leadership

Her Place at the Table: A Woman’s Guide to Negotiating Five Key Challenges to Leadership Success

gita — Sun, 09 Jan 2011 08:00:00 +0000

By Judith Williams, Deborah M. Kolb, Carol Frohlinger

Her Place at the Table, as its subtitle suggests, offers women a guide to leadership success in the modern work environment. Each of the “five key challenges” forms a chapter. The first challenge is drilling deep, gathering the information needed when deciding whether to take on a new job or project, or when negotiating the circumstances under which you take on a new job or project. The second challenge is mobilizing backers, building a support network and setting the rules of engagement that every good leader needs. The third challenge is garnering resources to ensure you have the tools you need every step of the way. The fourth challenge is bringing people on board and overcoming the inevitable resistance to change. The fifth and final challenge is making a difference, which may mean actually changing things, or giving yourself credit and taking credit for what you’ve accomplished.

Although designed a bit like a self-help book or how-to manual, Her Place at the Table avoids many of the normal pitfalls associated with these genres. Most self-help books and how-to manuals present a world that’s just a bit too rosy. Everything’s easy. You’re perfect and wonderful. The world is your oyster. All you have to do to succeed is ask the universe to give your perfectly wonderful self what you desperately want and truly deserve. All stuff, fluff and nonsense. Her Place at the Table, on the other hand, engages with the world as it is and deals honestly with the internal and external obstacles that women face in the workplace. From the introduction through all five chapters, the authors detail the myths and misconceptions that hamper women’s progress in our careers and give detailed strategies on how these challenges can be overcome, including specific examples from real women who have overcome these challenges to succeed in their own careers.

Some of the strategies detailed in the book may be out of reach for women just starting their careers, or may not work for every individual situation. However, the advice is generally realistic and practical. I found myself wishing I’d read the book long ago, perhaps before encountering some of the traps the authors tackle. Now that I have read it, I intend to revisit it often and to recommend it to as many women as possible, starting with you. Go. Read.

Written by: Melinda Barton, January 9th 2011

Moonrise: The Power of Women Leading from the Heart

admin — Thu, 12 Aug 2010 09:00:00 +0000

Edited by Nina Simons, Anneke Campbell

Park Street Press

How could the title of this book not hook you? Power. Women. Heart. So, maybe I was biased from the beginning. Honestly, I was hoping that the book would be “all that.” It was.

By page fifteen, not having gotten past the editor’s introduction, I was pulsing with energy. I was ready to get my lazy butt up off the couch and pitch in. I was jonesing for my old “activist” days when I used to join in pro-choice marches and volunteer with the NW AIDS Foundation handing out condoms on the streets of Seattle.

Moonrise: The Power of Women Leading from the Heart is a collection of essays that were originally presented as lectures to attendees of the annual Bioneers conferences. Nina Simons, the editor and a co-founder of Bioneers, describes it as “a nonprofit educational organization that highlights breakthrough solutions for restoring people and planet.” These essays cover a vast range of topics from truly knowing one’s self to finding your inner leader to mentoring, partnering, and imagining innovative solutions to some of the world’s most pressing problems as women see them. Some of the authors are household names such as Alice Walker and Julia Butterfly Hill, and others are simply women who are spending their energies learning from and teaching others to live authentically and purposefully. They will undoubtedly be household names in their own right soon.

Each and every essay contained in Moonrise is inspiring, touching, and revitalizing to the reader. Not all of the authors are women, but each and every one of them celebrates the unique gifts that women bring to the world in the form of their vision and perspective as caring, compassionate individuals who have found ways to rise above feelings of powerlessness and living in the minority to honor their communities, societies, and, indeed, the entire planet.

There are humorous tales of women fumbling their way through, led only by their instincts and their resolve to make a difference, painful stories of loss, and everything in between. This book truly offers something for everyone and I, for one, have decided to take the bait. If there are this many strong female voices out there clamoring for a change in the way we approach our collective challenges, it’s the least I can do to join in the march.

Written by: Kari O’Driscoll, August 12th 2010

The Next Generation of Women Leaders: What You Need to Lead but Won’t Learn in Business School

admin — Sat, 29 May 2010 16:02:00 +0000

By Selena Rezvani

Praeger

Has the glass ceiling been shattered? There is a widely accepted perception that it has. However, as author Selena Rezvani points out in chapter one of The Next Generation of Women Leaders, although women make up 46.5 percent of the U.S. workforce, they constitute only 15.7 percent of corporate officers. What you won’t learn in business school, which Rezvani discovered from interviewing top women executives, is that social, economic, psychological, and even generational barriers still prevent women from reaching the top. But don’t despair. This book is chock full of highly useful tips and information to help women of all ages creatively circumnavigate these roadblocks and negotiate their way to the top.

A John Hopkins University MBA graduate and successful consultant, Rezvani conducted thirty interviews with top women executives in the corporate, non-profit and government sectors. She then analyzed her data for trends. The overarching themes of her analysis are covered in chapters two through nine, and address everything from career orientation to maneuvering office politics, networking and negotiating. Although this may sound like any other book on how to succeed in business, it contains plenty of information that might otherwise take you your entire career to learn. In fact, The Next Generation of Women Leaders reads more like a handbook that you will go back to at different stages in your career.

There is an emphasis in this book on networking, which many of us are tired of hearing about. However, Rezvani’s presentation is empowering. She describes networking as a lifetime activity that helps women forge lasting relationships, learn more about their areas of business, discover other career paths and develop outside interests and skills. She also emphasizes the importance of women’s networks and having women as role models. The author includes some helpful tips on networking etiquette and where to focus your energy.

