) Even the ways women define success are often different than men, which means a book about achieving it might need to be a bit different, as well. That being true, “the behaviors that undermine women are often different from the behaviors that undermine men.” (The key word being often not always.
What writing a book on the issue specifically for women acknowledges (other than the common bias to assume male tendencies and readership) is that women experience different challenges in the workplace, and men and women are rewarded differently for the exact same behaviors. We all know people who don’t conform to these “norms” (if anyone truly does), but there are habits that we’re more likely to fall into as men or women for a whole host of cultural and biological reasons. Instead of refusing to express regret, women often can’t stop apologizing, even for things that are not their fault. Instead of always needing to be right, women are more likely to be hobbled by the desire to please or the need to be perfect. Of course, with a client base that is “typically about 80 percent male,” the behaviors Goldsmith addressed in his book are more common hazards for men, and women are likely to experience very different forms of self-limiting behavior:įor example, instead of claiming credit they don’t deserve, women are often reluctant to claim their own achievements. As they rise within organizations, all leaders must change to overcome behavioral barriers that impede them from becoming even more successful. The brilliance of the new book Sally and Marshall have written together, How Women Rise, is in the combinations of these two realities. Marshall Goldsmith’s 2007 book, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There, was about how “the same behaviors that help people achieve high positions often undermine them” once they arrive there. Perhaps the time is coming when women needn’t adapt their behavior to enter the professional world, but that doesn’t mean they won’t need to change their behavior at all. They must exist in-and help change-these organizations as they exist today. And yet, women can’t wait for that progress. Almost thirty years later, the value of women in business is backed up by reams of research, but the cultural reality inside most organizations still applies pressure on women to change and adapt their behavior to, as Joanne Lipman wrote in her book That’s What she Said, “fit into a professional world that was created in the image of men.” There is so much progress that still needs to be made.
Sally Helgesen’s 1990 book, The Female Advantage: Women’s Ways of Leading, “was the first book to focus on what women had to contribute to organizations rather than how they needed to change and adapt” to them. How Women Rise: Break the 12 Habits Holding You Back from Your Next Raise, Promotion, or Job by Sally Helgesen & Marshall Goldsmith, Hachette Books, 256 pages, Hardcover, April 2018, ISBN 9780316440127
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