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The Good Boss: 9 Ways Every Manager Can Support Women at Work
When it comes to a woman's day-to-day experience and her career trajectory, one key player has the most significant her boss. If we really want to support women in the workplace, managers must step up.
The good news is that many of the things you can do to be a better manager for women are easy.
In The Good Boss , CEO and business consultant Kate Eberle Walker offers timely, tactical advice based on her experience coaching managers, as well as the lessons she learned working her own way up the corporate ladder. Eberle Walker outlines nine straightforward rules that any manager can follow to help the women on their team—whether they oversee one, one hundred, or one thousand employees.
You'll
• How to build stronger working relationships by being your authentic self
• How she balances work and family, and what you can do to help
• What to do (and what not to do) when a new mother returns to work
• How to identify and deal with problematic comments and behaviors from her coworkers
• When is the right time to be a tough boss and how to navigate difficult conversations
Eberle Walker also shares insights from CEOs across a range of industries who use creative, forward-thinking methods to support women throughout an entire organization. This guide is for all managers—male and female—who want to avoid common missteps, get great results from their employees, and put them on the path to happy and fulfilling careers.
The good news is that many of the things you can do to be a better manager for women are easy.
In The Good Boss , CEO and business consultant Kate Eberle Walker offers timely, tactical advice based on her experience coaching managers, as well as the lessons she learned working her own way up the corporate ladder. Eberle Walker outlines nine straightforward rules that any manager can follow to help the women on their team—whether they oversee one, one hundred, or one thousand employees.
You'll
• How to build stronger working relationships by being your authentic self
• How she balances work and family, and what you can do to help
• What to do (and what not to do) when a new mother returns to work
• How to identify and deal with problematic comments and behaviors from her coworkers
• When is the right time to be a tough boss and how to navigate difficult conversations
Eberle Walker also shares insights from CEOs across a range of industries who use creative, forward-thinking methods to support women throughout an entire organization. This guide is for all managers—male and female—who want to avoid common missteps, get great results from their employees, and put them on the path to happy and fulfilling careers.
256 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 16, 2021
15 people are currently reading
430 people want to read
About the author
Kate Eberle Walker
1 book5 followersKate is the author of The Good Boss: 9 Ways Every Manager Can Support at Work. She is CEO of PresenceLearning, the leading teletherapy platform for K-12 special education services, where over 1500 women work for the company. Previously she was CEO of The Princeton Review, and she started her career as an investment banker at Goldman Sachs. She is a working mom, with two daughters ages 9 and 12.
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
May 14, 2021
One of the things I hear most often when talking with classmates and colleagues about allyship and advocating for women in the workplace is that they don't know where to begin. When talking about such a systemic issue like gender equity in the workplace, it certainly can be overwhelming!
Author Kate Eberle Walker does a great job in The Good Boss providing clear, actionable steps for how managers of all genders can support women in their careers. The nine rules come with great examples, instructions, and anecdotes for individuals to take action to foster an inclusive workplace culture. I learned a lot from this book and would recommend it to any leader who is interested in building better teams.
Author Kate Eberle Walker does a great job in The Good Boss providing clear, actionable steps for how managers of all genders can support women in their careers. The nine rules come with great examples, instructions, and anecdotes for individuals to take action to foster an inclusive workplace culture. I learned a lot from this book and would recommend it to any leader who is interested in building better teams.
November 10, 2021
This book provides good tangible advice into how to help the women you work with deal with the unique challenges that face them in the workplace, many of which I was unaware of. I particularly enjoyed the Case studies at the end of each chapter to illustrate how each of the Rules discussed in the book are applied at different companies
September 24, 2021
"There are so many obstacles that hold women back from reaching their full potential at work. As a manager, you have the ability to eliminate many of them, and the easiest of all are the ones that simply require you to tell her what you think. Don't let any of the women on your team limit their ambition because they don't know or see what's possible. There's nothing more powerful or impactful than telling someone that you think they are capable of great things." <-- This quote sums up the crux of this book very well. There are useful ideas especially to help in male-dominated industries and organizations. I think this would be especially enlightening for male readers who want to be better supporters of women.
"There aren't enough women to help all the women we want to elevate to success in the future. If we rely on only women to pull up the next generation, women will remain stuck below their full potential for years to come."
"As a manager, you don't need to have everything in common with an employee to relate to her; you just need to have something that connects you. Whether you went to the same college, have a similar hobby, or a shared passion for your company's mission, reinforce the commonalities."
"'Being your authentic self is so important. If there's not more to your life than work, you're not going to be a good manager. If you can't share about yourself outside of work, you're not going to be a good manager.'"
