Carol Vallone Mitchell - Breaking Through Bitch: How Women Can Shatter Stereotypes and Lead Fearlessly

Breaking Through Bitch shows women that the skills that they have learned based on expectations for being female in societylistening, collaboration, and thinking outside the box, for exampleare actually very valuable skills for business leaders to have. For women who wish to get to the top of corporate America as it stands today, it is important to understand how to leverage these skills to achieve your goals. This book provides great insights about how successful business women are doing this today and how future female business leaders can model these behaviors at work.

Katina Sawyer, PhD, assistant professor of psychology, graduate programs in Human Resource Development, Villanova University

Breaking Through Bitch is much more than a provocative titleits a book that uses data and research to identify the competencies necessary for women to succeed by leading collaborativelywithout being called the b word. Dr. Mitchell has made the case that it is a mistake to undervalue womens natural abilities and strengths, for collaborative leadership is taking the day now and in the future. Im sharing this book with other leaders in my networkmale and femaleand Im encouraging my college-aged son and his friends to read it as well.

Carol Pandza, senior leader, Human Resources, Philadelphia, Pa.

Mitchells Womens Leadership Blueprint is truly fit for purpose not just for would be women executives but for aspiring men as well.

J. Glade Holman, partner, Park Li Group

Carol Mitchell shows us how to embrace who we are and how we lead to be effective in the workplace and beyond. Whether you are a young professional just starting on your journey or a seasoned professional looking for reassurance and a few tweaks to improve your effectiveness, theres something here for you.

Mary Pat Knauss, President, Board of Directors of Wings for Success

This book is a must read for every woman manager who wants to improve her leadership skills. Carol Mitchell confronts directly a lot of concerns and questions that most woman managers are thinking and feeling.

Steve Heinen, PhD, President, Steve Heinen & Associates

HOW WOMEN CAN SHATTER STEREOTYPES AND LEAD FEARLESSLY

Carol Vallone Mitchell

FOREWORD BY ANNIE MCKEE

best-selling coauthor of Primal Leadership

Copyright 2015 by Carol Vallone Mitchell

All rights reserved under the Pan-American and International Copyright Conventions. This book may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, in any form or by any means electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system now known or hereafter invented, without written permission from the publisher, The Career Press.

BREAKING THROUGH BITCH
EDITED BY JODI BRANDON
TYPESET BY KRISTIN GOBLE
Cover design by Howard Grossman
Printed in the U.S.A.

To order this title, please call toll-free 1-800-CAREER-1 (NJ and Canada: 201-848-0310) to order using VISA or MasterCard, or for further information on books from Career Press.

The Career Press, Inc.
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Mitchell, Carol Vallone, author.

Breaking through bitch : how women can shatter stereotypes and lead fearlessly / by Carol Vallone Mitchell ; foreword by Annie McKee.

pages cm

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 978-1-63265-007-8 (paperback) -- ISBN 978-1-63265-991-0 (ebook) 1. Women executives. 2. Leadership. 3. Executive ability. I. Title.

HD6054.3.M58 2015

658.4092082--dc23

2015027782

I thank all the executive women and men who welcomed me into their offices and shared their stories of challenge and triumph with me. You taught me so much about the very best ways of leading. You may recognize yourselves in these pages, though I hope no one else will!

I am grateful to the senior executive woman who inspired my research 25 years ago, by saying, Women have to walk a fine line here. You started me on a meaningful and rewarding quest.

I also thank Talent Strategy Partners editor Anne Dubuisson for teaching me and leading me to discover my non-academic voice. By writing this book with her challenges and reinforcement, I saw my data in new ways and went through a self-development process of my own. It was a journey I will always treasure.

I give special thanks to Annie McKee, for her review of this book and her enthusiastic support. She not only read this book, she digested it and told me about her interpretations and personal insights that she gained as a result. I hold her in highest regard, and it is with the utmost admiration that I say thank you!

To all my colleagues who have encouraged me to write and pursue publication of this book, and there are many of you, I am very grateful. I particularly thank Andie Kaelin, Debbi Bromley, and Karen Basile for the many conversations that helped me crystallize the unique essence and theme of this book.

I thank my colleague Steve Heinen, who shared his continuing research on leadership competencies and brought new insights to the interpretation of the Womens Leadership Blueprint. And I also thank Mike OMalley for his help and advice throughout this process.

I especially thank my business partner, Pat Schaeffer. She convinced me to write this book and gave me the resources, time, and space to do it. I cant thank her enough for giving me her perpetual support, optimism, and encouragement. I am so lucky to have such a wonderful business partner.

Also, I am so grateful to my husband, Ken, and son, Patrick, who put up with me tiptoeing off to my book cave to write, not just during the week, but also on vacations and weekends. And I give my particular thanks to Ken for his suggestions, his understanding, his emotional support, and his humor!

by Annie McKee

Its not often that a book brings outstanding research together with absolute practicality. Carol Mitchell has written just such a bookand on a topic we simply must attend to: womens leadership. Many people shy away from this important topic, or are quite frankly scared to take it on. Not Carol Mitchell. In Breaking Through BITCH, she helps us to understand why it is so hard for women to lead and succeed in our organizations today. Most importantly, she shows us how we can succeed, as leaders of todays organizations. And, while this book most definitely focuses on womens leadership, there are lessons here for all of us, men and women alike.

We all know that women leaders have very different challenges than our male colleagues. If this were not true, there would be more of us at the top. The reality is that it is very hard for women to succeedreally succeed in most companies today. The problem is rooted in our societies deeply held biases and prejudice, of course, and we need to continue to fight to change the fundamental unfairness we find in organizations all over the world. This will take dedication and time.

Meanwhile, what can female leaders do? How can we lead and succeed now, with the world the way it is?

In Breaking Through BITCH, Carol Mitchell makes a strong case for why women need to stop trying to be like men, and develop unique and different leadership skills that actually do help us succeed. Carol draws from her outstanding research to show us how women need to call upon their emotional intelligence and other skills that one might consider uniquely feminine. In fact, this book shows us how women