You’re welcome to use this free discussion guide for How Women Rise in your organization or book group.
- Which habits or behaviors described in the book do you believe apply to you? How did reading about them strengthen your awareness of how they affect you?
- What experiences in your life or work may have shaped the habits or behaviors most likely to hold you back?
- Pages 38-44 describe the beliefs most likely to cause women to resist making changes that could better position them for success. Do you share any of these beliefs? If so, what could be useful in shifting your perspective?
- In Chapter 2, an attorney named Maureen realizes that the common female strategy of working as hard as possible and trusting this will get them noticed is the key reason women in her firm usually make partner later in their careers than men. Have you seen instances of women losing out because they assume their hard work will be rewarded? How might you help shift this dynamic?
- Does the idea of leveraging relationships rather than just building them make you uneasy? Do you believe doing this would make you a shallow person, or a “user?” If so, did reading Chapter 4 give you a new perspective? What might leveraging look like for you?
- How Women Rise suggests a four-step process for letting go of habits that get in your way. The first step is to start with one behavior, or even one part of a behavior, rather than trying to change a lot of things all at once. What do you think might be a good place for you to begin making a shift?
- The second step in this four-step process is enlisting allies in your effort to address the behaviors that get in your way. The authors suggest a variety of ways to do this. What method is most appealing to you?
- The behaviors and habits described in this book are also rooted in strengths such as generosity, conscientiousness, loyalty, dedication, an awareness of other peoples’ needs and the desire to be authentic. How do you begin to shift behaviors that may be getting in your way while maintaining your distinctive strengths?
- Can you think of any habits or behaviors that hold women back that were left out of this book?
- Do you think that some of the behaviors described in the book also apply to men? If so, which ones and in what circumstances? And do you think they also hold men back?
Click here to download this guide as a PDF.