It is all well and good to be told to lean in, but in reality, nearly two-third of Americans believe that women continue to face barriers to career advancement, and statistics show that more than 75% of millennial women identify gender bias as a workplace problem.
On the flipside, women ran 4.2% of companies in the Standard & Poor's 500 Index as of December 2015. While these women encountered a variety of setbacks in their career, their challenges often provided useful leadership lessons that helped propel their ascent and success.
Drawing on interviews with present or former female CEOs of Hewlett-Packard, Hearst Magazine, Avon, Sara Lee, Campbell Soup, Ogilvy & Mather, and many other companies, EARNING IT author Joann Lublin gleans important lessons from these women's trailblazing business achievements. Their experiences offer a road map that will enable other women to find their way when it comes to launching their career.
Women keen to get ahead must learn to manage men well, especially those who don't want to be managed by women.
Nowadays, executive women managers rarely face openly hostile resistance from their male deputies. Yet, their career progress continues to be slowed as a result of less obvious sex-role stereotypes, which "manifest themselves in all kinds of subtle and not-so-subtle ways," says Robin J. Ely, a Harvard Business School professor who specializes in gender issues.
Using street smarts, a sense of humor, strong belief in themselves, and empathetic ability to walk in their employee's shoes, the women who share their wisdom in EARNING IT crafted innovative approaches that helped them win at work.
Sources: Joann S. Lublin: Earning It: Hard-Won Lessons from Trailblazing Women at the Top of the Business World
Sheryl Sandberg: Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead
Other Self-Coaching for Career Women:
Women, Know Thyself: The most important knowledge is self-knowledge. (ebook and paperback editions)
Women and Time (ebook and paperback editions)
When Doing It All Won't Do: A self-coaching guide for career women. (ebook at $.99 or Workbook Edition in paperback at $13.41)