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Why is it so hard for women to advance their careers? What unhealthy patterns do many women fall into?
In How Women Rise, Sally Helgesen and Marshall Goldsmith explain 12 limiting habits that prevent women from being their best selves. We’ve divided these 12 habits into four main thought patterns.
Read below for a brief How Women Rise book overview.
How Women Rise by Sally Helgesen and Marshall Goldsmith
Many women feel barred from advancing their careers but can’t identify the barriers holding them back. In the How Women Rise book, Sally Helgesen and Marshall Goldsmith argue that these barriers seem invisible because they’re self-inflicted and uniquely female. The barriers arise due to women’s overly self-critical mindset—the product of their desire to meet the rigid gender expectations placed on them by society and to avoid the backlash that occurs when they don’t. This mindset causes most women to develop at least one of 12 common habits that limit their professional success. To break free of these self-inflicted limitations, women must recognize and deconstruct their detrimental thoughts and behaviors.
Sally Helgesen is an author, speaker, and coach specializing in women’s leadership. She’s a member of the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame, which honors thinkers whose work has majorly impacted the world of business and management. Some of Helgesen’s popular books include The Female Advantage, The Web of Inclusion, and Rising Together—the follow-up to How Women Rise.
Marshall Goldsmith is an author, business educator, and executive coach. Like Helgesen, he’s been inducted into the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame. He’s also the best-selling author of Triggers and What Got You Here Won’t Get You There.
Pattern #1: Selling Yourself Short
Helgesen and Goldsmith explain that women tend to sell themselves short. This is because society praises modest women while viewing ambitious women as arrogant or brash. This rigid line between acceptable and unacceptable causes women to develop binary thinking—a woman is either a good person who is humble and modest, or she’s a selfish person who brings attention to her goals and achievements. Their attempts to meet the “humble and modest” standard result in detrimental behavior such as downplaying their goals and achievements.
Behavior: Downplaying Goals and Achievements
The authors explain that women who sell themselves short tend to minimize their accomplishments and downplay their goals. They don’t bring attention to the work they’ve done, they have a hard time accepting praise, and they neglect sharing their goals with others to avoid appearing overly ambitious.
This harms their ability to progress in their careers because superiors overlook them in favor of employees who may be less successful but are more vocal about their goals and accomplishments. The authors note that to progress in their careers, women must be able to advocate for themselves so people see why they’re credible and deserving of promotion. Further, they must be able to express what they want in order to get it—if a woman never tells her boss she wants to move up the corporate ladder, she’ll likely be overshadowed by someone who does.
Pattern #2: Pleasing Others
Helgesen and Goldsmith explain that women tend to focus too much on pleasing others. This is because society tells women to be caretakers—they must be empathetic and accommodating of others at all times. Women who focus on themselves and leverage individual opportunities risk being seen as selfish and manipulative. This causes them to neglect their own needs and desires, overlook opportunities for growth, and struggle to find effective solutions to problems.
Helgesen and Goldsmith discuss two main detrimental behaviors that result from the desire to please others.
Behavior #1: Over-Accommodating
The authors explain that women’s desire to constantly please others often causes them to be over-accommodating. They may downplay their own emotions in an attempt to seem “professional” and not overwhelm men, but this causes them to lack authenticity. People who lack authenticity struggle to win people’s trust and inspire them, which can make it more difficult to progress in their careers.
Women may also struggle to make practical decisions if they’re overly focused on making everyone happy. For instance, they may struggle to say “no,” which causes them to stretch themselves too thin and makes them susceptible to manipulation. They may also struggle to solve problems because they’re more focused on pleasing everyone involved than finding sustainable solutions.
For example, there may be an employee on the team who repeatedly shows up late and produces unsatisfactory work despite support and warnings. The most effective solution for the company both financially and productivity-wise would be to fire the offending employee and hire someone who meets their standards. However, if the employee is popular, a female leader who’s concerned about upsetting her other employees may struggle to fire them.
Finally, Helgesen and Goldsmith say that women tend to hyper-focus on the job they’re currently doing out of loyalty to their coworkers, boss, and organization, rather than striving for the job they want. This prevents them from honing skills and taking steps toward their ideal future and instead keeps them trapped where they are. For example, a writer may have worked under her current editor for five years and have a close relationship with her. She knows her editor relies on her to keep the magazine afloat. As a result, she spends so much time trying to produce stories for her editor that she never dedicates time to her true goal of being a fiction writer.
Behavior #2: Failing to Utilize Social Networks
The authors explain that women tend to excel at building social networks but may struggle to make effective use of them. This is because using contacts to advance their careers and asking others for help makes women feel manipulative and selfish. However, utilizing contacts is a crucial component of advancing your career—asking others for support helps you accomplish immediate tasks and can also help you take steps toward long-term goals.
For example, if you ask a coworker to put you in touch with their editor friend, you might receive input that helps you write a killer report. And moving forward, staying in touch with the editor might give you insights that will help you accomplish career goals like becoming a full-time writer.
Pattern #3: Perfectionism
Helgesen and Goldsmith explain that women tend to strive for perfection because success boosts their confidence and society views failure as disgraceful. Further, because women are less recognized for their accomplishments than men, they feel they need to go above and beyond to be seen as successful. However, these attitudes cause women to overwork themselves, experience negative emotions, damage relationships, and focus on details that may not be important in the long term.
Helgesen and Goldsmith discuss two main detrimental behaviors that result from perfectionism.
Behavior #1: Unrealistic Expectations
In pursuit of perfection, women tend to develop unrealistically high expectations for themselves, which impedes their progress in numerous ways. First, unrealistically high expectations cause high levels of stress and strong negative emotions when those expectations aren’t met. Overly high expectations also cause women to hyper-focus on small details in pursuit of perfection, which can prevent them from reaching their big-picture goals. Perfectionists tend to avoid taking risks due to their fear of failure, which can disrupt their ability to advance their careers—as the authors point out, risk-taking is a sought-after leadership quality because it enhances innovation.
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Here's what you'll find in our full How Women Rise summary:
- The limiting mindset many women develop that stunts their careers
- The four thought patterns that women need to break free from
- Why striving for perfectionism is asking for failure