"For a manager, there's almost nothing more valuable than having your employees feel comfortable admitting their mistakes to you. It's so much easier to fix something if you know about it proactively instead of finding out about it reactively. You want your people to come to you when they think they've done something wrong, and not just because they trust that you won't blow up at them, but because they believe that you can actually help them secolve a bad situation and make it better."
"Sometimes the right thing to do is not to ask, but to make it evident that you want to know, if they want to tell you."
"Part of your job as a manager is to identify the skills, talent, and potential in your direct reports. When you give positive feedback about something, try to connect it to a similar skill seen in one of the senior executives of the company. Point out to your own team...The goal is to help your direct reports look up in the organization and see themselves in the leaders so that they can think to themselves, 'I can do that too.'"
"When you emphasize representation for any single group, women included, you are de-emphasizing others. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't celebrate improvements in representation. But you should celebrate them as progress, not ultimate success. I now think about diversity goals as progressive steps."
For making difficult decisions when you need to reduce headcount."Stay focused on fair, fact-based questions: Who is producing the better work product? Who has the strong performance reviews? Who has the more fitting skill set for the future job that remains? That is the person who should stay."
"...a diverse organization [can] attract the best talent from the largest pool. Having some diversity brings more diversity."
"'The dialogue at the board level is more valuable when the voices in the room are representative of the people we serve. It's critical as we look to deliver positive solutions for learners and compete for, nurture, and retain talent in a tight job market."
"I have hired you to figure things out."
"The best type of validation is not just complimenting her on a job well done; it's identifying the future potential you see in her based on the strengths you see in her. So, when you see a chance for her to stretch herself, and you think she will rise to the occasion, tell her. Tell her that you think it's a great opportunity for her and why she can do it. Connect the skills you see in her to the opportunity and show her your confidence in her abilities. Better yet, offer her an opportunity that will stretch her or take her in a new direction."
"There aren't enough women to help all the women we want to elevate to success in the future. If we rely on only women to pull up the next generation, women will remain stuck below their full potential for years to come."
"As a manager, you don't need to have everything in common with an employee to relate to her; you just need to have something that connects you. Whether you went to the same college, have a similar hobby, or a shared passion for your company's mission, reinforce the commonalities."
"'Being your authentic self is so important. If there's not more to your life than work, you're not going to be a good manager. If you can't share about yourself outside of work, you're not going to be a good manager.'"
"For a manager, there's almost nothing more valuable than having your employees feel comfortable admitting their mistakes to you. It's so much easier to fix something if you know about it proactively instead of finding out about it reactively. You want your people to come to you when they think they've done something wrong, and not just because they trust that you won't blow up at them, but because they believe that you can actually help them secolve a bad situation and make it better."
"Sometimes the right thing to do is not to ask, but to make it evident that you want to know, if they want to tell you."
"Part of your job as a manager is to identify the skills, talent, and potential in your direct reports. When you give positive feedback about something, try to connect it to a similar skill seen in one of the senior executives of the company. Point out to your own team...The goal is to help your direct reports look up in the organization and see themselves in the leaders so that they can think to themselves, 'I can do that too.'"
"When you emphasize representation for any single group, women included, you are de-emphasizing others. This doesn't mean that you shouldn't celebrate improvements in representation. But you should celebrate them as progress, not ultimate success. I now think about diversity goals as progressive steps."
For making difficult decisions when you need to reduce headcount."Stay focused on fair, fact-based questions: Who is producing the better work product? Who has the strong performance reviews? Who has the more fitting skill set for the future job that remains? That is the person who should stay."
"...a diverse organization [can] attract the best talent from the largest pool. Having some diversity brings more diversity."
"'The dialogue at the board level is more valuable when the voices in the room are representative of the people we serve. It's critical as we look to deliver positive solutions for learners and compete for, nurture, and retain talent in a tight job market."
"I have hired you to figure things out."
"The best type of validation is not just complimenting her on a job well done; it's identifying the future potential you see in her based on the strengths you see in her. So, when you see a chance for her to stretch herself, and you think she will rise to the occasion, tell her. Tell her that you think it's a great opportunity for her and why she can do it. Connect the skills you see in her to the opportunity and show her your confidence in her abilities. Better yet, offer her an opportunity that will stretch her or take her in a new direction."
July 30, 2021
This book offers advice for managers on what they should do differently, what they should say and do, and ways to create a more inclusive workplace for women. The author outlined so many great tips in this book. For people who don't have time, she summarizes everything at the end of each chapter. I was surprised to learn that women are biologically 4.5 times more likely to cry at work. The fact that women are emotional beings is not something managers can overlook. Women have different emotional responses, so managers should show basic empathy and sensitivity.
