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Taking initiative pays off. It is hard to visualize someone as a leader if she is always waiting to be told what to do.
“damned if they do” and “doomed if they don’t” situations.
learning to withstand criticism is a necessity for women.
One of the things he told me was that my desire to be liked by everyone would hold me back. He said that when you want to change things, you can’t please everyone. If you do please everyone, you aren’t making enough progress. Mark was right.
When companies grow quickly, there are more things to do than there are people to do them. When companies grow more slowly or stop growing, there is less to do and too many people to not be doing them. Politics and stagnation set in, and everyone falters. He told me, “If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, you don’t ask what seat. You just get on.”
(I say eighteen months because two years seems too long and one year seems too short, but it does not have to be any exact amount of time.) Typically, my eighteen-month plan sets goals on two fronts. First and most important, I set targets for what my team can accomplish.
Fortunately, my team included a talented negotiator, Shailesh Rao, who stepped in to teach me the obvious: letting
the other side make the first offer is often crucial to achieving favorable terms.
At times, staying in the same functional area and in the same organization creates inertia and limits opportunity to expand.
Hard work and results should be recognized by others, but when they aren’t, advocating for oneself becomes necessary.
Junior women and senior men often avoid engaging in mentoring or sponsoring relationships out of fear of what others might think.
chapter originated with him and reflect his belief that great leadership is “conscious” leadership.
Another way I try to foster authentic communication is to speak openly about my own weaknesses. To highlight just one, I have a tendency to get impatient about unresolved situations. My reaction is to push for people to resolve them quickly, in some cases before they realistically can.
Maybe someday shedding tears in the workplace will no longer be viewed as embarrassing or weak, but as a simple display of authentic emotion.
balancing two careers and two cities was not adding up to one happy family. We needed to make some changes. But what? I loved my job at Google and he felt enormously loyal to his team in L.A. We struggled through the commuting for another long year of marital less-than-bliss. By then, Dave was ready to leave Yahoo. He limited his job search to the San Francisco area, which was a sacrifice on his part, since more of his professional interests and contacts were in L.A. He eventually became CEO of SurveyMonkey and was able to move the company headquarters from Portland to the Bay Area.
Fathers who want to drop out of the workforce entirely and devote themselves to child care can face extremely negative social pressure.
fabulous little book called Porn for Women. One page shows a man cleaning a kitchen while insisting, “I like to get to these things before I have to be asked.” Another man gets out of bed in the middle of the night, wondering, “Is that the baby? I’ll get her.”)30
When husbands do more housework, wives are less depressed, marital conflicts decrease, and satisfaction rises.
Women should learn from Icarus to aim for the sky, but keep in mind that we all have real limits.
“Done is better than perfect.” I have tried to embrace this motto and let go of unattainable standards. Aiming for perfection causes frustration at best and paralysis at worst.
When it was necessary to get a job done, I expected my subordinates to work around the clock. When that was not necessary, I wanted them to work normal hours, go home at a decent time, play with the kids, enjoy family and friends, read a novel, clear their heads, daydream, and refresh themselves. I wanted them to have a life outside the office. I am paying them for the quality of their work, not for the hours they work.
