Feminine leadership, or how to succeed in business without being one of the boys.

• Author: Baldwin, Deborah

Feminine Leadership, or How to Succeed in Business Without Being One of the Boys.

Feminine Leadership, or How to Succeed in Business Without Being One of the Boys. Marilyn Loden. Times Books, $16.95. Now that women are being told that it's okay to dress pretty again and to stay home all day if that's what makes them happy, the time is probably ripe for a book celebrating the uniquely "feminine' qualities of women in management. Still, it's startling to hear a woman talk about women in sweepingly sexist terms. After interviewing what one must assume was an extremely limited number of women in business, Marilyn Loden concludes, "Women are more likely to stress cooperation over competition, teamwork over hierarchical structures, intuitive rather than exclusively rational reasoning, and an emphasis on long-term quality gains over short-term successes.' Next she blames all of the ills of American industry--including productivity losses and massive trade deficits--on men, whose singleminded emphasis on giving orders and acting tough apparently is at the root of worker alienation and the overly strong U.S. dollar.

Over the years I have had the following bosses (among others): an emotional small business owner who elicited hard work and loyalty through a combination of warmth and occasional temper tantrums; a mousy entrepreneur whose business failed because of insufficient attention paid to the books; a flinty-cool government appointee who worshipped schedules and hated dealing with subordinates; and an intuitive yet easily distracted bank president who once invested five hours of the top brass's time in a discussion of the company Christmas card. So, now guess...