Given my own particular situation as a mother and professional, I was interested in the chapter on work-life integration. The author tackles the “You can have it all” message that women have bought into and addresses the underlying societal pressures on women to be the successful executive, the cookie-baking mother, the physically fit and attractive partner, the friend, the crafter, the daughter, etc. Rather than attempting to balance, or juggle work-life demands, we are instead to integrate a select few work-life priorities that give us the most satisfaction. In a nutshell, the “you can have it all” message does little more than hold us back.

The author originally wrote this book because of the dearth of business books targeting Gen X and Y women, but there’s something in this book for women of all ages, especially those trying to rejoin the labor force or attract talent to their companies. I usually give away the books I review, but this one is now on my bookshelf.

Written by: Heather Leighton, May 29th 2010

Clear Leadership: Sustaining Real Collaboration and Partnership at Work, Revised Edition

admin — Wed, 26 Aug 2009 23:33:00 +0000

By Gervase R. Bushe

Davies-Black Publishing

I was pleased to find that a book devoted to helping people to communicate effectively and clearly was written very, very clearly. It was not pedantic or condescending; in it, the author seems to genuinely respect his audience. Refreshingly, the case studies and examples offered actually helped to illuminate the point and structure of the book—how rarely that happens!

Bushe identifies "interpersonal mush" as a key source of stagnation, frustration, and lack of direction and success in companies and organizations, and claims that people who contribute to producing this "mush" are unable to be effective leaders. By "mush," Bushe means the sedimented, collaborative misunderstandings, unfounded beliefs, unidentified fears and unarticulated desires that put people at cross-purposes. This "mush" both produces and is produced by a disintegration of communication and makes real collaboration nearly impossible.

When partners and colleagues are unclear about the distinction between thoughts, observations and feelings, they are unable to effectively communicate anything about these things. By inviting readers to reexamine these distinctions and to regain clarity about their own feelings, emotions, and judgments, Bushe positions his reader (and those who attend his seminars) to be able to clearly communicate these things in ways that are simple and effective.

Although this book (and his seminars) is largely targeted to organizations and businesses, many people could gain much from the exercises and explanations Bushe offers here. Intimate personal relationships, familial relationships, and friendships can all suffer from the stagnation and lack of deep understanding that can result when one or more parties stops actively paying attention to others, assuming that those with whom she is in relationship remain the same over time. It is easy to forget to seek out and appreciate the dynamism of our loved ones. Clarity about our own role in producing judgments and opinions as well as about the elements of experience can help to gently break down harmful patterns of relationship-momentum.

I can't speak much to the effectiveness of the exercises offered at the end of the four chapters devoted to the four aspects of the self that Bushe aims to help develop, as I did not do them. Some of them felt so very intimate for exercises meant to be done with a colleague or friend, but perhaps that might be because I am so used to varying levels of unclarity and mush that clarity feels almost uncomfortable.

Written by: kristina grob, August 26th 2009

Girls, Feminism, and Grassroots Literacies: Activism in the GirlZone

admin — Sun, 12 Apr 2009 16:18:00 +0000

By Mary P. Sheridan-Rabideau

SUNY Press

Set in the late 1990s and early 2000s, Girls, Feminism, and Grassroots Literacies follows the short life GirlZone, a nonprofit in Central Illinois. Founded by two women living in Urbana-Champaign, GirlZone offered nontraditional workshops and other hands-on learning opportunities for girls in the area and its outskirts. Ranging from skateboarding lessons to a bi-weekly radio show, GirlZone sounds like it was very cool indeed.

I was really excited to receive this book, but it was disappointing in a number of ways. First, it's a real downer to read about how a neat nonprofit that was girl-centered simply flopped. Second, you have to plow through an academic, dry writing style to get to what should be the exciting meat of the book. It's written like a case study—notwithstanding the absence and misuse of punctuation, which grates on the nerves—rather than a narrative of what really seems like groundbreaking social work.

What is exciting is reading the interviews with girls who were activists in grade school, and finding out that they went on to become employed as journalists, radio DJs, and independent media producers. What's sad is that many of GirlZone's internal debates centered around whether or not to openly call themselves a feminist organization. While it's clear that the organization never had a solid funding or board structure, it's maddening to think that, being a nonprofit that focused on girls exclusively, they never really had a fair shot at funding. The author and one of GirlZone's founders, Aimee, both argue this point, and the statistics agree: Sheridan-Rabideau cites the fact that for every four private foundation grants to boys' groups, only one is given for girls.

One thing I did like about this book is that it made me, as a fundraising professional, want to go out and do something about that. It's high time for those numbers to change.

Written by: M.L. Madison, April 12th 2009

Pearls, Politics, and Power: How Women Can Win and Lead

admin — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 22:56:00 +0000

By Madeleine M. Kunin

Chelsea Green Publishing

With the 2008 election, we saw the first woman candidate who could win, but why did it take this long? Too few women have run for office in both the state and federal level. Madeleine M. Kunin, the first female governor of Vermont and the Deputy Secretary of Education and Ambassador to Switzerland under former President Bill Clinton, explains in her book why women don’t run, and how they can overcome that and win in Pearls, Politics, and Power

Kunin discusses her own campaign and election, as well as other U.S. female politicians, and shows how women from different backgrounds and political views can become effective leaders. And it’s not just running for office! Kunin inspires women to be part of other campaigns or to be part of grassroots organizations, as this is part of the political process.

A nice bonus in the book is the section of small biographies on women who increased the presence of women in the political sphere: Mary Wollstonecraft, Betty Friedan, Bella Abzug, Alice Paul, Gloria Steinem, Abigail Adams, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Simone de Beauvoir. At the end of the book, Kunin also includes a list of resources that are helping to get women into office.

If you have ever considered running for office, or engaging in politics at any level, this is a definite must read. Even if you haven’t, Kunin might just change your mind.

Written by: Elizabeth Stannard Gromisch, June 8th 2008