HARD-WIRED TO LEAD

A playbook aims to help women topple today’s leadership barriers.

This third volume in Nanton’s scholarly series on female leaders offers methods to counteract dynamics that have traditionally stifled women’s advancement in the workforce. She characterizes hard-wired women as people “of power” who are “destined to lead and take dominion.” The founder and CEO of Carmel Connections Inc., the author is a speaker, educator, leadership strategist, and executive coach who clearly wants to shake up the status quo. Her goal is for the percentage of women to rise from 5% to 30% of all C-level professionals by 2030. Nanton calls this volume a modern-day playbook to spark a paradigm shift in the workplace. She urges readers, regardless of their sex, to embrace women’s promotions and to collaborate in reconstructing leadership practices. Before digging into the book, readers should take a look at the epilogue, which concisely lays out the author’s perspective. The comprehensive work is a smorgasbord of well-established leadership principles and theories, which she expands on and applies. Two particularly absorbing methods she developed are the Strategic Connections Profile for identifying leadership capital and C.L.E.A.R., a five-step framework for crucial organizational changes, based on culture, learning, evaluation, application, and review/reflection. The volume is heavily annotated and takes the tone of a treatise. It would be a worthwhile text or supplemental reading for a college program in business or women’s studies. Parts of the book are replete with obscure historical concepts, such as Ronald Heifetz’s Bathsheba syndrome and Paulo Freire’s theory of radical learning, which may be a draw for intellectual and academic readers. But those seeking practical solutions may glean more from the lighter sections, such as Nanton’s discussion of reverse mentoring (which she illustrates by alluding to the TV show Undercover Boss). Sharing her practical experiences through anecdotes would have added an element of liveliness. Her clear takeaway message to hard-wired women: “Have the courage to lead. Just Lead.”

Women seeking leadership positions will find innovative tools in this useful work.