12 Behaviors that Keep Women Stuck

The following are the interpersonal habits and behaviors most likely to create challenges and roadblocks for women, as identified by Sally Helgesen & Marshall Goldsmith in their new book How Women Rise. 

Special thanks to Sally Helgesen and Frank Wagner for providing us this list that distills the book's main points.

1. Reluctance to claim your achievements: routinely over-assigning credit for your successes to your team, your partners or your boss because you fear being perceived as a showboat or a self-promoting jerk
2. Expecting others to spontaneously notice and reward your contributions: declining to take responsibility for getting noticed by failing to communicate what you are doing or the value of what you contribute
3. Overvaluing expertise: focusing too much attention on mastering the skills your job requires rather than also building the connections and visibility that will help you move forward.
4. Building rather than leveraging relationships: devoting effort to building a broad network of connections but then declining to use that network strategically so that you as well as others benefit
5. Failing to enlist allies from day one: avoiding asking for help until you’ve done all your homework and thoroughly know the parameters of your job rather than starting with the question “who do I need to make this job a success?”
6. Putting your job before your career: allowing your desire to demonstrate loyalty and commitment to your boss or your team to prevent you from pursuing opportunities that will position you for the future
7. The perfection trap: believing that anything short of a flawless performance constitutes failure, which can make you reluctant to take measured risks while also creating unreasonable stress for you and for people around you
8. The disease to please: being so fearful of disappointing others than you fail to hold them accountable, assert your own boundaries and say no when it serves your best interests
9. Minimizing: routinely using words and body language that diminish your presence and your capacity to be present, thus undermining your ability to hold your space
10. Too much: offering too much information, too much disclosure, too many words or too much background rather than being crisp and concise in your communications
11. Ruminating: expending too much energy thinking too much about the past, dissecting your mistakes, blaming yourself, and turning regret inward rather than moving on
12. Letting your radar distract you: being so highly attuned to the environment and to other peoples’ responses that you that fail to filter out unhelpful distractions, which scatters your attention and undermines your ability to be present