HBR Women at Work Series Collection (3 Books)

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How Women Manage the Gendered Norms of Leadership

by Wei Zheng, Ronit Kark, and Alyson Meister

A wealth of research shows that female leaders, much more than their male counterparts, face the need to be warm and nice (what society traditionally expects from women) as well as competent and tough (what society traditionally expects from men and leaders).1 The problem is that these qualities are often seen as opposites. This creates a catch-22 and double bind for women leaders. Carly Fiorina, the former CEO of Hewlett-Packard, depicted it this way in her book Tough Choices: “In the chat rooms around Silicon Valley, from the time I arrived until long after I left HP, I was routinely referred to as either a ‘bimbo’ or a ‘bitch’—too soft or too ...