Customer Reviews

The Female Vision: Women's Real Power at Work

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This book is an incredibly masterful detailing of how corporations can tap the power of women and their unique skillset to create a more positive, inclusive, globally competitive workplace.

Helgesen and Johnson have created an insightful and visionary book about the value of workforce diversity and what organizations can do to support women in leadership positions.

The book is applicable to non-profits, corporations, educational and government organizations. We would be well served if this book was available at every university business leadership library as well as every high school library.

Uplifting, inspiring and a must read!

Is what women see- what they notice and value and how they perceive the world in operation - a great underexploited resource in organizations? In this book Sally Helgesen once again helps us all know that we already know - that the answer is unequivocally yes.

Sally, and her coauthor Julie Johnson, were surprised by the results of the study they conducted to determine what women most deeply value and how this might conflict with what mainstream organizations expect their leaders to value. Could this discrepancy be what leads so many experienced and well-regarded women to either leave senior positions or watch their career stall out?

In Female Vision they demonstrate a frustrating connection between the kind of values and vision women bring to work and the kind of receptivity or even invitation that they don't receive. Yet, these very values and perceptions are what organizations need to thrive in today's fast changing, boundary dissolving, unsustainable world.

They concluded that women bring a focus on what really matters in life - satisfaction day by day, a broad spectrum perspective that takes multiple factors into account, and an interest in constantly building and tending to the social fabric of the organization and its many stakeholders. Isn't this 21st Century Leadership that works?

Yet, for the most part organizations do not recognize or value what women see as well as what they do. Until they do, talented women will continue to leave organizations and find new opportunities where their skills, talents, and wisdom are valued. It's hard to feel motivated when your skills, talents, and unique perspective are left out of the key strategy and decision-making sessions. The costs to organizations include not only turn over and retraining. They are also missing critical diversity in approach, values, and vision.

Read this book to discover whether you value female vision and learn how to invite it into your own organization and life. It's worth it.

Helgesen and Johnson make a strong case for harnessing the strengths of women. In this beautifully written book, we learn how women notice different things and that we must capture this vision to yield bottom line results. Case examples make the material come alive.

Workplace experts Sally Helgesen and Julie Johnson draw on their research into male and female perceptions of job satisfaction to show organizations how to understand and benefit from "the female vision." They identify a major leadership issue in companies' failure to recognize, value or understand women's workplace contributions. Their research finds that meaningful work and strong relationships motivate women more than financial compensation. Women also recognize the consequences of sacrificing long-term goals for short-term profits. The third chapter, which discusses the 2008 financial crisis, provides a great example of the dangers of the typical (read, male) narrow, one-sided vision. To create a setting where women can thrive, leaders should embrace empathy, and value both qualitative and quantitative knowledge. The authors make a compelling case for why managers should care about the lack of women in high-level positions and explain what companies can do about it. getAbstract recommends this book to executives who care about their company's strategy and leadership, and want to tap into the female vision.

Finally a book that shows organizations how to leverage the competitive advantage of women's leadership! A real game-changer. Helgesen and Johnson are the first to build a compelling strategic case for women's leadership.

The book breaks new ground in exploring the magnitude of women's contributions based on their unique "female vision." Companies cannot afford to under-utilize this extraordinary talent - and the authors provide practical, actionable steps on how to maximize this unparalleled resource.

This book should be required reading for the leadership of every Fortune 500 company.

I can't imagine any two people who are better suited to writing a book on women and power. Sally Helgesen and Julie Johnson are THE experts in a field filled with so-called experts. Each is knowledgeable in her own way, and the combination of the two is one plus one equals ten. This book is smart, savvy and based on their combined research and individual work experiences. For anyone interested in women and leadership, this is the one book to buy.

The Female Vision: Women's Real Power at Work

Typically, the corporate world is still dominated by men with unexamined masculine attitudes and conditioning. Women within this subculture have essentially three choices about how they navigate any kind of success: adopt the prevailing masculinized practices, withdraw and betray themselves, or own their intrinsic value and take initiative. Authors Sally Helgessen and Julie Johnson shed light on the disparities between women's vision and men's in the business world, and they do so with insightful clarity, as well as substantial research and anecdotes. Still, the business world is merely representative of a greater and fundamental imbalance that exists in most societies: the absence of valuing the feminine experience. And for me, it is this larger message that this book delivers--albeit indirectly--that gets my passion aroused.

What is the feminine experience? Naturally, the answer is complex, but I think it's safe to begin by saying that the feminine intrinsically perceives the world as a relationship-oriented realm. When relationships are the lens through which reality--people and nature--is seen, this shifts everything that relates to meaning, values, vision, and action.

Many women are already redefining leadership and business across the globe, not by trying to change the existing power structures, but by reconstructing the power paradigm in local practices that have global reverberations. Thanks to such women, and women such as the authors of The Female Vision, we all benefit from their courage to cultivate a leadership of living as an interconnected community, united in the task of progressive social change.

"Addressing the complexities of our common future requires us to se the world from a full perspective, employing a wide lens as well as a sharp focus." The Female Vision is a must-read for both.

A feminine perspective is more than just a saying. "The Female Vision: Women's Real Power at Work" discusses the power of women in the work place, stating the real advantages women can have as thinkers and their perspectives on life that can help them better understand the world around them. With much discussion as well as tips for women to use this natural intuition in the workplace, "The Female Vision" is a must for any woman whose career depends on their thoughts.

As an executive business coach I am recommending that my female coaching clients read The Female Vision to leverage their strengths and ability to communicate within their organizations and to my male coaching clients to broaden their understanding of what female employees can uniquely offer.

The authors make a strong case, based upon extensive research and compelling anecdotes, why women executives are known to say, "It's just not worth it." The bottom-line, according to Helgeson and Johnson, is that women have a unique way of seeing the world that offers strategic and economic advantages to their organizations, if only others would listen.

So, the value here is this: before you give up on reaching the next leadership level in your organization, check the tactics suggested on how to get others to listen to you. If that doesn't work, you'll know there wasn't anything else you could do other than move on.

A useful and interesting quick read for men and women who want to broaden and enrich conversations in the workplace.