Woman of Influence: 9 Steps to Build Your Brand, Establish Your Legacy, and Thrive

by Jo Miller

Reinvent yourself as a woman of influence―and become the leader you were meant to be

Have you ever felt like your organization’s best-kept secret? Are you the go-to person for work that downplays your potential? Do you want to hone your leadership skills while still staying true to who you are? If you answered yes to any of these questions, or if your reputation as a standout contributor is not translating into career advancement, Woman of Influence is for you.

With more than two decades of experience working with hundreds of thousands of women and clients including eBay, GM, Microsoft, and more, Be Leaderly CEO Jo Miller has the strategies, stories, and research to help women shift their focus from doing to leading. In Woman of Influence, she provides a practical, hands-on roadmap that walks you through 9 specific steps to build your brand, establish your legacy, and thrive. Each step is reinforced with self-assessments, inspiring exercises, and checklists that have been road-tested by tens of thousands of professional women.

Genres: Nonfiction, Business, Womens, Leadership, Personal Development

256 pages, Hardcover

First published December 13, 2019

About the author

Women’s leadership expert
Jo Miller is a globally renowned authority on women’s leadership. She’s dedicated two decades to helping women advance into positions of influence by leveraging their leadership strengths.

Based on her work with hundreds of thousands of women, she developed a pragmatic and powerful roadmap that guides emerging women leaders from where they are in their careers to where they aspire to be.

Award-winning author
Jo shares her proven process for women to become the leaders they aspire to be in her book Woman of Influence: 9 Steps to Build Your Brand, Establish Your Legacy, and Thrive (McGraw Hill, 2019). Jo also coauthored the award-winning research study Out of the Comfort Zone: How women and men size up stretch assignments—and why leaders should care.

Sought-after global speaker
Jo consistently receives rave reviews as a dynamic, engaging, and inspiring speaker. She delivers more than 70 presentations each year to audiences of up to 1,200 women. Her audiences span the globe, including North America, Latin America, Europe, Asia Pacific, and the Middle East.

She has spoken at women’s leadership conferences, professional associations, and corporate women’s networks for more than 300 commercial, government, nonprofit, and academic organizations, including Bank of America, BP, eBay, GM, MetLife, Microsoft, Princeton University, the USDA, and Verizon.

CEO and company founder
Jo is the CEO of Be Leaderly, a firm focused on leadership development, consulting, and research initiatives to elevate women’s voices at work. Started in 2009, Jo’s popular webinar series has been viewed by participants in 900 locations in 30 countries.

Aussie and survivor
Jo grew up in Australia, thrived for a decade in Silicon Valley, and now calls Iowa home. She’s been celebrating life free from breast cancer since 2016. She believes that when life hands you lemons, you should stuff them in your bra and sing “Ta-dah!”

Reviews

[Allison Sambol · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a must read for new and mid-career professionals. One of my favorite quotes in Jo’s book is “...all of the important decisions about your career will be made when you are not in the room.” She couldn’t be more right about that! And that is why learning how to build your personal brand and establishing your own legacy/narrative is critical to success.

[Georgia Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

I cannot recommend this book enough! Women of Influence by Jo Miller from Be Leaderly is a great resource for women at any stage of their career. It provides actionable tips and tricks you can incorporate in your daily life. Additionally, it challenges the reader to reframe how they view leadership by emphasizing one's natural strengths rather than filling gaps. To top it all off, Jo not only highlights the 12 Common Career Missteps but ways to avoid them all together. Be sure to add this to your reading list and let me know what you think! #leadership #readinglist #book

[Nina Bhatti · Rating 5 out of 5]

I met Jo Miller over 15 years ago when I enrolled in one of her workshops, "Leadership for Technical Women." It was a game changer for me. It helped to understand what real leadership is (hint: it's not your title) and how to build my authentic leadership style. I was struggling with being my authentic self, wondering how to play to my strengths and create work that made me delighted to do my job. This book provides a guide that has both an opportunity for self reflection -- figure out what will make you love your career-- as well as tactical "how-to" advice. This is a book written from real experience and real stories of how careers are built. This book can help you build a career you love based on meaningful, fulfilling work that aligns to our best selves and delivers for organizations.

[Anne Janzer · Rating 5 out of 5]

In Woman of Influence, Jo Miller provides valuable and practical advice for women stepping into leadership roles—whether leader is in the job description or not. I love the way that Miller describes the different leadership styles; it helps readers better understand their inherent strengths. As Miller writes, “developing as a leader is not about changing yourself. It’s about becoming yourself.”

Filled with practical advice and hands-on exercises, reading this book is like working with an expert leadership coach. This book will benefit many women in their careers.

(I read an early review copy of the book.)

[Elyse Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a new professional, just out of graduate school, this book provided wonderful ideas about how I can establish a strong foundation to set myself on a leadership trajectory. By completing some of the exercises provided in the book, I was able to self-reflect and come up with a brand statement that will hopefully set me apart in my organization. Additionally, creating a shadow organization map, from Part 3, was instrumental in helping me understand the structures of my workplace, in a way I hadn’t thought of before.

