Summary: The Courage To Advance by Bonnie Hagemann and Lisa Pent

In the dynamic world of business, resilience is the secret weapon that propels leaders to greatness. In “The Courage To Advance: Real Life Resilience from the World’s Most Successful Women in Business,” authors Bonnie Hagemann and Lisa Pent delve into the untold stories of powerful women who have conquered adversity to achieve remarkable success. These narratives go beyond the boardroom, revealing the raw struggles and unwavering determination that define true leadership.

Are you ready to unlock your potential? Dive into the pages of this book and discover how resilience can transform your journey. Whether you’re a seasoned executive, an aspiring leader, or simply seeking inspiration, these stories will ignite your drive to overcome obstacles and reach new heights.

Genres

Business Culture, Business Encyclopedias, Business Motivation, Self-Improvement, Motivational Management, Leadership, Women Empowerment, Success Stories, Professional Development, Resilience, Inspirational, Career Growth, Personal Triumph, Diversity

“The Courage To Advance” brings together 36 powerful narratives from successful women across the globe. These leaders, hailing from diverse backgrounds and industries, share their unfiltered experiences—the victories, setbacks, and pivotal moments that shaped their paths. From overcoming gender bias to navigating corporate challenges, each story resonates with authenticity and courage. The common thread? These women have all completed the Harvard Business School Women on Boards program, a transformative course that has sparked a movement. As you read, you’ll realize that resilience isn’t just a trait—it’s a mindset that propels us forward even when the odds seem insurmountable.

Review

Bonnie Hagemann and Lisa Pent have curated a remarkable collection that transcends traditional leadership literature. Their book is a beacon for anyone seeking real-world wisdom, grounded in vulnerability and tenacity. As you turn the pages, you’ll find yourself nodding in recognition, drawing strength from the shared struggles. These women aren’t superheroes; they’re everyday warriors who dared to rise. “The Courage To Advance” isn’t just a book—it’s a lifeline for those navigating the complexities of professional life. Prepare to be inspired, challenged, and forever changed.

Real life resilience from the world’s most successful women in business。 Women lack representation in the top positions at companies and within industries across the global workforce. Those who do reach the top are in a unique position to provide mentoring and foster gender equity for other women on their way up.

Women’s stories of overcoming difficulties and crafting their own leadership path illuminate the qualities leaders need, including courage, resiliency, adaptability and vulnerability.

This book summary of The Courage To Advance relates the journeys of 36 strong women leaders who overcame obstacles to serve as advocates for gender parity in leadership roles.

Recommendation

Bonnie Hagemann, Lisa Pent and their colleagues from the WomenExecs on Boards network offer a collection of truly inspiring stories of the struggles that defined and shaped them as strong women leaders. All 36 women who share their experiences here participated in the Harvard Business School network program and are passionate about Hagemann and Pent’s cause: increasing gender parity in leadership roles worldwide. Their stories expose the less glamorous side of success and demonstrate the strength women must muster to overcome adversity. These revealing narratives about how women leaders found strength and persevered will inspire readers to overcome obstacles in their path.

Take-Aways

• Successful women’s stories of triumph over adversity demonstrate important leadership lessons.
• Muster your courage to face the dangers of difficult but necessary jobs.
• Be resilient through change and setbacks.
• Adapt to new challenges as you forge a better path for others to follow.
• Pause and reflect to make sure you’re learning the right lessons.
• To grow as a leader, be vulnerable, authentic, honest and transparent.
• The hardships you face will teach you important leadership skills.

Summary

Successful women’s stories of triumph over adversity demonstrate important leadership lessons.

Women lack representation in the top positions at companies and within industries across the global workforce. Those who do reach the top are in a unique position to provide mentoring and foster gender equity for other women on their way up.

Women’s stories of overcoming difficulties and crafting their own leadership path illuminate the qualities leaders need, including courage, resiliency, adaptability and vulnerability.

Muster your courage to face the dangers of difficult but necessary jobs.

Leaders need to be brave to persevere in the face of danger. Consider Saniye Gulser Corat, director of UNESCO, the first woman to lead a successful Asian Development Bank project mission in Cambodia, and the first woman and social scientist to oversee the Bangladesh National Water Policy and Management Plan.

Corat became aware of gender inequality when she visited the Ivory Coast to research her doctoral thesis. She launched a company, ECI Consulting, Inc., to provide funding and solutions for international developmental issues. She decided to include an analysis of gender relations in each of the projects she led.

Corat faced a test of courage in 1997 during her eight-month project with the Asian Development Bank in Cambodia.Her task was to implement a $50 million loan program to employ military veterans, disabled people and women. She chose Cambodia because it was in violent turmoil from the remnants of the Khmer Rouge movement and its leader, Pol Pot. His regime systematically destroyed the country’s history, executed the educated class and starved overworked citizens.

“We must remember that any woman who has made it to high levels has done so on the backs of the women who have gone before.”

Corat dealt with the extreme challenges of building infrastructure from scratch with little to no resources, communicating with citizens who did not trust the government or each other, and traveling with armed guards to keep her team safe because she was a prime target for Pol Pot’s retribution.

As she witnessed Cambodian families’ appalling conditions and lived in constant fear and risk, Corat found the courage to persevere. Her mission helped many Cambodians gain financial security and education.

Be resilient through changes and setbacks.

Sisu is a Finnish phrase for the stoic attitude that enables you to keep going when you reach your breaking point. It is the inner strength you need to face life’s changes with resiliency. Rebecca (Riv) Goldman, the SVP and General Counsel at Optimas Solutions in Milwaukee, exemplifies sisu.

