2026 Best 40-Under-40 Business Professors: Ashley Hardin, Olin Business School, Washington University in St. Louis

Ashley Hardin
Olin Business School
Washington University in St. Louis

“Professor Ashley Hardin is an exceptional scholar and educator whose teaching on organizational politics has had a transformative impact on me as an executive vice chair and woman in academic leadership. Her courses go far beyond theory, offering practical frameworks for navigating power dynamics, leading with integrity, and fostering inclusive organizations—guidance that has been particularly vital as I work to break barriers and advocate for equity. Professor Hardin has a rare ability to create a classroom environment that is both intellectually rigorous and deeply empathetic, encouraging honest reflection and meaningful dialogue about gender and power in academia. Her influence continues to shape the way I lead, mentor, and make decisions, and I can say without hesitation that she is one of the most impactful professors I have encountered in my career.” – Gabriela de Bruin, MD

Ashley Hardin, 38, is an Associate Professor of Organizational Behavior at WashU Olin Business School. 

Her research focuses on interpersonal dynamics at work, particularly how sharing personal information shapes workplace relationships and outcomes. She has published in top-tier journals including Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, Journal of Applied Psychology, and Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, and serves on the editorial boards of four leading journals. She has received several awards based on scholarly contribution including Best Symposium Awards at The Academy of Management Conference, Rackham Predoctoral Fellow at the University of Michigan, and the Gladys D. and Walter R. Stark Fellow for Academic Excellence.  

She currently teaches courses about informal leadership, power, and politics, writing new cases and drawing upon prior work experience as a management consultant to bring the content to life. Hardin is widely regarded by MBA students as a program-defining professor based on her dynamic, experiential approach to teaching. Accordingly, she is the youngest Olin faculty member to win Reid Teaching Awards from both the Executive MBA students and Professional MBA students. She was also awarded the Emerson Excellence in Teaching Award and the Gerald & Lillian Dykstra Fellow for Teaching Excellence.

Hardin also translates her research into practice, publishing in outlets such as Harvard Business Review and Scientific American, with her work featured in major media including The New York Times DealBook, Forbes, and BBC News. 

BACKGROUND 

At current institution since what year?  2017 

Education: 

• PhD in Management and Organizations, University of Michigan, Ross School of Business, 2017 
• Bachelor of Business Administration, University of Michigan, Ross School of Business, 2009 

List of MBA/graduate business courses you currently teach:  Politics and Power in Organizations, Full-Time MBA and Flex MBA Programs; Organization Leadership and Influence, Executive MBA Program
 

TELL US ABOUT LIFE AS A BUSINESS SCHOOL PROFESSOR 

I knew I wanted to be a business school professor when …  I realized what that job truly entailed. When I was a senior in undergrad, one of my professors, Scott DeRue, warned me that he didn’t think management consulting would be the right fit for me. And a few years into that job, I called him up to ask what he knew then that I didn’t. He gently guided me towards research on organizational behavior and encouraged me to meet with business school faculty members to learn more about their work. Through those conversations, I learned that business school professors get to have a unique combination of discovery via research and impact via teaching; I was inspired!  

What are you currently researching and what is the most significant discovery you’ve made from it? The heart of my research program lies in demonstrating how and why learning about a colleague’s personal life is consequential for workplace relationships. Ultimately, I find that how we learn that information, and how much information we learn, transforms work relationships by reminding us of one another’s humanity. 

For example, via qualitative research, experiments, and field surveys, my collaborators (Beth Schinoff, Kris Byron, and Rachel Balven) and I establish how learning about colleagues over Zoom compares to learning about coworkers via self-disclosure. Through this work, we challenge the assumption that remote work offers few opportunities for employees to deepen coworker relationships and instead demonstrate that the changing nature of work can decrease coworker distance by providing a vivid and unfiltered glimpse into the nonwork lives of coworkers. These glimpses increase perceptions of authenticity, trustworthiness, and humanness, ultimately increasing an employee’s actual and intended investment in their personal and professional relationship with their coworkers.  

If I weren’t a business school professor… I would likely be a lot less fulfilled with my work! Prior to going into academia, I worked as a management consultant (both for-profit and non-profit) and may have continued along that path.  

What do you think makes you stand out as a professor? Matching my teaching philosophy to the content I deliver. I have the pleasure of teaching students about the importance of cultivating trust and respect and of demonstrating vulnerability and compassion. Through my teaching, I attempt to show the impact of prioritizing the quality of connections, not just through research results, but also through their lived experience in the classroom.  

