The Female Advantage: Women's Ways of Leadership

by Sally Helgesen

Book Overview

Now in Currency paperback -- Sally Helgesen's classic study of female leaders and how their strategies represent a highly successful revision of male leadership styles. Sixty thousand copies in print! In her bestselling 1990 book, Sally Helgesen discovered that men and women approach work in fundamentally different ways. Many of these differences hold distinct advantages for women, who excel at running organizations that foster creativity, cooperation,...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0385419112
• ISBN13: 9780385419116
• Release Date: April 1995
• Publisher: Crown Currency
• Length: 320 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 5.6" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

How Female Values can Heal the World

Helgesen cautions us in 1990 that "Feminine values are entering the public realm because we can no longer afford to restrict them to the private domestic sphere, nor allow a public culture obsessed with Warrior values to control human destiny if we are to survive." Indeed, nearly two decades later Warrior values have brought the world to greater peril than ever before in our history. She prescribed not the end of Warrior values but rather the blending of them with feminine values for healing the conditions Warrior values have fostered, in other words, balance. For the primary values, the metavalues of humankind are shared by mature leaders of both sexes. They are what they have always been, Truth, Beauty and Goodness. How can this work? When male warrior values tends toward arrogance, Truth reminds him of his limitations. When warrior viewpoints narrows the area of his awareness, Beauty reminds him of the richness and diversity of human existence. When warrior power corrupts, Goodness cleanses. For it is Love--the composite of the MetaValues of Truth, Beauty and Goodness--that the mature and dedicated female leader can supply in abundance, and what the world sorely needs today.

A Woman's Touch: Feminine Principles in the Technological Age

The Female Advantage by Sally Helgesen is an insightful and interesting book that questions the efficiency of the standard corporate hierarchal structure. She notes that the business world has evolved significantly since the 1970s, when sports metaphors abounded and the goal was to crush human competition. As we've moved from an industrial age to a technological age, Helgesen interprets the modern business world as needing to rely less upon an "authoritarian chain of command" and more on an innovative, people-centric view in order to survive in the rapidly changing technological age. Instead of stopping at mere criticism of the existing system, Helgesen offers a plan for the future: the "web of inclusion". This idea of a "web" rather than a hierarchy came about after extensive research into the leadership styles of women, who are increasingly entering upper-echelon positions in the business world. Helgesen focuses the majority of her research on "diary studies" of four influential female business leaders: Frances Hesselbein, chief executive of the Girl Scouts of America; Nancy Badore, director of Ford Motor Company's Executive Development Center; Dorothy Brunson, a minority owner of several radio and television stations; and Barbara Grogan, president of an industrial contracting company. Helgesen attributes the success of each of these women in their individual sectors to their use of feminine principles: a desire to strengthen interpersonal relationships, treat everyone with respect, share information, and think in terms of the larger group. At the center of this revolution of "female principles" is the idea of the "web of inclusion", modeled after a spider's web. This management structure is at direct odds with the traditional hierarchal structure in that the leader of the organization is not "alone at the top", she is right in the middle of everything, "reaching out rather than reaching down". This kind of managerial construction eliminates jockeying for position as there is no up or down, just different spots. In addition, its very nature requires closer relationships between the members of the organization. Whereas in a hierarchal organization information would flow in a limited manner from the top down and a chain of command would be imperative, the web functions more democratically, with everyone being connected through the symbolic threads of the spider web. Thus a leader in the web draws her power from being close to her employees, rather than from keeping them at a distance, as in the standard hierarchal model. The "web of inclusion", then, empowers employees by making them part of a cohesive group, as well as streamlines the everyday workings of a business by eliminating cumbersome chains of command and enabling more direct and productive communication. I would recommend this book to anyone with an interest in business, feminism, or communication, as well as anyone just looking for something new to read. Helgesen's conver

Time for a Second Look

You may have read this book in 1990, when it first came out, as I did. It's worth another look now, if only for chapter 9 - Reconciling the Efficient and the Humane. In the 90's, some of us speculated that the future of leadership would come from the skills women have posessed for generations. As we look for ways to integrate the human element back into the workplace, as we read books on Emotional Intelligence and Resonant Leadership, it's time to acknowledge Helgesen's foresight. What did she tell us we needed back then? She started with an ambience that represented a different set of values. Next, listening, followed by collaborative negotiation. She foresaw what she terms the end of the warrior age. Helgesen's interviews are as interesting today - and as fresh - as they were when the book was first published. We may have heard this message a few times by now, but I don't think it will ever get old.

Strengths of Women Leadership

In her book, the Female Advantage, author Sally Helgesen distinguishes the basic characteristics among men and women and the advantages of these unique qualities in women when performing a leadership role. Throw out those books that tells you that you have to play the big boys games in order to succeed in the corporate world. Because what really takes to succeed lies in our in our thinking and our basic behavior al differences from men. Instead of blinding to these characteristics to `fit in', she tells us to embrace them and use them to our advantage.She entails these characteristics from the female executives in her book, not in an interview but rather in a `diary' format, watching and learning by their behavior. She presents four different women in her book, the President of the Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. , A Ford Motors Executive, a founder and president of a telecommunications company and a founder and president of millwrighting firm. These diverse group of women are put under the microscope in her book in order to not just define what a female leader is but also the advantages of being a female leader.Helgesen points out that women have distinguishing qualities that she calls `feminine principles' that allow them to be better managers and responsible leaders. These feminine principles reflect our culture's basic presumption about differences between how men and women act and establishment of these principles in the public sector results would result in a more enriched life. She challenges the hierarchial structure of the corporate world by presenting female perspective by offering a web construct where direct communication and free flowing of ideas are encouraged and relationships are valued. Her writing is loosely structured filled with inquisitive remarks. The stories of the four women she documented are interesting read and provide a window to the private lives and behavior of successful females. Whether you are a woman just planning the first seeds in her career or whether you're a seasoned leader, this is a good book to read to recharge ourselves and claim a stake of our worth in this world.

The Strengths of Women Leaders

Sally Helgesen's profound book shows how women lead differently...via a "web" instead of a hierarchy. Women in the workplace have long been told that we can't compete effectively because of the games (meaning tea parties instead of competitive sports) we played as girls. But, guess what? Sally Helgesen shows that the world based on hierarchies is spinning out of control...and the games we girls played (which hinged on relationships)turn out to be exactly the right games, giving women the unusual strength our world needs to evolve in a powerful new direction.The rules have changed and women already know them. Not only does this book boost all women's self-esteem, but it also charges us to realize our responsibility to the world in which we live: "...feminine principles are entering the public realm because we can no longer afford to restrict them to the domestic sphere, nor allow a public culture obsessed with Warrior values to control human destiny if we are to survive." [p.255]How true.