Books

Business / Women’s Studies

America's Competitive Secret: Women Managers

The bottom-line of this book, which the author has rightly put up as the first chapter is: women are the largest pool of untapped talent in the US, and if the US companies have to remain competitive, they have to utilize this resource more and more and see women managers in top positions. The author calls this “America’s Competitive Secret”.

She goes through the whole psyche of the issue. She finds that male managers have ‘command and control’ as their leadership style, while women have ‘interactive’ style. She says, the days of the command and control leadership style are over, and today’s organisations need interactive style for their survival and prosperity. She also talks about ‘Sex role expectations’ and ‘sex role spill over’. And how women react to the discrimination: denial, collusion, acceptance, challenge, and flight.

As such, when I started reading this, I thought the author was really biased towards women, or against men. Yes, she had an agenda: she wanted to prove that it was indeed important for corporate America to tap women’s talent. But throughout the book, she analysed things fairly and was reasonable in her arguments. And she is honest. Read this what she says about herself: “I graduated from UCLA un 1951 with a major in sociology. Why sociology? Because like most women in those days, I had no career plans. I didn’t like math or science, and sociology seemed a good major as any. Like other women, I went to college to broaden my horizons and find a husband….” And she was honest throughout the book. Another example of rational and just analysis: “I hear reports from female professionals who feel that women leaders treat other women managers poorly. Interestingly, one study has found that women who inherit companies rather than work their way to the top don’t treat women subordinates well or promote women to management positions.”

The book has numerous examples, how women managers were discriminated against, kept out of the loop, offended, just because they were women. And all examples have employee names, designations and organisation names.

A good book to broaden your horizons :)

Book:        America's Competitive Secret: Women Managers

Author:     Judy B. Rosener

Publisher: Oxford paperbacks

Price:        Rs 475

Amazon Link with reviews and details: [Link]

PS: You can read this book free here: [Link] Thanks to google Books!