Take the Lead: How Women Leaders Are Driving Success Through Innovation

In this uneven survey, Janjuha-Jivraj (Futureproof Your Career), Corboz, and Mourot-Haxaire, who are all professors at the HEC Paris business school, draw on interviews with more than 1,000 women from across the world to emphasize the importance of the “seven Cs” for career success: creativity, compass (values), courage, connections, championing (receiving support from mentors), curating your team, and career (integrating the other factors). The interviewees’ stories are mostly presented in their own words; for instance, Netflix executive Whitney Gore discusses how the streaming company encourages “fresh thinking” by soliciting “contrary views” that “strengthen the quality of the discussion and rigour of ideas.” Elsewhere, Aminata Kane, an executive at Orange Bank Africa, stresses the importance of keeping cool under pressure, and Thoraya Ahmed Obaid, a former U.N. executive from Saudi Arabia, tells how she led with compassion by seeking out the perspectives of the people she served. Unfortunately, scant specifics in some of the stories muddle the takeaway. For instance, the authors praise Djibouti diplomat Amina Mohamed’s outside-the-box thinking in implementing U.N. sustainability goals, but it’s not clear what her ideas were or what problem she solved. Still, the diversity of perspectives makes this worth a look. (Feb.)