Who is the author of How Women Rise?

The authors of How Women Rise are Sally Helgesen and Marshall Goldsmith.

Management & Leadership

How Women Rise Book Summary - How Women Rise Book explained in key points

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How Women Rise summary

Name: How Women Rise
Rating: 4.4 (155 reviews)
Author: Sally Helgesen and Marshall Goldsmith

Sally Helgesen and Marshall Goldsmith

Break the 12 Habits Holding You Back from Your Next Raise, Promotion, or Job

4.4 (155 ratings)

15 mins

Brief summary

How Women Rise by Sally Helgesen and Marshall Goldsmith explores the key behaviors and habits that hold women back from reaching their full potential in the workplace and provides practical strategies to overcome these challenges and succeed as leaders.

Topics

Gender & Sexuality Routines & Habits Goals

Table of Contents

How Women Rise
Summary of 6 key ideas

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Key idea 1 of 6

What’s in it for me? Learn to smash your own glass ceiling.

When it comes to cracking the various glass ceilings that exist in society, there’s no question that women have made a lot of progress.

Sadly, professional women still experience challenges that their male counterparts don’t. While men are praised for taking risks and asserting themselves, women are held to a different standard. They’re rewarded for being nice and helping others – qualities associated with supporting roles, rather than leadership roles.

Many women have adapted to these challenges by developing bad habits in an effort to prove their worth. By understanding and identifying your own unconscious learned behaviors, you can eliminate the unhelpful traits that are holding you back at work.

In these blinks, you’ll learn

why becoming an expert can be a bad career move;
how unfair expectations follow women from school to the workplace; and
that taking up more than one chair is a clever career move.

Women struggle to claim their own accomplishments.

Several years ago, one of the authors, Sally Helgesen, decided to interview successful professional women. Her aim was to find out what these women saw in the behavior of their younger colleagues that could be holding them back. The verdict was unanimous – the younger women all struggled with the word “I.”

Reluctance to take credit for personal achievements is a common problem among professional women. When the author discussed the topic with women with senior positions in accounting, consulting and law, they all agreed that younger female employees in their firm were conscientious, consistent and delivered work of a very high standard. It was even noted that they often worked harder than their male counterparts. Their weakness didn’t lie in the quality of the work – it lay in their discomfort with drawing attention to their successes and taking credit for their accomplishments.

For instance, they would underplay their own role in a team’s success, preferring to spread credit around than to acknowledge their hard work in front of senior colleagues.

This is a problem that the author has observed in the numerous workshops she’s conducted with diverse groups of professional women, and it’s evident in nearly every industry at every level in the workplace hierarchy.

Although seen as polite, being overly modest is more likely to harm a woman’s career than advance it. Over the course of their careers, both the authors have observed how men tend to distrust women who are self-deprecating about their achievements, considering them inauthentic. If a woman demonstrates this tendency in a management role, she also risks diminishing the accomplishments of the team she leads. As a manager, any failure to claim credit on behalf of the people she represents is a failure to acknowledge their hard work. By not recognizing the efforts of her team, she will end up demoralizing and being resented by her staff.

Women are taught to please, but it’s harming their careers.

Nobody’s perfect. So why do so many people still strive for perfection? Why do they feel the need to be pleasant, thoughtful and make others feel good at all times? Such behavior is known as the “disease to please,” and it’s particularly common among women.

Women have been conditioned to please everyone around them, both at home and in public, while men are not taught to put others first. It’s a form of socialization that starts in childhood. Research has found that, from a young age, girls are more likely to receive praise from parents and teachers for deferring to others. They’re encouraged to be obedient, helpful and agreeable. Simply, they are more likely than boys to be rewarded for being pleasant.

A woman’s habit of developing excessive expertise can hinder her chances of promotion.

What’s the surest strategy for success? You might think it has something to do with putting in extra hours to master all facets of your job. But in reality, developing expertise within your current role won’t help you progress. In fact, it will keep you on the lower rungs of the career ladder.

It’s common for female professionals to feel the need to go above and beyond to be taken seriously at work. If you’re a woman working in a traditionally male-dominated industry, chances are from the moment you arrived you felt under pressure to prove your competence. Perhaps a male colleague was reluctant to have a woman on his team and you tried to gain his respect by becoming a super contributor.

Women undermine their own authority by minimizing themselves.

Several years ago, the author attended a board meeting of a national women’s group. As the board members arrived, she observed how the men in the room who were already seated made no attempt to move when newcomers entered looking for a place to sit. The women, on the other hand, responded to each newcomer by moving to take up less space around the table. Why, she asked herself, were the women trying to make themselves smaller?

Unconsciously, women tend to minimize their presence and make themselves physically smaller in professional environments. This can be seen in the way they cross their legs, press their arms to the sides of their bodies, and keep their belongings close and neatly arranged. In contrast, men spread out as far as possible. They put their arms over the seats next to them, sit with their legs spread and their belongings scattered about.

The female tendency to ruminate leads to depression and inaction.

Do you ever find yourself dwelling on past mistakes? Do you find it hard to move on mentally, even though an event is behind you? Maybe you’re constantly mulling over what went wrong, what you could have done differently or imagining how things might have been. If these thought patterns sound familiar, there’s a high chance you’re a woman.

Routinely dwelling on mistakes and regrets is known as rumination, and it’s a classic female tendency. While both sexes are equally likely to fixate on negative events in their past, men tend to deal with these thoughts by blaming others for perceived failures and excusing themselves from responsibility. By turning their regret outward, men express this feeling as anger. According to research, this is the emotion men are most comfortable expressing.

Society promotes a habit of perfectionism in women.

Are you a self-proclaimed perfectionist? We sell this as a positive attribute, but striving for perfection can be the very opposite. Julie Johnson is an executive professional coach. One of the most common problems she sees in clients is the struggle to overcome perfectionism. After all, perfection is an unrealistic goal. When you inevitably fail to achieve it, you can’t help but feel stressed and disappointed in yourself.

Another of Johnson’s significant findings is that – in her experience – perfectionism is an especially female problem, which has roots in childhood.

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What is How Women Rise about?

How Women Rise (2018) explores the surprising things that women say, do and think in the workplace that hold them back from progressing. Using real-world examples and practical advice, the blinks explain how professional women can meet their full potential and rise to the top of their chosen career ladder.

How Women Rise Review

How Women Rise (2018) is a must-read book that offers insightful advice on breaking through the barriers holding women back in their careers. Here's why this book is worth reading:

Packed with practical tips and strategies, it provides actionable guidance for women to overcome common obstacles and rise to their full potential.
By combining the expertise of Sally Helgesen and Marshall Goldsmith, this book offers a unique perspective and valuable insights from both a female and male viewpoint.
The book's real-life stories and examples bring the concepts to life, making it engaging and relatable, ensuring it is anything but boring.

Who should read How Women Rise?

Women wanting to climb the career ladder
Employers who seek to make their workplace more female-friendly
Social psychology enthusiasts looking for fresh insights

About the Author

Sally Helgesen is a popular keynote speaker and expert on the topic of women’s leadership. She has advised companies such as Microsoft, Hewlett Packard and IBM, and her work has been featured in the New York Times. Marshall Goldsmith is a New York Times bestselling author and executive coach. His book Triggers was named Amazon’s Best Business Book of the year in 2015.

Categories with How Women Rise

Management & Leadership Money & Investments

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