What can we all do, in the IT industry, to ensure that women enter the field and rise to the highest level within it? So far, most advice has been directed to women themselves, in the form of "here is what you do." Sheryl Sandberg recommends " leaning in ," advice which was already obsolete in 2011, when Catalyst's 20-year longitudinal study showed that "leaning in" doesn't work for most women, because many female leaners-in get accused of being pushy people who can't play well with others. My ThoughtWorks colleague Magdalena Frankiewicz has recommended a great book on this topic, Williams and Dempsey's What Works for Women at Work . This book is very pragmatic, and I like it a lot. You must read it! I discouraged, however, that one of today's key approaches to getting ahead involves the individual woman fine-tuning her gender presentation, becoming more assertive if she is super soft-spoken ( Nice Girls Don't Get the...
Non-zealot reflections on real life agile leadership, management and analysis practices.