EpilogueWoman to Woman

“Since it was founded more than 25 years ago as a graduate school of business for women only, the program at Simmons College has continued to grow even as women havegained greater acceptance at the major mainstream M.B.A. programs. Today the description for the management and behavior course still promises students a lesson in the ‘dominance of male norms’ and the ‘dismissal of female values’ in the workplace.But with so many women having broken through the barriers that once held them back,Simmons administrators have a new goal: to groom women for advanced leadership roles aschief executives. That will not happen by teaching women simply to mimic men in theboardroom, says Simmons’ Professor Fletcher; ‘We’ve been reading those books for 30 years.’ Instead, she suggests aspiring women executives should act not like men, or evenwomen, but individuals with their own leadership qualities. Patricia O’Brien, dean of the school,calls it ‘finding their voice.’”

Today, successful businesswomen are not just finding but also sharing their voice.

The scene is The Breakers in Palm Beach, Florida, the lavish five-star resort in theworld’s most legendary winter paradise. You enter the century-old main building to find yourself surrounded by richly colored paintings of Renaissance noblemen and rulers. Spectacular Venetian chandeliers sparkle, and the ceilings, hand-painted by Florentine artists, are fleckedwith gold leaf.Balancing this Augustan elegance are state-of-the-art amenities, the latest and the best of everything, from the four oceanfront pools, to the fitness center with ocean view, to the

“Beyond the Glass Ceiling: Women’s MBA Program is Redefining Its Mission,”

New York Times

, August 30, 2000.

championship golf course and ten tennis courts, to the luxury spa where guests are richly pampered in both body and soul.For corporate conference participants, The Breakers is the top of the line. You can just picture it, can’t you? Corporate princes, the spiritual descendants of all those noble potentates inall those paintings, plot their mergers and acquisitions, their re-engineeringsand reorganizations, during a morning golf game… or over lunch at The Beach Club,with the soft breezes from the Atlantic whispering through the royal palms… or at The Reef Bar after a hard tennis match… or while getting a facial at The Spa…A facial at The Spa? What’s wrong with this picture?In a world in which women take their rightful place beside men at the heads of corporations, there is less and less wrong with this picture. In fact, the picture comes to uscourtesy of one of corporate America’s most powerful leaders, Heidi G. Miller, onetimeTravelers Group whiz kid and numbers-cruncher

extraordinaire

, former Citigroup CFO, now theChief Financial Officer at Priceline.com and the founder of Women and Co., a conference of 150top female executives, the precise group for which facials-and-financials is no anomaly but is,rather, what you do at a meeting of powerful colleagues.Miller is not alone in looking for some sort of structure to support and advance women in power in corporations. There’s Betsy Holden’s Working Mom’s Exchange Network, a supportgroup Holden formed at Kraft long before she became its CEO. There’s Joanne Heffernan-Heisen’s Women’s Leadership Initiative at Johnson & Johnson, created, says Heffernan-Heisen,“to get women out of staff and into line positions.” There’s Bravo Networks’ Kathy Dore, whomade herself a mentor to a young VP at a rival company and helped her rise in the industry.

Sadly, however, these women are the exception rather than the rule. In fact, one of theunhappiest observations we bring to the writing of this book is that women who rise to power inAmerican corporations seem to feel little responsibility towards the women coming up behindthem. Virtually all the women we interviewed cited this woman-on-woman prejudice, and allfound it unfortunate.“From my experience,” says consultant Marilyn Puder-York, “women are notautomatically supportive of other women.” It is, says Jewell Bickford, “the saddest part of thestory.”How to account for it? There are several reasons. Some have to do with how womenconnect or disconnect with each other, how they approach other women for help. For somewomen, it is a zero-sum game: my gain is your loss, your gain is my loss. Other women whohave “made it,” like many men at the top, have succumbed to the seductive culture of corporatenarcissism, what Alan Downs in

Beyond the Looking Glass

defines as “obsession with the imageof success.” Corporate narcissism, says Downs, derives from the individual narcissistic manager whose only goal is to maintain the aura on the way up the corporate ladder, richly rewardingthose who contribute to his or her prestige and sacrificing anyone and anything to gratify theego. It leaves little room for helping others to climb up the ladder after you.

SCENARIO:

Harriet and Mary worked together at a renowned financialservices organization. They respected each other, each considered the other afriend. With Harriet in line for a key position, Mary was asked by their commonboss what she thought of her pal. In fact, Mary believed Harriet to be an effectivemanager who could grow into and succeed in the position, but the way the boss

Downs, Alan

. Beyond the Looking Glass: Overcoming the Seductive Culture of Corporate Narcissism