Customer Reviews

Women Lead the Way: Your Guide to Stepping Up to Leadership and Changing the World

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Women Lead the Way is a powerful analysis of the status of women in the world. But it is truly groundbreaking in one way that many previous books of its type are not:
it provides a concrete guideline as to how EVERY women, regardless of where you are in your life - student, homemaker, career woman, or retiree - can impact the status quo and contribute to the advancement of women. Each reader should pay special attention to the "This Week I Will..." boxes. Easy tips on how each of us can make a difference.

Thank you Linda for this incredible book. The conversation about why we need women has shifted dramatically of late, and your book summarizes all the reasons for it. Adding women is no longer just the 'right thing to do', but rather there is clear evidence that it is in everyone's self interest as it is a key to economic growth and prosperity for all. We are not fully utilizing the skills, wisdom and resources of one half of the world's population, and it is this recognition and this shift that will change the direction of our collective future for the better. It is about "critical mass" and we all have to embrace the strategies that will get us there. What is great about your book is you give everyone something to do. As an individual we can both know and use our power to address minor inequities that we face every day, and as a CEO we can choose to have a minimum of 30% women on our board of directors. Progress has been slow and that may be because we have not seen the need to change. Don't we see it now? We had a financial crisis and are still in the midst of an economic crisis, and by the way much of the rest of the world has always been facing crisis of violence and poverty. This is a book for everyone. Young, old, men and women.... buy many copies and give it to everyone and change the world. ( JZ )

As a young professional, this book gives me a framework for my future with concrete steps and helpful resources that I can go back to. I am inspired by Tarr-Whelan's approach to adjusting the current expectations around how a leader should lead including her 30% solution. I can't wait to get started on Monday!

Powerful insights from a powerful human being. Linda Tarr-Whelan has made an invaluable contibution to understanding and celebrating the often unrecognized achievements of women and even more importantly she lays out common sense approaches for all of us to step forward and realize their leadership potential in the future. A good read. An important and well told story.

What a book! I just wish I had been able to read it when I was 20-30 years younger! Not all is lost however as my daughter now has it to read and she is in her early 30's. I feel it should be a must for all young women going into the work place so a very useful gift. I also feel that men could learn from reading this book and it may just help to speed up the process of getting more women into top posts. I particularly liked "This Week I Will" sections , it gave me a feeling that the list was more than achievable and of great benefit going in the right direction. I also particularly liked the chapter " Lifting as we climb". Thank you for a book that I am pleased to have read and I will help it do the rounds here in England.

A journey always begins with the first step and, all too often, womens' participation in the social, political and business arenas has been hampered by how, when and why to take that first step.

Tarr-Whelan's book provides such guidance in clearly understood language. Her examples of the successes of women in all walks of life provide support for those considering taking on the "status quo" to bring about change. Her strategies for goal accomplishment are readily customized to individual situations, from modest undertaking to major enterprise.

The book is a practical, easy to follow progression of ideas and subsequent actions that also helps build a woman's confidence in her own judgment and ability to make a difference.

The perfect gift for every woman on every occasion!

Connie Brotzman

This excellent book points out the mistakes of not having enough women in leadership and the opportunities for all of us by adding them. It also calls women of all ages to activism in every sphere of life to bring American leadership models into the 21st century. She correctly reviews the improvements possible by having a gender balance in leadership at all levels of private and public policy decision-making.

Women Lead the Way

This book about women stepping up to our leadership roles in social and economic power activated many conflicting emotions in me. It is, primarily, directed toward women in business that are already in a position to make a significant difference in decision-making processes. This leaves me out, I felt, since my lifestyle and contributions are more right-brained than left. And yet in all fairness, the author makes it clear that she is speaking to all women, and gives numerous practical examples of how women not in the business world can support and participate in women's leadership.

Ninety years after achieving the right to vote, women in the United States still only account for about 15% of the key positions of political and economic power in this country. And yet, women hold more higher education degrees, account for 80% of consumer decisions, and the sales generated by women-owned businesses equals the GDP of China. This and all that it represents in terms of the continuing inequality of pay, dismissing of women's concerns, and dogmatic attachment to a hierarchical status quo, aroused a deep, cellular rage of injustice within me, which was quickly followed by shame that I have allowed myself to be so passive about using my own voice and power to enact change. But Tarr-Whelan is not rabble rousing and wisely advises women to move beyond divisive thinking and look for how women's issues are also collective issues. She also acknowledges that both men and women are involved in, and benefit from, women achieving a critical mass at decision-making tables.

Women Lead the Way presents a clear road map for organizational, economic, and political change, with a vision toward quickly achieving the 30% solution: all organizations/entities must have at least 30% of positions of power filled by women. In many countries where women are already powerful leaders and already have greater balance in leadership, studies have demonstrated that this shift has yielded higher profits, greater efficiency and workplace satisfaction, and long-ranged collaborative values, among many other assets. Again, I was rankled by the need to "justify" or "prove" that women's rights and our concerns require empirical research to ratify. It's quite obvious women deserve equality: as Secretary of State Hilary Clinton says, "women's rights are human rights, and human rights are women's rights." On reflection I realized that while this is true in and of itself, vision without action is impotent and lacks integrity. If we say something is true and don't follow through by our actions, then how can we expect anything other than what we already have?