The exercises and real-life examples of women leaders, really help to set this book apart! I am looking forward to sharing this book with other women in my organization to inspire them as well!

[Theresa Connors · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent book on developing or refining your leadership style while remaining authentic and true to oneself. This resonated with me more than following a one-size-fits-all recipe for success. She shows you how to capitalize on your strengths and clearly illustrates how there is room for many styles of leadership in a successful organization.

[bkm · Rating 4 out of 5]

this was my end of year sprint book #8

this was recommended to me by my mentor and I’m glad I read!! book seems geared more towards women in business/sales but there were some thoughts that I’ll definitely try to apply to my own career

[Kayla · Rating 5 out of 5]

A must-read guidebook for leadership. It took me a long time to finish Woman of Influence, but for good reason. There is so much good content here; so much to stop and reflect on; and so much to put into practice. Jo Miller puts into actionable steps all that you need to do to find your inner leader. You'll identify who you are today and who you want to be. The steps are all here, but you have to do the work. I will be recommending this to all my female co-workers, peers, mentors and mentees. As Jo says, "don't just kick open doors. Hold them open and invite others to step through."

[Dina · Rating 5 out of 5]

This took me weeks to read but that was due to the great “Outsource It” exercises and self-reflection that is involved in reading the book and getting the most out of it. I learned a great deal about who I am , not only as a leader but my entire professional brand. I found this to be a thought provoking read with immediate and long term applications.

[Erica Leigh · Rating 3 out of 5]

I attended a session with Jo Miller at the 2020 Women Transforming Technology conference (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-pM6...) and randomly won a free eBook copy of this book from the author.

I appreciated the engaging and slightly sassy style of the writing - it probably helped that having heard the author speak I could envision her voice coming through in the pages as I read. I like that the ideas and suggestions in the book are data driven and crystalized with personal stories. The book is geared more toward women early in their careers but there are nuggets that are helpful for later stages, as well. As with many leadership books each chapter provides exercises; investing the time in these to get the most out of the book means a slower read - unless you want to read through it quickly and then go back to the exercises that resonate more strongly based on where you are in your career growth.

Interestingly, the topic of the conference session, which is addressed in the final chapter of the book, was my least favorite section - not because I don't think it was covered well, but rather it felt a bit tacked on and disconnected from the rest of the core message of the book; mainly, while all the other sections were about actions you can take to propel your career forward, the final message was you will need a sponsor and that is out of your control.

I didn't come away from the book with any aha discoveries or new insights, but my eBook copy has quite a few highlights and notes for me to look back over and noodle on further. I will be sharing the book with a few of the women on my work team who are more junior in their careers with the hope they get even more out of it.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jo Miller encourages women to build on our strengths, rather than telling us that we need to “fix” ourselves to get ahead (like so many other career books do). Jo’s spot-on, practical approach to finding your unique leadership niche is bolstered with real-world advice from a long list of high-level female executives, who have "been there, done that."

Organizations would be well served to buy this book for every woman on their team (and her boss). Actually, anyone who’s working to advance gender equity and wants to understand the obstacles women face will benefit from reading Woman of Influence. While Jo's advice is evergreen no matter where you are in your career, I especially recommend this book for early and mid-career women.

Take the time to really think through the exercises in Part 1, which focus on recognizing your strengths, passions, and value to your organization. These insights will then help you define your leadership niche—the heart of becoming the leader you aspire to be.

"You don't need to be the foremost thinker or leader in your profession," Jo writes. "You need to carve out a valuable niche as a leader. Identify a need or gap that you're passionate about and qualified to fill, and apply your distinctive leadership strengths and character strengths to address it."

Jo breaks the process of achieving this into doable steps. Along the way, she smashes leadership myths, like you need to manage people to lead (not true) and nice people don't get ahead (in fact, kindness counts). She also includes a dozen common missteps, such as "doing" instead of leading, and advice on how to avoid these traps.

[Elizabeth Edwards · Rating 4 out of 5]

i won this ...i am guessing ... probably a Goodreads win?? any who ... it is a hard back book. love those ... they get me every single time ... score!! i think ... well i wonder why this is not considered a "self help book"? good tips ..great advice. i think we can learn something from every one ...but that is just me ... i think it will change your mind ...i would never consider myself a leader ... i am one who tend to be one is behind the scene ... cheering some1 one and helping them ... doing the leg work so to speak. i think this is a great tool to use to get all your idea in line ... makes you mind start wondering. helping. growing. i guess for me ...what would make it a 5 star ... is would need 2 more clear cut for me ... i have found at my age ... i don't have to time to sit and figure it out ...but i guess it truly depends what u r looking for, going for ... in life or your goals ... whatever it maybe ... this might be your much needed read? check it out.

[Frieda · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is full of insight in helping you to really reflect on who you are as a person, what you want out of your career and how to take action to get you to where you want to be. The book is full of reflective activities that help you take stock of what you can offer to your organization. Women have a different approach to leadership and how we connect with others. By taking advantage of these strengths, women have the opportunity to excel and succeed in their careers.

