A review by hooliaquoolia
The Myth of the Nice Girl: Achieving a Career You Love Without Becoming a Person You Hate by Fran Hauser
3.0
Hmm. This was a little bit of a pickle for me.
On one hand, I really liked the author's absolute rejection that women should try to embody a completely different persona just to get ahead--"pretend to be someone you're not" is the essential message most women get when advised about leadership, and it's fucking grating and 100% WRONG. Having a book that addresses the topic of leading with the force of your own character, not someone else's character, or someone else's idea of what a "tough" leader looks like, is a refreshing thing to see in books targeted towards young, professional women. To be frank, all of this advice could be taken by men as well, considering that men are under a lot of pressure to live up to the "macho" leadership stereotype. I would love to have some of my male colleagues and superiors read this just to get it through their thick heads that berating people doesn't make you tough. I also thought that the chapter on mentoring and being mentored was especially helpful, and something that I hadn't thought about before. Highly recommend this book to young professionals of any gender!
However, I couldn't help but feel that the book had blinders on. There was a lot written about being sensitive to other people's emotions, and being as kind as possible when doing anything at all, even when writing out emails. I'll be real, I'm not a naturally "nice" person, and I don't work in a "nice" industry, so I'm definitely not the target audience. But so much of this book was absorbed in focusing on other people's feelings without ever questioning why women are expected to be this emotionally considerate at all. Why is there not a book called Hey Men, Stop Taking Everything Your Female Leadership Tells You So Damn Personally, They Are Just Trying To Do Their Fucking Jobs? Or how about Having Your Emotional Well-Being And Validation Depend Entirely On People Being Nice To You At Work Is Unhealthy, Unrealistic, And Will Ultimately Make You Miserable? Even in my very un-nice industry, the amount of emotional labor I am expected to do compared to my male colleagues is astounding, and frankly annoying, because again, I am not a "nice" person. Granted, this book does sort of address this topic, but in a very lukewarm way, almost like the author is just shrugging her shoulders and going "Well, that's the way it is!" I suppose it's not the fault of the author, but I am incredibly frustrated that there is a huge market for advising women on how to manage their emotions and zero books teaching men how to not lose their fucking minds when being told to do something by a woman.
This isn't to say this book isn't useful. It absolutely is. At its core, it's about how to maintain polite, friendly working relationships with people so they'll want to work with you again. In a competitive corporate world, I can definitely see how those skills might be rare, and how women especially might be targeted for being too "weak" when they express empathy for colleagues or employees. But I honestly feel that the same things can be accomplished by not focusing on being "nice," but on focusing on actually knowing your team and taking care of them. Where do they want to be in 5 years? In 10? Where are they from? What are their kids' names? How is their spouse doing? What are their hobbies? Is anyone sick? How can you, as a leader, make sure that they are stable enough to grow as a leader? I can understand that in a fast-paced corporate world, in-depth connections like these just aren't feasible, but to be honest, that just leaves me with a distaste for the work environments the author describes, rather than a desire to pick up being a nice girl.
I listened to the audiobook version, which was narrated by the author. She did a fine job narrating and the book itself was easy to follow. No complaints on format.
On one hand, I really liked the author's absolute rejection that women should try to embody a completely different persona just to get ahead--"pretend to be someone you're not" is the essential message most women get when advised about leadership, and it's fucking grating and 100% WRONG. Having a book that addresses the topic of leading with the force of your own character, not someone else's character, or someone else's idea of what a "tough" leader looks like, is a refreshing thing to see in books targeted towards young, professional women. To be frank, all of this advice could be taken by men as well, considering that men are under a lot of pressure to live up to the "macho" leadership stereotype. I would love to have some of my male colleagues and superiors read this just to get it through their thick heads that berating people doesn't make you tough. I also thought that the chapter on mentoring and being mentored was especially helpful, and something that I hadn't thought about before. Highly recommend this book to young professionals of any gender!
However, I couldn't help but feel that the book had blinders on. There was a lot written about being sensitive to other people's emotions, and being as kind as possible when doing anything at all, even when writing out emails. I'll be real, I'm not a naturally "nice" person, and I don't work in a "nice" industry, so I'm definitely not the target audience. But so much of this book was absorbed in focusing on other people's feelings without ever questioning why women are expected to be this emotionally considerate at all. Why is there not a book called Hey Men, Stop Taking Everything Your Female Leadership Tells You So Damn Personally, They Are Just Trying To Do Their Fucking Jobs? Or how about Having Your Emotional Well-Being And Validation Depend Entirely On People Being Nice To You At Work Is Unhealthy, Unrealistic, And Will Ultimately Make You Miserable? Even in my very un-nice industry, the amount of emotional labor I am expected to do compared to my male colleagues is astounding, and frankly annoying, because again, I am not a "nice" person. Granted, this book does sort of address this topic, but in a very lukewarm way, almost like the author is just shrugging her shoulders and going "Well, that's the way it is!" I suppose it's not the fault of the author, but I am incredibly frustrated that there is a huge market for advising women on how to manage their emotions and zero books teaching men how to not lose their fucking minds when being told to do something by a woman.
This isn't to say this book isn't useful. It absolutely is. At its core, it's about how to maintain polite, friendly working relationships with people so they'll want to work with you again. In a competitive corporate world, I can definitely see how those skills might be rare, and how women especially might be targeted for being too "weak" when they express empathy for colleagues or employees. But I honestly feel that the same things can be accomplished by not focusing on being "nice," but on focusing on actually knowing your team and taking care of them. Where do they want to be in 5 years? In 10? Where are they from? What are their kids' names? How is their spouse doing? What are their hobbies? Is anyone sick? How can you, as a leader, make sure that they are stable enough to grow as a leader? I can understand that in a fast-paced corporate world, in-depth connections like these just aren't feasible, but to be honest, that just leaves me with a distaste for the work environments the author describes, rather than a desire to pick up being a nice girl.
I listened to the audiobook version, which was narrated by the author. She did a fine job narrating and the book itself was easy to follow. No complaints on format.