Some tips line up for everyone -- men or women. For example, in the "Watch The Clock" chapter, the author intelligently points out that you can't keep somebody waiting. And the last section talks about seeing a women's potential and praising it, finding new opportunities to build on her skill set and keep her growing within the confines of an organization. All three are key to being a good boss.
The author wrote, "There was a fatal flaw in my approach. I was stuck in the mindset that women needed to learn how to adapt themselves to their environment to be successful. I was trying to change the way women played the game, to find a smarter way for them to spin the wheel to land on the right squares on the board. What I needed to do instead was ask how we could change the game."
To listen to my interview with the author, go to my podcast at:
https://zibbyowens.com/transcript/kat...
Some tips line up for everyone -- men or women. For example, in the "Watch The Clock" chapter, the author intelligently points out that you can't keep somebody waiting. And the last section talks about seeing a women's potential and praising it, finding new opportunities to build on her skill set and keep her growing within the confines of an organization. All three are key to being a good boss.
The author wrote, "There was a fatal flaw in my approach. I was stuck in the mindset that women needed to learn how to adapt themselves to their environment to be successful. I was trying to change the way women played the game, to find a smarter way for them to spin the wheel to land on the right squares on the board. What I needed to do instead was ask how we could change the game."
To listen to my interview with the author, go to my podcast at:
https://zibbyowens.com/transcript/kat...
May 10, 2021
This book was such a great read. So many chapters brought back memories of my own experiences as a female professional in a male dominated industry (finance).... such as the stress of last minute or overrun meetings on nights when I was due to relieve my nanny, and feeling constantly at a disadvantage to my male counterparts who didn’t have similar childcare responsibilities. I loved all the anecdotes, as well as the facts/statistics to really put a spotlight on some of the disparities and obstacles that women face every day. These are such important points, and perspective that all managers should strive to be aware of. Many checklist items seem so obvious after reading through these pages and would be so simple to implement, but propose actions that are (unfortunately) glaringly absent in many workplaces today. This should be required reading for any manager or Human Resources professional. I’m now a senior executive at my financial services firm, and I’m buying a copy for my CHRO today. I may also get a couple other copies to gift to other individuals who could particularly use some of these insights!
May 22, 2021
I was reading The Good Boss by Kate Eberle Walker yesterday- and it was so good that I couldn’t put it down and this is because in writing about bosses and the workplace, she reminded me of my experiences as a woman at work and there’s something she shared from the very beginning that stuck with me:
"...Women not only need to do their actual work but they also need to think about how they are being perceived as they are doing it."
The Good Boss is a book that I know will speak to many women in the work place on the challenges we face, and also a must-read for managers- both men and women on ensuring a safe space for women at work.
Thanks Netgalley for the eARC.
"...Women not only need to do their actual work but they also need to think about how they are being perceived as they are doing it."
The Good Boss is a book that I know will speak to many women in the work place on the challenges we face, and also a must-read for managers- both men and women on ensuring a safe space for women at work.
Thanks Netgalley for the eARC.
March 21, 2021
This is the book I've been waiting on since "Lean in" is a book for anyone who manages people to understand how we can dismantle the patriarchal systems in which we, modern businesses, operate. A book I can hand to colleagues no matter their gender identity to help them understand what's different about being a woman in business. And boy does "The Good Boss" deliver. Eberle Walker does an amazing job keeping the book accessable and actionable. It's not just for women, it's for everyone. Do yourself a favor and go buy this book, read it, and pass it on.
October 11, 2021
Having been a boss in the past and moving towards that role now I thought reading up on it would be a good idea. This book did not disappoint.
As a new book it brings up some of the issues that are important to note in this changing workplace landscape. I wanted to look outside of myself and see if I'm missing anything. The Good Boss tapped me on the shoulder.
Excellent read. Check it out!
As a new book it brings up some of the issues that are important to note in this changing workplace landscape. I wanted to look outside of myself and see if I'm missing anything. The Good Boss tapped me on the shoulder.
Excellent read. Check it out!
December 11, 2021
My career experiences back up a lot of these points; and now as a leader I'm grateful for these actionable steps I can take to help the women in my organization, especially my department. I also liked the honest assessment of workplaces being made by men, for men, and how that dynamic plays out in various ways.
March 21, 2021
Extensive experience and refreshing insight providing perspective and advice on many levels. A must read.
March 23, 2021
Such an excellent read, full of spot-on ideas. I can think of so many bosses and coworkers who should read this book.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews