As it turned out, the inclusive and weblike structures that women tended to thrive in were a natural fit for the flatter, nimbler and more interconnected organizations that emerged as people began to communicate more directly. The Female Advantage began to change that, helped by the shift to networked technologies and the growing emphasis on the role of knowledge. The kind of inclusive practices we now consider leadership skills–– collaboration, teamwork, listening, communicating across boundaries, mentoring, motivating people, unleashing their creative potential–– these were dismissed as soft stuff. Since it was the first book to focus on what women had to contribute as leaders, rather than how they needed to change and adapt, it landed with a big impact.Īt the time, most experts advocated a competitive, take-no-prisoners approach to leadership, combined with a reverence for hierarchy and a laser-like focus on performance and the bottom line. In 1990, I published The Female Advantage: Women’s Ways of Leadership–– remarkably, it’s still in print after nearly 32 years. With the women of Petronas Global Energy, Kuala Lumpur, 2019Ī little bit about how I got here.
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