Here’s what I wish someone would’ve told me about being a business school professor: The opportunities for job crafting are abundant. Even pre-tenure, there is a lot of latitude to pursue the parts of the job that bring you the most meaning and joy – for me, a large part of that is impact in the classroom and subsequently how student exchanges impact my research questions, keeping me focused on practically important phenomena.  

Professor I most admire and why: There are far too many to list, but the most impactful for me has been Jane Dutton. She simultaneously emphasizes rigor and relevance with cultivating connection and playfulness. She illuminates that business school classrooms do not have to mimic a sterile boardroom. Instead, they can come alive; for example, at the culmination of her course on relationships at work, which I served as a TA for during my PhD program, she had teams of students build tents while blindfolded… Witnessing her transformation of the classroom to align with her research findings that center on high quality connections and compassion truly changed the way I approach my teaching.  

What do you enjoy most about teaching business students?  Teaching in Olin’s graduate programs, students are deeply reflective and motivated to solve the problems they are facing in the workplace. Through my teaching, I get to deep dive into their circumstances and in the process, learn about areas where our theoretical perspectives on management fall short. By staying curious, there is so much I learn from them!  

What is most challenging? Answering student questions when the research doesn’t have an answer yet… I prefer to teach from the data rather than just anecdotes, but students frequently have curiosities at the boundaries of our knowledge. In these instances, I reveal what we do know and how our existing theories might extend. But then I encourage them that they’d be a great PhD student if they wanted to pursue answering that question via their own research! 

When it comes to grading, I think students would describe me as… more focused on ensuring they can apply the course concepts in their day-to-day life than being concerned with specific terminology or definitions.  

LIFE OUTSIDE OF THE CLASSROOM 

What are your hobbies? My newest hobbies center on adding a little whimsy into my world on the margin – gardening, cultivating a Little Free Library, attempting quilting. My longest standing hobby is probably the NYTimes Crossword, which I complete every morning.  

How will you spend your summer? 1) Pushing forward my research agenda to better understand interpersonal dynamics in organizations and 2) pushing around my double stroller to check out the local parks/playgrounds with my 2 toddlers.  

Favorite place(s) to vacation: Northern Michigan in late August. Nothing beats the serene beauty of an early morning kayak on a calm lake.  

Favorite book(s): Beautiful Oops! by Barney Saltzberg. A simple reminder of the power of resilience and the beauty of having a creative mindset in response to life’s mishaps. 

What is currently your favorite movie and/or show and what is it about the film or program that you enjoy so much?  I enjoy watching Ted Lasso and look forward to another season dropping this summer. I appreciate how the show demonstrates leadership through relationships—vulnerability, empathy, trust—rather than power through coercive control. It is a show that often leaves me feeling lighter, rather than compounding on more negative narratives, and that is welcome.  

What is your favorite type of music or artist(s) and why? What an impossible question to answer, so I will take a micro-level approach by sharing what music I listened to today! Olivia Dean and Leon Bridges. Generally, I resonate with music that moves me – emotionally or physically (once upon a time, I danced 15 hours a week) – so there is a quite a wide range on my Spotify from classical music and classic oldies to today’s top 100 and indie-folk beats. 
 

THOUGHTS AND REFLECTIONS 

If I had my way, the business school of the future would have much more of this… More embedded, interdisciplinary, experiential learning. Students grasp the complexities of concepts with much more depth when they are applying them in real situations with real stakes. It is one reason why I see our working students (part-time, flex, executive) excel. Working with real companies provides the opportunity to not just deepen one functional area at a time, but also provides the opportunity for students to grapple with how to simultaneously balance the lessons learned across academic areas. I have had the privilege of working for institutions that are striving to create more of these experiences (shoutout to Olin’s Center for Experiential Learning), and I hope to see a continued expansion of these types of opportunities across business schools.  

In my opinion, companies and organizations today need to do a better job at… keeping our humanity central. We all have a role to play in achieving organizational goals, but not at the sacrifice of our human experience—the need for connection, the realities of suffering, and the many important roles we prioritize outside of work.  

I’m grateful for … the people I am surrounded by – colleagues who encourage me to be the best faculty member I can be and inspire me to keep innovating, students who keep me curious and expand my perspective, family and friends who keep me grounded and provide a foundation from which to flourish, and my two sons who bring more joy into each day than I could have ever imagined.  

 

DON’T MISS: THE ENTIRE 2026 ROSTER OF THE WORLD’S BEST 40-UNDER-40 GRADUATE BUSINESS PROFESSORS 

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