Enlightened Power: How Women are Transforming the Practice of Leadership
By admin • Oct 7th, 2008 • Category: Business
Enlightened Power: How Women are Transforming the Practice of Leadership
Enlightened Power: How Women are Transforming the Practice of Leadership
By Lin Coughlin, Ellen Wingard, Keith Hollihan
Publisher: Jossey-Bass
Number Of Pages: 576
Publication Date: 2005-04-15
ISBN-10 / ASIN: 078797787X
ISBN-13 / EAN: 9780787977870
Binding: Hardcover
How are women transforming the practice of leadership in the 21st century? Enlightened Power is a first-of-a-kind book that answers this question–and forever changes the traditional notions involving women in leadership. The book features the accumulated wisdom of 40 influential men and women who represent the most compelling voices in the field, including:
Dynamic business leaders such as Eileen Fisher (founder, Eileen Fisher, Inc.), Barbara Corcoran (founder and chairman, The Corcoran Group), and Pat Mitchell (president and CEO, PBS)
Trailblazing women from other arenas such as politics (Ambassador Swanee Hunt), the military (Rear Admiral Deborah A. Loewer, USN), and sports (U.S. Olympian Marilyn King)
Renowned thought leaders such as Riane Eisler, Rayona Sharpnack, Sally Helgesen, Peggy Klaus, Bruce Patton, Nancy J. Adler, and Gail Evans
Leading-edge academics, activists, executives, entrepreneurs, and practitioners
Summary: Incredible book
Rating: 5
Everyone interested in the differences in leadership styles for men and women would be delighted with this insightful, affirming book. Leadership is a tricking, hard to define issue, but this book does a marvelous job of looking at it through gender lense
Summary: Inspiring and enlightening
Rating: 5
This book contains fascinating conceptual articles on the changing nature of leadership and inspiring stories illustrating how women have created successful careers for themselves. I was particularly impressed by chapters that showed how the masculine traits of domination and control need to be replaced by organizational models based on collaboration and facilitation. Convincing evidence is cited for the value of feminine traits and the need to promote more women to senior executive roles. One writer discusses how feminine traits foster collaboration within organizations and between them and their strategic partners. I think these domains are ideally suited to feminine traits. But, there was no mention of the traits required for successful competition in aggressive markets. Here, I think, we still need masculine traits, whether in men or women. More generally, I don’t think promoting more women to senior executive positions goes far enough. Organizational cultures need to change to foster a better balance of masculine and feminine traits, one to facilitate internal collaboration and the other for aggressive competitiveness externally. Books like this are great for stimulating our thinking about these vital issues.
Summary: Carly, a leader???
Rating: 1
I was actually interested in this book until I got to the ‘Carly Fiorina’ part. It was stated that she was successful at HP and the merger exceeded critics’ expectations. As an HP (female) employee, I have lived through the Platt, Fiorina and now Hurd years. And, believe me Fiorina was the worst kind (and most HP’ers will agree with me). She ruined this company!! She was visionary alright — only about making millions for herself!! Please do some REAL research before making any assumptions on the successes of any CEOs (especially Carly).
Summary: Universal Lessons
Rating: 4
With so many books on leadership, it’s rare that one stands out as both comprehensive and new. I was skeptical that a book on “women’s leadership” could effectively speak to both genders. I was surprised. While, I don’t necessarily agree with all of the authors, I do appreciate the common theme that the best leaders do more listening, collaborating, and coalition-building. We can all get in that boat!
Summary: Inspirational
Rating: 5
What a wonderful addition to anyone’s library. Through the inspirational stories told by these women, the book gave me good insight on life. That leadership in the corporate world is not just about statistics and the “bottom line” but also about learning what works and doesn’t work. As in Chapter 3, Deeper Power, the chapter makes one ask questions internally on how to “do it differently”. “To acknowledge and embrace individuals and their authentic selves-not jobs or titles.” Very well written and I would highly recommend this book not only to improve job performance but how to improve one personally.
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