Junctures in Women's Leadership: Lessons for Everyone in Business

When you think of successful, powerful, and transformative business leaders, who comes to mind?

Bill Gates? Mark Zuckerberg? Or maybe the now richest person of all time, Jeff Bezos.

But who comes to mind when you think of pivotal and transformative women business leaders?

Perhaps, Facebook COO, Sheryl Sandberg? How about Mary Barra, the CEO of General Motors? Or maybe Pepsi CEO Indra Nooyi rings a bell.

Junctures in Women’s Leadership: Business is one volume in a series of groundbreaking case studies exploring the obstacles, strategies, and decisions women leaders make in a variety of fields.

From Fortune 500 companies to politics, and even fields where women are the majority, such as health care, the arts, and teaching, the number of women holding leadership positions is drastically low. And I don’t think I’m alone when I say, things need to change.

WHAT WE KNOW:

Despite the progress that’s been made over the past few decades, women continue to be dramatically underrepresented when it comes to areas in leadership that is appointed, elected, or recognized as influential and powerful in the public eye.

Perhaps that’s why it was a challenge for me to name just three women business leaders who are household names.

WHAT WE NEED TO KNOW:

Though we recognize the few women in business sitting in top leadership positions, who are the women paving the way, using their power and position to transform organizations and improve the climate for women in male-dominated industries? What choices did they make during pivotal moments in their career that led them down the pathway to success? How did they confront the obstacles and the elephant in the room when their gender, race, and ethnicity impacted their professional growth?

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN:

Junctures in Women's Leadership:Business explores the challenges women and women of color have faced as they traveled to success. Some of the women featured in this book are household names, including the rise, fall and comeback of lifestyle queen, Martha Stewart. However, others have spent less time in the public eye doing imperative work, whether from the middle ranks or from the top, whose efforts are connected to broader goals of changing the world for the better.

Rather than summarize the book for you (read it!) take the time to learn from the leadership lessons presented by the twelve women featured. Oh, and I should mention that it will benefit readers regardless of gender.

But if that doesn't sell you (sales have never been my thing) Harvard Business Review stresses that more cases on women's leadership is needed after finding that only 11% of top business school case studies feature a woman in a leadership position.

Have strides been made? Yes. But we need to do better. And that begins with educating, understanding and taking action. And this book does all three.

But wait, there's more!

Are you as passionate about advancing women's leadership as we are at the Institute for Women's Leadership? If so, keep an eye out for more volumes of case studies including social movements and the arts.

Purchase your copy of Junctures in Women's Leadership: Business here!