers are making more conscious choices about where to place themselves — be it in a home...
11 April 2023
Article
Could psychedelics open new doors for science and business?
InnovationDisruption
Psychedelics. Just mentioning the word triggers a wealth of opinions, stigmas, misconceptions, and judgments that are often based on loosely founded assumptions, Hollywood depictions, or stories of...
3 November 2022
Using metrics and shared ideas to brew a more balanced and diverse workforce
Article
Using metrics and shared ideas to brew a more balanced and diverse workforce
LeadershipDiversity and Equity and InclusionHuman Resources
Heineken’s Chief People Officer Yolanda Talamo tells Professor Alyson Meister how she is using metrics to address the gender balance, promote cultural diversity and improve wellbeing at the 158-yea...
1 November 2022
Article
How to intervene when you witness a microaggression
SustainabilityDiversity and Equity and Inclusion
Microaggressions — those brief, commonplace behaviors or comments that often unintentionally exclude or demean the target — have become a frequently discussed topic in management scholarship and pr...
30 September 2022
Building change resilience to combat change fatigue
Article
Building change resilience to combat change fatigue
Human ResourcesStrategyChange ManagementLeadershipCoaching
How can you best lead a team through change? Alyson Meister and Bettina Büchel explain how to best communicate, plan and prioritize as you manage ambiguity and change in your organization.
20 July 2022
Article
How future thinking can derail your company’s present
LeadershipStrategyTechnology ManagementDigital
Everyone wants to be future-ready, especially in uncertain times. Inflation has hit its highest level since the early 1980s. Many technology stocks have plunged dramatically from the beginning of t...
13 July 2022
Article
How to recover from work stress, according to science
Stress ManagementPsychologyWork-life Balance
The workforce is tired. While sustainable job performance requires us to thrive at work, only 32% of employees across the globe say they’re thriving. With 43% reporting high levels of daily stress,...
5 July 2022
Books to inspire, inform and entertain
Article
Books to inspire, inform and entertain
LeadershipSustainability
From dealing with burnout and bullsh*t to the joys of friendship and climbing mountains, IMD professors offer a varied choice of summer reading material.
16 June 2022
Article
The science of choking under pressure
MindfulnessStress Management
Choking under pressure, where one freezes and underperforms when it matters most — even despite deep expertise and years of practice — is well known in the world of sports. But we hear less about t...
7 April 2022
How to stop worrying about employee mental health
Article
How to stop worrying about employee mental health
Human ResourcesPsychology
Worry is like a rocking chair. It gives you something to do but doesn’t get you anywhere. You can turn your worry about your employees’ mental health into constructive action when you learn what to...
30 March 2022
Fake it though you’ve made it: Battling leader impostorism
Article
Fake it though you’ve made it: Battling leader impostorism
LeadershipDiversity and Equity and InclusionPsychology
Successful, but feeling like a fraud? You’re not alone, it’s an emotion shared by the great and the good from Michelle Obama to Jacinda Ardern. Here’s how to tackle it.
18 January 2022
The Help Desk: What to do when you lose out on promotion, and how to say no
Article
The Help Desk: What to do when you lose out on promotion, and how to say no
CoachingPsychology
Welcome to the Help Desk: using the latest technology and research, our resident expert helps you to tackle your workplace dilemmas. SHOULD I STAY OR SHOULD I GO? I applied for an internal positi...
16 December 2021
Article
What to do about employees who consciously exclude women
Diversity and Equity and InclusionSustainabilityLeadership
Conscious “excluders,” who despite various corporate interventions, continue to treat some folks differently due to their social group membership, may help explain the recent stagnation in progress...
8 November 2021
Article
Athletes are shifting the narrative around mental health at work
PsychologyWork-life Balance
Recent instances of high-profile athletes prioritizing their mental health, along with organized efforts from the sports industry, have triggered an important shift in the narrative of mental healt...
24 September 2021
The help desk: What to do if you dread returning to the office
Article
The help desk: What to do if you dread returning to the office
Work-life BalanceOrganizational TransformationTechnology Management
The pandemic has changed all our working lives, bringing fresh challenges. Here, using the latest research, we offer solutions to any difficulties you may be facing.
16 September 2021
The Help Desk
Article
The Help Desk
Human ResourcesLeadershipPsychology
Office life can be a source of conflict and emotional pain no matter where you are on the career ladder. Alyson Meister uses the latest research to help tackle any problems you may face.
30 July 2021
The Help Desk: Should I ‘friend’ my colleagues on Facebook?
Article
The Help Desk: Should I ‘friend’ my colleagues on Facebook?
Talent ManagementSocial MediaTeam
Office life can be a source of conflict and emotional pain no matter where you are on the career ladder. If the team openly agrees to its norms and expectations, it’s easier to hold you and each ot...
17 June 2021
Breathe in the A.I.R.
Article
Breathe in the A.I.R.
Emotion ManagementOrganizational Behavior
Closely trailing in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic is a global mental health crisis. Declining mental health in the form of increased stress, anxiety, emotional exhaustion, depression and burnou...
17 June 2021
Quieting the inner critic
Article
Quieting the inner critic
LeadershipStress ManagementPsychology
In times of stress our internal critics often amplify. It’s important to recognize this, and instead of listening to – or believing – that harsh voice, expand your repertoire and replace it with on...
13 April 2021