Sally Helgesen - The Female Vision: Womens Real Power at Work

More Praise for The Female Vision

The Female Vision provides an essential guidebook for leaders of the future. Those seeking to inspire and engage womens talents will find it indispensable.

Frances Hesselbein, Distinguished Chair of
Leadership, US Military Academy, West Point, and
recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom

The book deserves our full attention! The authors make a compelling case for why we need to rethink leadership development and selection. They show why we desperately need leaders who exhibit broad-spectrum notice, find satisfaction in the daily experience of work, and have a penchant for viewing work in a larger social context.

Linda A. Hill, Wallace Brett Donham Professor
of Business Administration and Faculty Chair,
The Leadership Initiative, Harvard Business School

Nothing has more potential for healing the planet than the purposeful vision of women. This book paves the way!

Richard Leider, author of The Power of Purpose

The world is experiencing a crisis of confidence about its leaders. The Female Vision shows how women can address this by redefining leadership. Its the right message for women and for girls!

Kathy Cloninger, CEO, Girl Scouts of the USA

The Female Vision is essential for those who want to understand the real difference womens leadership can make to our economy and society by emphasizing the power of womens strategic thinking.

Linda Basch, President, National Council for Research on Women

The Female Vision digs deep to find the real reason womens progress has stalled and shows why companies have been so slow to adapt. Read it, believe it, live it!

Margaret Heffernan, author of Women on Top

Women leaders are underrepresented today in the nonprofit sector as well as in the corporate world. The Female Vision clearly articulates what women uniquely bring to leadership of any organization.

Susan E. Danish, Executive Director,
Association of Junior Leagues International

The economic crisis provided a wake-up call. Organizations must do a better job of drawing on womens visionary talents. Thank you, Sally and Julie, for building the case!

Jacki Zehner, former partner, Goldman Sachs,
and Vice-Chair, Womens Funding Network

Sally Helgesen and Julie Johnson show the price the world pays for not listening to women but also shows women what they must do to be heard.

Michelle Clayman, founder and Chair, Clayman
Institute for Gender Research, Stanford University

Visionary! Twenty-first century leadership, talent, and market imperatives make this book a mandatory management read. A real eye-opener.

Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, author of How Women Mean Business

The business case has been provenfinancial results are far better with women in the C-suite and the boardroom. Sally and Julies research shows CEOs how to set a new tone at the top by leveraging the competitive advantage of womens leadership.

Janice Reals Ellig, Co-CEO, Chadick Ellig Executive Search
Advisors, and President, New York Womens Forum

Provocative and timely. The Female Vision shows why what women see matters. It offers strategies for women seeking to develop their leadership capacity and actionable advice for employers to help them do so.

Mary Brabeck, Dean, Steinhardt School of Culture, Education,
and Human Development, New York University

Too much male-think brought the worlds financial system to its knees. Its time to bring The Female Vision into the corner office!

Consuelo Mack, anchor and Managing Editor, WealthTrack

Reading The Female Vision can help women assume greater control. As I read it, I kept thinking, This is how I really think, feel, and work.

Michele Coleman Mayes, Senior Vice President
and General Counsel, Allstate

The female VISION

BOOKS BY SALLY HELGESEN

The Female Advantage: Womens Ways of Leadership

The Web of Inclusion: A New Architecture for Building Great
Organizations

Thriving in 24/7: Six Strategies for Taming the New World
of Work

Everyday Revolutionaries: Working Women and the
Transformation of American Life

Wildcatters: A Story of Texans, Oil, and Money

Womens Real Power at Work

SALLY HELGESEN & JULIE JOHNSON

The Female Vision

Copyright 2010 by Sally Helgesen and Julie Johnson
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed Attention: Permissions Coordinator, at the address below.

Ordering information for print editions
Quantity sales. Special discounts are available on quantity purchases by corporations, associations, and others. For details, contact the Special Sales Department at the Berrett-Koehler address above.
Individual sales. Berrett-Koehler publications are available through most bookstores. They can also be ordered directly from Berrett-Koehler: Tel: (800) 929-2929; Fax: (802) 864-7626; www.bkconnection.com Orders for college textbook/course adoption use. Please contact BerrettKoehler: Tel: (800) 929-2929; Fax: (802) 864-7626.
Orders by U.S. trade bookstores and wholesalers. Please contact Ingram Publisher Services, Tel: (800) 509-4887; Fax: (800) 838-1149; E-mail: customer.service@ingrampublisherservices.com; or visit www.ingrampublisherservices.com/Ordering for details about electronic ordering.

Berrett-Koehler and the BK logo are registered trademarks of Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc.

First Edition
Paperback print edition ISBN 978-1-57675-382-8
PDF e-book ISBN 978-1-57675-894-6
IDPF e-book ISBN 978-1-60509-838-8

2010-1

Cover Design: Karen Marquardt
Cover Photo: Anthony Loew
Interior designed and produced by BookMatters; copyedited by Katie Silver;
proofread by Tanya Grove; indexed by Gerald Van Ravenswaay.

For Our Mothers:

Ann LaFollette Helgesen
&
Verna Ione Johnson

Marshall Goldsmith

I decided it just wasnt worth it.

Too many gifted women have used this phrase to describe why they departed from major corporations and passed up seemingly spectacular career opportunities, leaving positions that may have seemed glamorous to the outside observer but that felt personally depleting to them. I hope the wisdom and insights the authors share in The Female Vision will change that situation by giving organizations a way to draw more fully on what women see.

The Female Vision draws on the latest research (comparing womens and mens perceptions) to illustrate why what women and men see can be so different. It presents myriad examples from todays challenging workplace to illustrate why these differences matter and how womens vision can make a signifi-cant, positive difference in the workplace.