UNCOMPETE: Rejecting Competition to Unlock Success with Ruchika T. Malhotra | 398

Somewhere along the way, women were sold a lie: competition is the price of ambition. Be faster. Be louder. Be better. And if someone else wins? You must lose.

In this episode of This Is Woman’s Work, Nicole Kalil sits down with Ruchika T. Malhotra—founder and CEO of Candour, a global inclusion strategy firm, and author of Uncompete: Rejecting Competition to Unlock Success—to dismantle the zero-sum mindset and replace it with something far more powerful: collaboration, abundance, and shared success.

Ruchika, a former business journalist and contributor to Harvard Business Review (including co-author of one of HBR’s most-read articles, Stop Telling Women They Have Impostor Syndrome), brings research, global perspective, and real-world strategy to challenge how we think about workplace competition, women in leadership, and ambition.

Together, they unpack:

• Why competition in real life rewards conformity—not excellence

• The difference between comparison (human) and competition (optional)

• How social media fuels constant, low-grade competitive anxiety

• What “uncompeting” looks like in promotions, leadership, and career growth

• How to turn envy into data instead of self-destruction

• Why competing with other women isn’t strategy—it’s conditioning

Bottom line: Uncompeting isn’t about lowering ambition. It’s about rejecting scarcity, defining success on your own terms, and building long-game leadership rooted in integrity—not insecurity.

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Connect with Ruchika:

Website: https://www.ruchika.co/

Book: www.uncompetebook.com

LI: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ruchikatm

IG: https://www.instagram.com/rtulshyan/

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