Book Review: How Women Rise
How Women Rise was recommended to me by two different women within weeks of each other and when something like that happens I take it as a nudge from the universe that I should pay attention. After doing a little research about the book I could hardly wait for it to arrive in the mail.
PREMISE OF THE BOOK
The book is authored by Sally Helgesen and Marshall Goldsmith, both acclaimed authors and leadership experts. Sally has previously written two books including The Female Advantage: Women’s Ways of Leadership and The Female Vision: Women’s Real Power At Work and Marshall Goldsmith is best known for his book What Got You Here Won’t Get You There. The genesis of the book was the realization that Marshall Goldsmith’s book What Got You Here was not relatable for female professionals. He had written the book based on his coaching experience which was nearly 80% with male clients. So Marshall teamed up with Sally, known for her specialization in women’s leadership, to provide a female-focused book about habits that serve women early in their careers but hold them back as they attempt to move up the corporate ladder.
The book concept immediately resonated with me. Could this be the holy grail to recommend to women to help us get out of our own way in our careers?
Sadly, this book was a bust. There were a handful of good nuggets I’ve shared in this blog but I would not recommend women read this book. In fact, I would go as far as to say this book could do more harm than good.
WHAT MAKES THIS A BUST?
Where are the references? Throughout the book there are multiple studies cited without references. We live in a society of endless information and misinformation. I’m skeptical of information provided from research that doesn’t include a link to the full research findings and you should be, too.
The book shares habits that are obstacles for women; it intentionally does not include guidance on how to adjust your behavior. “So the focus of this book is not about new habits and behaviors you might want to start practicing, since we figure you probably already have enough to-do items on your list.” Wait...what? You are going to help us realize where we have opportunity but not provide guidance on how to make adjustments? Which leads me to my third and biggest reason this book is a bust.
The undercurrent of the book is that if women are to succeed, they need to be more like men. This kind of thinking is a tragedy to the business world. The goal is to create diversity of perspective. How are we accomplishing that if women are rising to positions of influence and power by using masculine behaviors? This just perpetuates the imbalance. To solve the problem, women need to rise by leveraging their feminine strengths not by completely suppressing them.
While I do not recommend this book, there are a handful of gems that are worth noting. But save yourself from the harmful messaging and get the gems here instead of reading the book.
HIDDEN GEMS
Your habits are not you. They are your autopilot. As behaviors become habitual it’s easy to internalize the behavior and assume that this is “just the way you are”. For example, you may see yourself as a servant leader and believe that this means you need to put others' needs ahead of your own or else you’re selfish. I found this concept of looking at habits as paths as an autopilot rather than our character to be a particularly helpful re-frame as you explore habits that no longer suit you.
Ambition is a great thing. Time to break the stigma associated with it for women. Alternate headline: Being ambitious and aspiring to have satisfying work that makes a difference doesn’t have to be mutually exclusive. Ambition holds a similar stigma as power for women. The misconception is that a woman who is ambitious is selfish, arrogant, or even untrustworthy. Although I never thought of my ambition negatively, as I read this part I realized that I always held back when sharing my true dreams and aspirations for fear they were too big. I like the book's reframe to consider seeing your ambition as maximizing your talents in service of the work you find satisfying and worthwhile. Another way to flip this is being ambitious isn’t selfish but instead not sharing your talents with the world and contributing to your fullest could be the true act of selfishness.
Beware of the Authenticity Trap. “If you know a behavior isn’t working for you but you persist on doing it anyways, that’s not being authentic; that’s being stubborn”. This one hit home and it hit hard. Have you ever caught yourself saying “that’s just not me”? While sometimes this may be practicing healthy boundaries, I like how the book so directly calls out that this could also be stubbornness. Next time you catch yourself thinking or saying “that’s just not me” take a minute to explore the motive. Is it possible that you’re using authenticity as a way to avoid something that is outside your comfort zone that you’ve never tried before?
Failure to delegate is a failure to prioritize. In my experience a failure to delegate comes from three things 1) There is literally no one else who can do what you do 2) You don’t know how to prioritize what requires your time versus what someone else on the team can do 3) You feel guilty handing off work you technically can do yourself. Sound familiar? The book gives a great way to think about delegation. Think about a time your boss delegated a project to you that helped you grow, gain visibility, perhaps work closer with them. Now imagine if you had never had that chance? So consider in the future that when you delegate you are providing opportunities for others to grow.
Last, I’ve outlined the 12 habits provided in the book that create obstacles for women in their career. I encourage you to share this with others and for any male allies reading this. My hope is this helps give you some additional insight into women on your team.
**Something to note. Each of these habits is laced with strengths. Strengths become weaknesses when they are over indexed, which is what you’ll see in these habits.
12 HABITS HOLDING WOMEN BACK - HOW TO KNOW YOU PRACTICE THIS HABIT
Reluctance to Claim Your Achievements. Do you say “I” or “We” when talking about achievements? Does thinking about claiming your achievements immediately make you bristle thinking about that obnoxious co-worker who always takes credit, even when they shouldn’t?
Expecting Others to Spontaneously Notice and Reward Your Contributions. Have you ever thought or said “If I work hard and do a good job people will notice”?
Overvaluing Expertise. Another way this manifests is the need to know everything before you apply for a job. Or maybe the excessive preparation you put in before a big presentation or meeting where you want to be ready for every question.
Building Rather Than Leveraging Relationships. This might sound like “I feel bad asking” or “we don’t know each other that well, I don’t want to bother them.” Another thing I see that makes this hard is “leveraging” relationships can feel like asking for help. Which can be super hard to do.
Failing to Enlist Allies from Day One. The book refers to this in the context of starting a new job. The way it manifests might sound like “I have to go heads down learning everything before I will make any decisions” instead of asking “who should I connect with to make this job a success” or some version of that.
Putting Your Job Before Your Career. The desire to be loyal can lead you to neglect your future. You may feel comfortable in your job. Something you might say is “I’d be worried what would happen if I left.”
The Perfection Trap. The belief that you have to do things perfectly and never make a mistake. This could show up as being overly controlling of others work if you are in management. You put in long hours because that’s how much time you need to make sure everything is perfect. Making a mistake feels like a failure instead of an opportunity to learn and grow.
The Disease to Please. The desire to be thoughtful, nice, and make everyone around you feel good. IYKTYK...enough said on this one.
Minimizing. This can surface in both a physical and verbal form. Physically you may do things like shrink your body (hunch forward, arms crossed). Perhaps you take a seat at the back of a room or off to the side at a table. When you speak you may use undermining language like “Don’t quote me on this” or “I could be wrong but…”. And like #1 do you use the term “we” when describing work largely done by you instead of “I”?
Too Much. I was torn whether to even include this one. This chapter was the epitome of my issue with the book. The primary message was that sometimes women are too much of something (ex. too emotional) and that it can be off-putting to men and women who need to rein it in. While I understand we need to be situationally aware, the resounding message was to be less like yourself so that men who do not know how to handle emotions are not uncomfortable.
Ruminating. Spending excessive time or even obsessing over unfortunate things in the past. You might notice you continue to talk about what happened to anyone who will listen. Another way this manifests is holding onto what happened and blaming yourself and dissecting mistakes.
Letting Your Radar Distract You. The authors propose that women’s attention operates like radar scanning the environment whereas men tend to be more laser focused. Being hyper aware of people’s reactions can feed self doubt and undermine confidence 🤔
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