Topics such as identifying your leadership superpower, creating career-defining moments, promoting your accomplishments, personal branding and most importantly, developing your support network, including sponsorship are all important and relevant topics that women (and men) can learn from.

A great read - solid advice written in a warm way and activities that really helped me shape my personal brand as I work towards the next level in my career.

[Natatia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Woman of Influence is a book to read from cover to cover. The BEST gift provided by Jo Miller, Author, is the opportunity to read and put in action the suggestions. The book entails profound research conducted by the author using women of influence as "truth tellers" to encourage the readers with real situations and outlooks. The author provided a sneak peak book club of women with reading, reflection, and rewards of personal insight. I rated the book five-star because the author is a woman of influence who is passionate about helping other women find their brand and SUPER POWERS! I am starting a book club in 2021 to keep the Super Powers flowing. Jo Miller's Woman of Influence is a keeper!
--N. Vanellison

[Roberta Matuson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Boom! Jo Miller’s book, Women of Influence is a must read for any woman (or man) looking to go from ordinary to extraordinary and seeing their career soar. Miller encourages leaders to remain authentic, as authentic leaders have happier followers. I’ve found this to be true as well, and have written in detail about this in my book, The Magnetic Leader. Miller goes one step further and shows readers how to build an authentic brand that will grow along with you as your career shifts and evolves.

Be prepared to invest time in the exercises that are included in this book, as the questions Miller asks are worth answering.

[MrsEnginerd · Rating 5 out of 5]

Every sibling, aspiring spouse, boss, college kid and human going through teenage years should read this book! The insights are priceless, summarizing many years of research and common professional sense for American Corporate environments. Even if you don't have the will power to execute the ideas mentioned or you are skeptical, you should test a hypothesis or two...it's doesn't just work for women - the advice and tools work for those who are too shy, overlooked and humble to assert themselves.

It's going to become my go to guide for mentorship and professional development - been waiting forever for something like this to be available.

Thank you Jo!

Enjoy!

[Deirdre · Rating 5 out of 5]

I bought this book as a practical guide for taking my career to the next level. This is such a practical, well-researched, thoughtful and inspiring book. Jo challenged me to look at myself in a highly challenging and thought-provoking manner. I have more confidence to advocate for my career and not just rely on a traditional approach of letting my work speak for itself. Jo's enthusiasm and passion for elevating women to the next level of their career shines throughout this book. I highly recommend this book to any mid-career professional who needs some career inspiration!

[Susan Doyle · Rating 5 out of 5]

A classic guide for leaders who want to steer their careers on an upward and authentic trajectory. A page turner, from introduction to conclusion built upon the experiences of successful women leaders. Jo puts us in the driver seat to create a strategic career plan. Beginning, with who we are, where we are, and where we want to go. Guaranteed to ignite your rockets and take you on a ride that doesn’t disappoint.

[Kay Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is an essential road map to leadership, a guidebook to be the best leaders we can be, it shows how women can encourage and support and acknowledge each other’s achievements. Inspiring stories from successful leaders demonstrate the power of collaboration and cooperation, sharing honest and accessible experiences and advice.
So many powerful quotes! my current favorites are:
• “Build a team to take you to the finish line”
• “Lift others up as you rise”
The downloadable worksheets and checklists on the website are a bonus, an everyday reminder of what's possible. While reading this book, my list of the people I know who'd benefit greatly from reading it is growing! An essential leadership manual.

[Karen Catlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jo Miller reverse-engineered THE playbook for career growth

Calling all women who have developed great reputations as valuable contributors, but who feel stalled in their careers. Perhaps even stuck. Read this book ASAP. It’s chock full of practical guidance for accelerating your career growth.

[Manaswini Condoor · Rating 4 out of 5]

Highly recommended read, especially for early-mid career- Note that it’s not just for women, but equally beneficial for any gender.

Identifying strengths to strategizing growth to Navigating office politics. This book is a career power house in easy to understand terms and interesting activities for realizations.

[Ellen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Thank you Jo Miller for writing a book every woman should read early in her career. This straightforward, filled with great nuggets, book gives new perspectives and is eye opening. I will continue to refer to it. A must read.

[Cynthia Trejo]

I recommend Jo Miller’s book for all professional women. I’ve highlighted, circled, and underlined page after page to refer back to for various topics on women in leadership. Her book helps transforms lives. - Cynthia Boyar Trejo

[Csimplot Simplot · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book!!!

[Holly Bauermeister · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well organized to really make the reader reflect on your career and being a leader!

[Marie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great mix of anecdotes, data, and exercises to help identify and build your individual leadership style. One of the best career books I’ve ever read!

[Bridget · Rating 3 out of 5]

This didn't resonate with me! I love the concept, however.

[Melanie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jo Miller is the sweetest and empowering in person. I appreciated her book and I’m a sucker for a good checklist. Thank you for sharing your wisdom and living out your book. 😁

[Sarah Matthews · Rating 4 out of 5]

Woman in Leadership Bk 2022

[Patti · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read this with a coworker. It has some good tangible exercises to with through and discuss. Her companion site has additional downloads. It was a good reinforcement of other women leadership books.