Wanting to improve is not a sign of weakness.
This is why a woman needs to combine niceness with insistence, a style that Mary Sue Coleman, president of the University of Michigan, calls relentlessly pleasant.22 This method requires smiling frequ...
There is a saying, Think globally, act locally. When negotiating, Think personally, act communally. I have advised many women to preface negotiations by explaining that they know that women often get...
The most common metaphor for careers is a ladder, but this concept no longer applies to most workers. As of 2010, the average American had eleven jobs from the ages of eighteen to forty-six alone.1 Th...
Self-compassion often coexists with remorse. It does not mean shirking responsibility for our past. It’s about making sure that we don’t beat ourselves up so badly that we damage our future. It helps...
Now the stress dream was real. I was alone in my bed. Alone when my kids went on playdates. Just one hour in my house without them made me project into the future to when they would go off to college,...
My hope, of course, is that we won’t have to play by these archaic rules forever and that eventually we can all just be ourselves.
My generation fought so hard to give all of you choices. We believe in choices. But choosing to leave the workforce was not the choice we thought so many of you would make.2 So
Most people have a style in the workplace that overshoots in one direction—too aggressive or too passive, too talkative or too shy. In that first deal, I said too much. This was not a shock to anyone...
It may not be as dramatic or funny to make a movie about a woman who loves both her job and her family, but that would be a better reflection of reality.
Even today, gender-blind evaluations still result in better outcomes for women. Unfortunately, most jobs require face-to-face interviews. All of us, myself included, are biased, whether we admit it or...
Each partner needs to be in charge of specific activities or it becomes too easy for one to feel like he's doing a favor instead of doing his part.
Dave and I had a family ritual at dinner where we’d go around the table with our daughter and son and take turns stating our best and worst moments of the day. When it became just three of us, I added...
Conditions for all women will improve when there are more women in leadership roles giving strong and powerful voice to their needs and concerns.
Colleagues and the media are also quick to credit external factors for a woman's achievements.
As Helen Keller put it, When one door of happiness closes, another opens; but often we look so long at the closed door that we do not see the one which has been opened for us. For
As Gloria Steinem observed, Whoever has power takes over the noun—and the norm—while the less powerful get an adjective.1 Since no one wants to be perceived as less powerful, a lot of women reject the...
To this day, I’m embarrassed that I didn’t realize that pregnant women needed reserved parking until I experienced my own aching feet. As one of Google’s most senior women, didn’t I have a special res...
The number of women supporting families on their own is increasing quickly; between 1973 and 2006, the proportion of families headed by a single mother grew from one in ten to one in five.31
The ability to learn is the most important quality a leader can have.