Sarah Cooper - How to Be Successful without Hurting Men’s Feelings: Non-threatening Leadership Strategies for Women

Whats the worst part of being a woman in business?

We asked these three men what they think.

table of
contents

introduction

No Feelings Were Harmed While Writing This Book

When I started to write How to Be Successful Without Hurting Mens Feelings , my biggest fear was that my book would be successful and hurt mens feelings. After all, that was the last thing I wanted to do.

You see, every morning I wake up and ask myself the same question: How dare I?

How dare I seek opportunities? How dare I speak up? How dare I know stuff? How dare I tell a man hes wrong? How dare I tell a man hes right? Hes a man! He knows hes right!

Asking myself these questions every day has given me the strength I need to take all my hopes and dreams and push them deep, deep down inside where they can only be seen in the glimmer of my eye when I get too angry to talk.

But sometimes that glimmer is too bright and thats not good either. Because you know whats more precious than my hopes and dreams? A mans ego.

A mans ego must be protected at all cost.

But Sarah, you ask, what if a man is about to make a horrible mistake, one that could kill him? Shouldnt I interject then?

No. You shouldnt.

Take the story of Mary. One evening, Mary was riding in a car with her coworker, Steve, on their way to a company offsite. It was early evening and Steve had forgotten to turn on his headlights. Mary kindly said, Your lights arent on. Steve laughed slightly and turned them on. Mary was relieved that Steve was such a good sport about it and they went on to have a very pleasant and expectedly useless team bonding experience.

The ride home was not as easy.

Driving back, Steve made the same mistake and forgot to turn his headlights on. This time, Mary hesitated before correcting him, especially since there were other coworkers in the car this time. But after a few seconds of thought she figured correcting him was the safest thing to do for everyone involved. Im sure you can imagine what happened next. Mary told Steve to turn on his headlights, the coworkers in the backseat laughed at Steves mistake, Steve became flustered, embarrassed and momentarily blinded by rage, ran a stop sign, and T-boned an SUV. Fortunately, everyone survived. Unfortunately, everyone blamed Mary for causing the accident.

Coworkers taunted her for trying to tell Steve how to drive. Mary tried to defend herself by insisting she did the right thing.

But Mary did the wrong thing. The very wrong thing.

If you have the choice between saving a mans ego or saving his life, trust me. Save his ego. Hell thank you for it later. I mean, he wont because hell be dead, but you know what I mean.

When you hurt a mans ego its as painful as death anyway. Forgetting to turn his headlights on is just a less extreme example of soul-crushing workplace mistakes such as putting the wrong date on a presentation, leaving a zero off of an estimate, making the wrong bet on the future of the companys product line, or sleeping with an intern and costing the company millions of dollars in lawsuits.

As women, we might be tempted to say, Excuse me, you made a small error here. DO NOT SAY THIS. As non-threatening women, we must avoid that instinct because it serves no one, least of all ourselves.

Sadly, this isnt just about pointing out mistakes. Its about commanding any kind of presence at work. Being ambitious, seeking power, showing knowledge, these are all dangerous paths if we really want to be successful and get ahead.

As a woman in the business world, I kept seeing other women make the same mistakes over and over again. Telling their coworkers they wanted to be promoted. Asking their managers for more money. Bringing visibility to their work, leading meetings, talking in meetings, looking around in meetings, and breathing in meetings.

Seeing this, I knew my calling was to write a book that would stop the frustration born out of making an effort. I learned many of these tips while I was working in the male-dominated world of tech. Although I still messed up and was threatening every once in a while, I generally held fast to these rules and they probably definitely helped me get somewhere, I think.

How to Be Successful Without Hurting Mens Feelings is the non-threatening leadership guide women must follow if we are to be taken seriously in the workplace. And by seriously, of course, I mean not seriously, which is how we should always strive to be taken. And by strive, of course, I mean accept.

This book covers everything from how to land that dream job by not dreaming too big to how to deal with harassment while protecting your harasser, as well as pages for doodling on when men are talking at you and you need to be patient and let them finish what theyre saying.

Each chapter also includes an exercise designed to challenge you to be less challenging. I like to call these my inaction items.

Because sometimes doing nothing is the best something we can not do.

So arm yourself with the knowledge of these pages, ladies. Be vigilant about hiding yourself. (Not your entire self, just the woman and/or minority part of yourself.)

Scale the heights of your career and break that glass ceiling, but do it very quietly and gingerly, and be sure to make a man think he did it for you.

By standing as still as possible, you will go farther than you ever imagined, as long as you didnt imagine going too far.

CHAPTER 1: DREAMS

How to Ace Your Job Interview Without Over-acing It

In todays competitive job market, its important for women to be very careful about how they present themselves. We have to be friendly, but not too friendly; awesome, but not too awesome; and completely comfortable in our own skin as long as we fit right in.

Oftentimes following all the rules seems impossible, and thats because it is.

Here are a few rules to keep in mind if you want to nail your next job interview.

Gender-neutralize
your resume

Make sure your resume doesnt scream female by following these gender-neutral resume guidelines:

Use initials instead of your full first name

Avoid all pronouns in your professional summary