The Female Advantage (Paperback)

by Sally Helgesen (Author) "I run my company according to feminine principles," proclaims Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop, a $300 million international chain of natural cosmetics stores..." (more)
Key Phrases: reinvented corporation, diary studies, national executive director, Frances Hesselbein, Dorothy Brunson, Nancy Badore (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description
Sally Helgesen's classic study of female leaders documents how women leaders make decisions, schedule their days, gather and disperse information, motivate others, delegate tasks, structure their companies, and hire, and fire employees.

From the Publisher
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, and intuitive decision-making power, necessities for companies of the twenty-first century. Helgesen's findings reveal that organizations run by women do not take the form of the traditional hierarchical pyranaid, but more closely resemble a web, where leaders reach out, not down, to form an interrelating matrix built around a central purpose. The strategy of the web concentrates power at the center by drawing others closer and by creating communities where information sharing is essential. She presents her findings through unique, closely detailed accounts of four successful women business leaders -- Frances Hesselbein of Girl Scouts USA, Barbara Grogan of Western Industrial Contractors, Nancy Badore of Ford Motor Company's Executive Development Center, and Dorothy Brunson of Brunson Communications. Helgesen observes their meetings, listens to their phone calls and conferences, and reads their correspondence. Her "diary studies" document how women leaders make decisions, schedule their days, gather and disperse information, motivate others, delegate tasks, structure their companies, hire, and fire. She chronicles how their experiences as women -- wives, mothers, friends, sisters, daughters -- contribute to their leadership style.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Broadway Business; Later Printing edition (April 1, 1995)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385419112
• ISBN-13: 978-0385419116
• Product Dimensions: 7.9 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #261,124 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

33 of 38 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Strengths of Women Leaders, March 23, 2000

By	SVS "At the Speed of Enlightenment" (Charlotte, NC United States) - See all my reviews

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.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Time for a Second Look, June 17, 2006

By	Susan R. Meyer "Life Coach" (New York, New York) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

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.

5.0 out of 5 stars How Female Values can Heal the World, January 15, 2009

By	Larry Mullins "Larry Mullins" (St. Augustine, Florida) - See all my reviews

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.