How Women Rise : Book Review

How Women Rise , by Sally Helgesen and Marshall Goodman is a personal development book geared towards women in the workplace. My mom was the one who gave me this book to read. She has been very successful in her male-denominated field (petroleum engineering), and although she has always acknowledged the disadvantage her gender gave her, she never used that as an excuse to not work on overcoming the hurdles placed in front of her. She is a firm believer that complaining about your disadvantage without also striving to combat it, is fruitless. Is it fair that you have to put in the extra effort to make up for your handicapped position? No, but that is not an excuse to not put the work in. Knowing this, I was excited to delve into the book and all the actionables I knew it was bound to present.

The two authors of this book are both leadership coaches for high level executives. In their practices, they continued to observe a handful of common habits that held their clients back from being the best employees they could be. However, over time they began to notice that the women they worked with tended to have a different set of common hindering habits than the men. Meaning, the common habits that were observed among the men in the workplace, were not seen as often in the women. Rather their female clients had a different set of habits that worked against them, habits that appear to stem in part from how society raises/expects young girls to behave. Through the course of the book, the authors lay out 12 habits that they frequently observe as impairments to women in their professions.

I immediately was able to identify with 5 of the habits, and as I made my way through the book, I could see a little bit of each of them in my workplace behaviors. Now, it is important to note the authors do acknowledge that the presence of these habits is not necessarily a bad thing. They argue that at one point, these tendencies actually served you, hence why you have held onto them. However, as one moves into different points in their career, these once helpful habits can start to undermine your hard work and prevent you from reaching new milestones.

I am going to highlight 4 of the 12 habits as well as give my takeaways for how to combat them. The habits I am going to discuss are congruous in that they all stem from a flawed sense of guilt or loyalty. Women tend to get stuck in these behaviors because they believe that acting otherwise will make them look like a mean, greedy, or slimy person. For example, the habit titled “Expecting Others to Spontaneously Notice and Reward Your Contributions”, comes from not wanting to be known for constantly tooting your own horn. I know I tend to downplay my achievements for fear of appearing full of myself. And while not wanting to be arrogant is a righteous notion, in a busy office environment, if you do not make your accomplishments/strengths public, there is a high chance they will be overlooked. It is your job to bring attention to the value you bring to your company. My favorite quote from this chapter states, “Remember this: Companies don’t just make great products and assume that customers ‘should’ want to buy them. They have a marketing function that is designed to effectively promote what they do. You, as a professional, need one too.” This has helped me to reframe my mindset around this issue and given me a train of logic to use as defense against the sleeziness self-promotion sometimes makes me feel.

Another habit that many have fallen into in an attempt to avoid the sliminess is, “Just Building Rather than Building and Leveraging Relationships”. The book highlighted many studies that demonstrated the incredible ability of women to form numerous, empathetic, close relationships. However, unlike their male colleagues, they often fail to utilize these relationships to their full potential. While it is a great thing to not want to take advantage of others, in a business environment, to constantly be giving of oneself and never asking for anything in return is foolish. Everyone has heard the phrase, “Teamwork makes the dreamwork”, which highlights the fact that humans are able to accomplish a great deal more in teams than individually. In the same way, as a professional, you will find much more success in working with and receiving help from others. Remembering that “you’re a potential resource that the other person would be fortunate to have…” can help when approaching a coworker for a favor. Even just asking for a small favor opens the door to creating a highly productive, symbiotic relationship.

To overcome these ‘guilt-trip’ habits, I was reminded to really think about my worth and aspirations in life. Like many women, I have a care giving attitude and can be reluctant to ask for help, for fear of being viewed as a burden. But if someone needs my help, they immediately zoom their way up to the top of my priority list. I enjoy helping people, but I think the main driver behind this behavior is a need to please everyone I meet. Researchers have found that the desire to be liked by everyone is very common among women. In the book, they deem this “The Disease to Please”. While it is good to help people, I was reminded that an unrelenting desire to please everyone can lead to unneeded stress and unhappiness. In the pursuit to please others, you can quickly find yourself living a life you never wanted, as others’ desires and wants get put before your own. You only get one life, so I think it is important to make it a life you actually want. Reminding yourself of this can be a useful tool when you find yourself struggling to say no.

For me, I can also see “The Disease to Please” tying into another habit, “Putting Your Job Before Your Career”. I, like many women, have always felt the need to be loyal. While loyalty is a great virtue, the authors argue that it also has a powerful way of keeping one stuck. Professionals need to constantly be working on themselves in order to rise and reach the next level of success. To do this, one needs to acquire a variety of experiences, whether they be at different companies or just in different roles. Staying in the same position does not provide the challenges needed for growth and development. However, many people find accumulating new learning experiences unnecessarily difficult. Usually they will find themselves in a job that they don’t hate, or even one that makes them happy, but they’re not learning anything new and they’re not moving any farther up the ladder. They know they should start exploring other options or inquire about a transfer, some actually do inquire about a transfer or new work focus, but stop when their boss comes back at them with praises about how well they do their current job and how they would be deeply saddened/hurt to lose them. This invokes that desire to be loyal, so they stay, at the expense to their own growth and benefit. I myself, know that this desire to be loyal/feeling of guilt I get when my desires differ from my boss, is something I am constantly going to have to be conscious of. This came up for me recently when my current employer sat me down and asked if I would like to continue working with them when I go back to school in the fall. While I really like my current position, I already have plans for how I want to launch myself in a new direction. I felt so guilty as I declined the offer, uncomfortable with the thought that I might have disappointed him. I worried that I was now going to be treated differently in the office. Nevertheless, having read this book not long ago, I knew that I would never be able to accomplish the high goals and aspirations I have if I let myself be pressured into a corner.

There is so much more I could say about this book. I learned a lot and was able to reflect on myself and the habits of humans in general. This post is already getting long so I hope that I have piqued your interest or got your thought train chugging enough to motivate you to read it too. Regardless if you read it or not, I encourage you to start paying attention to your own workplace habits, and try to identify ones that might be holding you back, even if they were formed from good intentions. Once you identify some behaviors you want to work on, take action! You are in charge of your destiny and have the potential to do great things whiling living the life you want. So go on and RISE!