Insiya Hussain
McCombs School of Business
University of Texas at Austin
“Who even is a ‘good’ undergraduate professor, let alone top 50 in the country? Is it someone with flawless credentials? Someone whose course has an easy structure? Or someone who changes the way you think about life? If you ask me, it’s someone who sits at the sweet spot on the trust competence matrix: deeply proficient, yet profoundly caring.
Dr. Insiya Hussain is that rare blend. She teaches with a charming, approachable personality and a warm care for whether her students truly understand the substance of her teachings. She notices when a student is lost — not in grades, but in understanding — and adapts in real time. Her competence is unquestionable. Her material is highly relevant and practical cross cultures, and she has teaching evaluations that place her among the very best at UT Austin.
And here’s the plot twist: this very trust competence framework I’m using to describe her? I learned it from her class. I’ve applied it to every aspect of my life including here, in nominating her, because she doesn’t just teach content. She changes the way her students see the world, and that impact will outlast any semester.” – Shobhan Bhatia
Insiya Hussain, 41, is an Assistant Professor of Management in the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin. Her research focuses on understanding how employees can overcome the challenges of speaking up at work to share their ideas and opinions, advocate social issues, and negotiate for personal rewards.
Hussain’s research has been published in leading academic journals, including the Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, and the Journal of Applied Psychology. Her work has also been featured in practitioner outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, Fortune, Bloomberg, and Harvard Business Review.
Hussain serves on the editorial review boards of several top-tier journals. She has also received awards for her teaching, including being named to the McCombs BBA Faculty Honor Roll, receiving the Texas Orange Jackets Tenet Award in Leadership, and earning a Distinguished Teaching Award at the University of Maryland.
Before joining academia, she worked at J.P. Morgan’s investment bank and as a project manager at technology agencies. She earned her bachelor’s degree in economics from Columbia University and her Ph.D. in organizational behavior from the University of Maryland.
BACKGROUND
At current institution since what year? 2019
Education: B.A. in Economics from Columbia University; PhD in Management and Organization from University of Maryland
List of Undergraduate courses you teach: Organizational Behavior
TELL US ABOUT LIFE AS A BUSINESS SCHOOL PROFESSOR
I knew I wanted to be a business school professor when … Early in my career I was at a crossroads trying to figure out my next step. Though I loved all things business, getting an MBA and being ushered into working for a big corporation didn’t seem like the right call. I knew that instead, I wanted to experience more autonomy and self-directed learning on a day-to-day basis. When I stumbled upon option of earning a Ph.D. and working as a business professor, a huge lightbulb went off. I realized that it merged in a single career everything I’m passionate about—business, psychology, and behavioral science broadly—while allowing me to pursue my academic interests independently and teach. I haven’t looked back since. As a professor, I get to work on the research projects I find most compelling with the people I choose to collaborate with, and guide students on how to put key findings from the field into practice. While making it through a doctoral program and working as a professor has not always been an easy path, it has been incredibly rewarding.
What are you currently researching and what is the most significant discovery you’ve made from it? I’m interested in employee voice at work, which means understanding when and why employees speak up, what holds them back, and how their ideas are evaluated.
In one of my ongoing projects, my co-authors are I are looking at what happens when an employee raises a particularly novel ideas at work—that is, an idea that is highly unusual, divergent, or different from the norm.
We find that even if managers might shut down the extreme idea, its presence in the group can create the positive spillover effect of helping other, less novel—but potentially still useful—ideas be implemented. This is mainly because those other ideas come to be seen as more feasible by contrast.
There are a few additional nuances to the story, with our research still in progress. The big picture takeaway though is that it can be useful for managers to entertain employees’ more unusual ideas, because doing so can indirectly spur more broad-based idea implementation within the group.
If I weren’t a business school professor, I’d be … Running some kind of online business. Being a professor keeps my hands full, but since careers are long, I haven’t ruled it out!
What do you think makes you stand out as a professor? I’ll let the data speak for this one. When I go over student evaluations, a few themes usually emerge. First, students often say that I’m passionate and enthusiastic about the material. I hope it’s infectious!
They also mention my being kind and understanding, which I appreciate. I really do try to connect with students at a human level, and as an educator, view approachability as a strength.
Lastly, and this is a geeky one, they describe me as organized. I’m the type of person who likes to label and super-sort everything at work and home, so get a special kick out of knowing that students find the class seamless and well-structured.
One word that describes my first time teaching: Exhilarating.
Here’s what I wish someone would’ve told me about being a business school professor: I already had a sense for this, but for anyone curious, it’s useful to know being a professor is in many ways a hybrid of being an entrepreneur and having a “real job.”
Yes, there’s a fixed schedule for teaching and a paycheck. But when it comes to research, almost everything is open-ended, with each project being a mini-startup facing uncertain outcomes. For instance, despite putting in much effort, data collections can fail. And despite dotting every “i” and crossing every “t,” a paper can face rejection from multiple journals before getting published (if at all). To boot, since there’s no limit outside of the day’s constraints on how much you could work on your research, it’s up to you to figure out when to put the proverbial pen down. All said, professors need to develop the kind of grit and tolerance for uncertainty typically associated with entrepreneurial endeavors, while self-managing their time, energy, and priorities.
