Whether you work with women, know someone who does, or are a woman yourself, I want to make sure you know about Leslie Knight’s latest book, “Powerful Women: They’re Not Men in Drag.” I believe her material is so valuable for creating more collaborative workplace relationships between men and women that when Leslie invited me to write the Foreword, I was delighted to say yes. I hope you will read my Foreword below. Then go to www.LeslieKnight.com to learn more, order the book and receive three free bonus videos from Leslie.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
DR. GRUDER’S FOREWORD TO “POWERFUL WOMEN AREN’T MEN IN DRAG”
For decades I believed that men and women being equal meant men and women being the same. I sided with the research indicating that the healthier a marriage was, the more gender differences became irrelevant. I adamantly rejected the idea that men were from Mars and women were from Venus. To me back then, that was old school and backward thinking.
My first wife shared my perspective about this. Our denial of our vast gender differences ended up a playing significant role in that marriage’s demise. And this was despite the fact that I, she, and most people who knew us, would have sworn on a stack of bibles that we would have been the last couple standing.
A big part of my recovery from that divorce revolved around finally embracing healthy masculinity as being quite distinct from healthy femininity. Being equal stopped meaning being the same. I instead came to treasure the gigantically different gifts and blessings that healthy masculine and feminine perspectives offer, and to deeply appreciate how combining those differences is a far superior strategy to pretending men and women are the same.
When I ultimately remarried, it was to a woman who also treasures this wisdom. As of writing this, we’ve already been together nearly half the time my first wife and I were. We both know in our bones that the depth to which we cherish our gender differences is a big part of what keeps our marriage robust, loving, durable, and exquisitely collaborative.
The feminist movement sought to make women equal by making them like men, or at least like how they believed men should be, both at work and at home. In my desire to treat women as equals I tried during the last quarter of the last century to become their version of being a man. Worse, I taught my therapy and business clients to do the same. I became part of the problem while believing I was part of the solution.
The women’s movement has since then begun to mature. So has the men’s movement. The divine feminine, and the distinctly different divine masculine, are both being increasingly embraced. The vast wisdom and benefits of synergizing the gifts of our gender differences, instead of trying to erase them in the misguided name of equality, are being embodied by more and more people. Organizations like the ManKind Project, and PAX, are in their ascendancy.
But, while wonderful resources like these now exist to help us step into healthy expressions of masculine and feminine consciousness in our personal lives, resources for doing this in business remain far sparser.
This is why “Powerful Women: They’re Not Men in Drag” is such an important contribution. Leslie Knight is blazing the trail toward uplifting and upgrading the workplace by revealing the magnificence of what personal power looks like in women at work once they stop trying to behave like men in drag. She reveals the vitally important yet different contributions feminine consciousness contributes to the triple bottom line of sustainably profitable businesses. And she provides keys to help this long overdue shift occur: valuable implementation strategies for individuals, teams, departments and enterprises.
Any manager, supervisor, executive, or board member who does not read this book, and take its wisdom on board, is placing their business or nonprofit at risk.
The collaboration revolution has received a huge shot in the arm with “Powerful Women: They’re Not Men in Drag.” You are about to step into a world in which equal means being different, and success means knowing how to effectively synergize those differences.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
If this material sounds like it could be useful to you or someone you know, go to www.LeslieKnight.com now to order the book and you’ll also receive three valuable free bonus videos from Leslie.
Thanks for being an Integrity Spark,
David Gruder, PhD
Founder of Integrity Revolution
