Stereotyping

how can stereotyping contribute to interactions between different individuals with a professional relationship?

You may make assumptions about how to communicate with a person based on your beliefs (or stereotypes) about the group(s) to which that person belongs; you may forget that individual differences exist within groups and assume the person has the same characteristics as other people in their group (e.g. based on race, age, gender, religion etc); power dynamics in relationships can be affected by perceived power differences between groups within society (e.g. a middle-aged man may hold more power in a professional relationship with a younger woman, regardless of their professional roles); you may feel less able to communicate effectively with people who do not possess stereotypical characteristics of the group.

Just by coincidence, I am working on a presentation on difference and diversity, specifically focusing on slides about stereotyping at the moment.