Professor I most admire and why: My Ph.D. advisor, Subra Tangirala. He possesses the rare and wonderful combination of intellectual prowess and intellectual humility, along with an even temperament and interpersonal warmth that make him an amazing scholar and mentor to students. He’s one of the most patient and thoughtful listeners I’ve met, and has been endlessly generous in lending time, energy, and support to me and many other scholars who have gone on to achieve much success. I’m incredibly grateful to have gotten to know and learn from him.
TEACHING BUSINESS SCHOOL STUDENTS
What do you enjoy most about teaching business students? I love that teaching business naturally involves weaving theory with practice. For me, both the challenge and fun part is relaying to students all the dense academic knowledge I’m constantly accessing in a way that’s digestible, relatable, and engaging, while also connecting it to the real world of organizations. There’s nothing quite as satisfying as finding an example of a business situation currently unfolding in the news that dovetails perfectly with a class concept we’re currently learning. That’s when the real “Aha!” moments happen for students, and they’re super fun to witness.
What is most challenging? It can be tough when we’re halfway through the semester and energies start to wane, especially when students are overloaded with exams and assignments from multiple classes. That’s when I really try to make sure we’re doing something fun and interactive in each class. For instance, I’ll assign a group exercise that keeps everyone talking and moving, or bring in a guest lecturer to shake things up. It’s important to make each class just a little bit different and surprising.
In one word, describe your favorite type of student: Curious
In one word, describe your least favorite type of student: Entitled
When it comes to grading, I think students would describe me as … Challenging but fair
LIFE OUTSIDE THE CLASSROOM
What are your hobbies? I’m a bit of a content junkie, and left to my own devices, can read the day away. For a while, I’ve mostly been reading books and listening to podcasts on business, personal finance, communication, and relationships. I’d really like to find the time to read more fiction the way I used to, and dig into other topics like history as well.
I also enjoy traveling, with a special love for exploring big cities where there’s something new at every corner.
How will you spend your summer? My husband and I are planning to visit Australia and Japan for part of the summer, which I’m excited for.
Favorite place(s) to vacation: My close family lives in Toronto, and I visit often for regular doses of bonding and simply being together. Meanwhile, vacation spots that have really stood out include Rome, Lake Como, Barcelona, Istanbul, Mexico City, Rio, Patagonia, and Banff.
Favorite book(s): So many! I’ll just pick the first few that come to mind. For non-fiction, “Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion” (Robert Cialindi), “Power: Why Some People Have It—and Others Don’t” (Jeffrey Pfeffer), “Quiet” (Susan Cain), “Think Again” (Adam Grant), “Blue Ocean Strategy” (Roger Wayne et al.), “The 4-Hour Work Week” (Tim Ferriss), and “The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing” (Ries & Trout).
For fiction, I have been incredibly moved reading “The God of Small Things” (Arundhati Roy) and “One Hundred Years of Solitude” (Gabriel García Márquez).
What is currently your favorite movie and/or show and what is it about the film or program that you enjoy so much? Though the series has ended now, I really enjoyed watching Succession. It’s a show about the dysfunctional power struggles of a family business dynasty, and masterfully blends drama and dark comedy to tell its story. It also has a spectacular soundtrack.
What is your favorite type of music or artist(s) and why? This is a hard one, as my music tastes are quite eclectic. I really enjoy a bit of everything—rock, R&B, hip-hop, pop, and more.
THOUGHTS AND REFLECTIONS
If I had my way, the business school of the future would have much more of this … I think business schools could do a better at helping students find job in careers outside of the usual finance, accounting, consulting, and big tech firms they typically end up at. Organizations surround us of all shapes and sizes—from start-ups and early-stage companies to non-profits and government institutions. While it’s entirely possible that many students would be fulfilled working at such organizations, lack of exposure leads them be funneled into a narrower range of jobs and companies instead. There’s a lot of room right now for business schools to expand and diversify students’ career options by nurturing ties with a wider set of employers.
In my opinion, companies and organizations today need to do a better job at … Walking the talk. A root cause of much cynicism and disillusionment among employees and the general public comes from the sense that organizations often proclaim one thing but do another.
For instance, a company might say that it welcomes employee feedback, but promptly fire workers for sharing unpopular opinions or blowing the whistle on unethical practices. It might say that it cares about consumer safety, but take lax measures on security that result in data breaches. And, it might say that they care about the environment, but engage in practices emblematic of “greenwashing.”
This pattern reflects what scholars call a lack of behavioral integrity. Here, it’s not necessarily a given value or practice on its own that breeds mistrust, but the mismatch between what a company says and what it does. Leaders would be smart to keep a track of how often this happens, and its impact on stakeholders.
I’m grateful for … So very, very much. Of all the million things big and small, I’m most grateful for the love and support of the incredible family, friends, colleagues, and mentors I’ve had along life’s journey. There are few words to describe the profound impact they have had in shaping both my career and happiness. Truly, it has been everything.
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