Consequently, this book offers an exciting manifesto and is an impassioned clarion call for closing the leadership gap. I recommend that all women (and men too) read this book: we are without question the key players in being agents of change for a sustainable recovery, and we will pass along the consequences of our efforts to our children. If you, like me, are aroused to make one small leadership effort toward making the world a better place from reading this book, each power of one will create a chain-reaction that can and will make a difference.

WOMEN LEAD THE WAY: YOUR GUIDE TO STEPPING UP TO LEADERSHIP AND CHANGING THE WORLD comes from a Distinguished Senior Fellow at the think tank Demos who was an Ambassador to the UN Commission on the Status of Women, among other powerful political posts. Her ideas on closing the leadership gap for women uses her diverse background as an organizer and diplomat to provide a women-led strategy for change and a set of tools readers can use to become partners and leaders in a changing world. Very highly recommended for any women's studies library.

"Close your eyes and imagine a 'leader'. What do you see? Extensive studies show that in the United States, the visual image for almost everyone is a man." This is the reality in which Linda Tarr-Whelan, an accomplished woman leader, writes her book on how to advance the women's movement. Linda has held many influential roles, including UN Commissioner on the Status of Women, to which she was appointed by President Bill Clinton--so she writes with some authority.

Linda Tarr-Whelan will be satisfied, for starters, with the advancement of women to "30% of the voice." The basic proposition in this book is not equality in presence and influence, but 30% representation of women in all positions of power - political, community, business leadership and more. Linda's theory, based on "more than four decades" of experience and practical activity in this field, is that 30% is enough of a critical mass to change the way things get done. It's probably the best we can hope for in terms of the male patriarchy's ability to absorb and support--though that's my conclusion, and not the author's. She does, however, provide a completely cohesive and persuasive set of arguments for the adoption of a 30% Solution, a concept which was advanced at the fourth UN conference on the Status of Women, held in Beijing in 1995, which she attended.

Linda Tarr-Whelan maintains that the 30% Solution is enough to deliver better government because "women in government are more likely, regardless of party, to concentrate on improving healthcare and education [and] on ending violence...." Equally the 30% Solution improves business outcomes, with firms having more women directors delivering higher returns on equity, sales and working capital, as researched by Catalyst. World-over, however, we are still far from this 30% Solution. "Only one third of the top 1,500 corporations have any women in top management" - let alone 30%.

The attraction of Linda Tarr-Whelan's book is its optimism. It's not just whine and weep. It's energizing. After articulating the case for 30%, and providing many insights as to what's blocking its achievement, the author goes on to share what needs to happen to get there, using stories, anecdotes and truisms we can all relate to. One of my personal favorites is, "Gro Harlem Brundtland used to tell; her son would ask: 'Mother, can boys become prime ministers too?'" Another is the story of when the author, working at the New York State Department of Labor, was instructed to fire a clerk in her department. The woman in question often arrived late due the fact, as a single mom, she had to drop off her children at schools which didn't open in time for her to get to work punctually. The solution was clear: "A flextime policy for the department started right then."

Another highlight of the book is the "Everywoman Quiz" (Chapter 3), in which the author tests our perceptions on myths that exist about how quickly women are moving up the ladder, or not. I have to admit to not responding to all of the 10 questions correctly; for example, I did not know sales generated by women-owned small business is equal to the GDP of China! But that's all I am going to share ... you will have to get the book and do the rest of the quiz yourselves!

Women Lead The Way does not allow us women to wallow in self-pity or shirk our responsibilities. "It is women who must take the lead in achieving the 30% Solution. Waiting for someone else to do it won't work... together we can instigate a cultural shift away from long-term biased attitudes conferring 'leadership' on men." The book lays out a road map with the destination of 30%--a road map women must trek and advance. The most basic starting point is how we leverage our two key resources: time and money, even if one or both are in short supply. We all have circles of influence in which we can develop our leadership skills ("When the door opens, go through"). The remaining chapters offer equally good advice with practical examples of how women can apply their leadership skills.

Tarr-Whelan concludes by describing five big dreams for 2020. These include having women leaders at every political table, "womenomics" as a widely-supported mainstream strategy, a revitalized social compact, recognized accountability framework of standards and measurements to monitor progress, and perhaps the most special of all, "young women growing up expecting to be leaders just like young men - but with a difference."

There are some books that you just have to read more than once, and this is one of them. Women Lead The Way is a true revelation, opening minds to a host of fascinating and important insights as to how we can all work toward achieving some measure of gender equality. The book is written in serious but plain eye-level language that we can all understand, even men (!). The book contains sensible, balanced, practical and future-critical proposals, which I hope will hit home and become a strong catalyst for action. This book should be high on the reading list of every man who holds a position of influence and every woman who wants to achieve one. It certainly is an impressive addition to all the literature I have read on diversity, equality, gender and business responsibility--quite an inspirational one at that.

This review first appeared on CSrwire.com on 11th October 2010