Marie-Hélène Budworth

I really enjoyed Mike Winerip‘s piece in the New York Times this morning.  He presents balance to the current media frenzy over the limits placed on women in corporate America.  Mr. Winerip reminds us that any individual who chooses to focus on family over career makes sacrifices – and it is perfectly okay.  

Recently there have been a few high profile examples of women in senior leadership roles within highly visible corporate environments.  As noted in my last Blog entry, Marisa Mayer has taken over Yahoo! and the response has been to make ‘news’ of the length of her maternity leave.  Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, recently released her book Lean In 
providing women with career advice, based on her own life story.  And to kick all of this off, Anne Marie Slaughter wrote a piece for the Atlantic last summer detailing the limits between parenting and career success.  

My view is that all three of these women, Mayer, Sandberg, and Slaughter, have made valuable contributions.  They each hold differing views of what it takes to be successful, however, they all provide a highly visible example of women in leadership.  This by itself provides a service to any woman who wishes to achieve career success at the highest possible level.  

Mr. Winerip described having to pass on opportunities in order to be present for his children.  He also describes what my colleagues and I identified as a ‘taking turns’ strategy in career management among dual career couples (see Budworth, Enns, Rowbotham, 2008).    Winerip reminds us, the type of leadership success enjoyed by these women comes at a price – no matter who you are.