Nicole Ferry
Tenure Track Assistant Professor
Primary research areas
Gender & Equity in Leadership Development
Cultural Production of Leadership
Diversity & Inclusion in Organizations
I redefine leadership as relational and equitable.
I am a leadership and diversity scholar who helps students, executives, and practitioners understand how to create and lead inclusive and socially transformative organizations.
I draw on leadership studies and diversity and inclusion research to explore the role of leadership in organizations and society. I illuminate the implicit values and exclusions embedded in leadership discourses while opening space for more inclusive, dialogic, and relational alternatives. I examine how leadership is culturally produced, consumed, and institutionalized, challenging taken-for-granted ideas about who leads, how leadership is developed, and what leadership does.
At CBS, I teach courses on leadership, diversity, and strategy, collaborate with organizations by facilitating workshops that rethink leadership education, and co-coordinate public research projects like Bowline, a cross-sector collaboration for social-sustainability and equity in the culinary industry.