Goldman’s career began in the McNeil consumer products division at Johnson & Johnson, where she faced her first intense challenge as part of the response team for Tylenol during the 1982 “Chicago Tylenol Murders.” Someone poisoned bottles of the pain relief pills with potassium cyanide, killing consumers. Tylenol created what is now regarded as the standard safety packaging for such products. Thanks in part to Goldman, the company earned praise for the way it handled the crisis.

The resiliency Goldman demonstrated at Tylenol put her in line for a major promotion; however, she had recently married and her husband had a family business in Springfield, Illinois. Goldman chose to move to Springfield and raise a family. She was uncertain what this drastic lifestyle change would bring, but after having her two children – and finding optimism and joy in motherhood – she returned to work at an insurance company. This position expanded her knowledge of financial planning and marketing.

After Goldman’s husband sold the family business and the family moved to Springfield, Ohio, she became the vice president of strategic planning for another insurance company

The couple suffered their most difficult setback when their son Michael was diagnosed with autism. In the early 1990s, autistic children were often placed in institutions. Experts assumed they could not grow cognitively beyond the third grade. Goldman’s research told her that the best educational environment for her son was in an inclusive, mainstream classroom with supportive help. The school superintendent and her own lawyer denied her request, even though the law was in her favor. Goldman would not take no for an answer. She decided to pursue a law degree to fight for her son’s education.

“If you get knocked down or if you take a detour, you’re going to come back. Just put one foot in front of the other, and keep moving in the direction of your goal.”

In 1993, during her second year of law school, she won the case of Michael W. Goldman v. Centerville School District and set a precedent for including autistic children in public schools.

Goldman finished her law degree, took a job at GE and worked her way up to become its general counsel in seven short years. At GE, she says, she collaborated with some of the best lawyers in corporate America.

During her career, she found satisfaction in mentoring many other women in leadership skills, inspiring them with her record of tenacious and determined action in the face of change.

Adapt to new challenges as you forge a better path for others to follow.

Each step a woman climbs up the corporate ladder creates a cultural shift that encourages a company to become more accepting of all women. However, many women who paved the way for today’s more inclusive corporate culture did it by adapting and acting like men in male-dominated professions.

Author Lisa Pent, a client partner and head of diversity and inclusion in capital markets at Cognizant in New York, had to be brave as she learned to adapt to male-dominated Wall Street in the 1980s. Pent encountered gender discrimination on her first day at work. She wore a pantsuit to her Merrill Lynch office, and her boss ordered her to return home to “dress more appropriately.”

She faced additional misogyny, arrogance and sexist behavior. For example, she had to work late one night, unnecessarily, while her male co-workers loudly reacted to pornography they were watching in the office space she shared with them. At that time, women who filed HR complaints were rarely taken seriously. In fact, they were often penalized. Pent chose to keep her head down, protect her reputation and slowly climb the corporate ladder from analyst to senior vice president. Proud of her professional accomplishments, she left Wall Street to work in consulting at Thomson Reuters.

“It’s OK to change your career path and to change companies to find a better fit, achieve a higher level or just to feel valued at a different level.”

Pent married and raised a family before moving again to a top accounting firm, then into technology and finally settling in at her current position at Cognizant, which has a positive work culture that embraces diversity and inclusion.

Today, Pent regrets that she wasn’t more forceful in confronting discrimination early in her career. Still, she recognizes she might not have risen as high in the executive ranks if she hadn’t been adaptable. Pent was careful in her decisions and always kind. She stayed strategic – not emotional – in navigating the challenges of gender discrimination as she learned what worked best for her personal success. Her experiences and efforts helped create a better path for other women.

Pause and reflect to make sure you’re learning the right lessons.

Great leaders stop and calculate their actions during a conflict. They rely on information from other people to help them make sense of events around them. Their problem-solving skills offer important lessons, and one way you can learn those lessons is to build your own community of mentors.

Environmental scientist Elaine Dorward-King learned how much her work as a leader benefited from having a network of trusted colleagues. She has been the director of several top global mining companies, including the Newmont Mining Corporation, Richards Bay Minerals and the Rio Tinto Group. In addition, she led the mining industry’s efforts to develop conservation practices, improve sustainability in mining communities, and set world-class standards for health and safety.

Dorward-King began building her network of mentors during her first job in agricultural biotechnology at Monsanto. She moved to an environmental consulting firm in Seattle and then landed her first position in the mining industry at the Kennecott Corporation in Salt Lake City, Utah. She then joined the Rio Tinto Group, where she passionately advocated for research on the environmental impact of copper mining. She traveled the world to ensure health, safety and environment (HSE) sustainability at all Rio Tinto mines, and took an assignment as managing director at Richards Bay Minerals in South Africa.

Dorward-King left Rio Tinto after 20 years when a long-term colleague offered her a job at the Newmont Mining Corporation. She worked for six and a half years as Newmont’s executive vice president for sustainability and external relations. This job tested her ability to network and to make sense of complicated situations.

“Have a strong network in your organization, including above you, below you and, critically, parallel to you.”

She spent five years creating a portfolio for an “integrated function,” incorporating proper health, safety and environmental regulations for the company’s future growth. An unexpected internal political power play interrupted Dorward-King’s program, threatened to break apart her portfolio and created risks around Newmont’s HSE functions.

As a strategic thinker, she drew on her network of trusted colleagues and mentors, who suggested that she organize an objective third-party study. The study proved that her initial portfolio was the company’s least risky, most productive option. She succeeded because she took time as a leader to analyze her situation, collect sound advice and establish a strategy before taking action.Dorward-King had the wisdom to admit what she didn’t know, and she understood the value of accepting help.

To grow as a leader, be vulnerable, authentic, honest and transparent.

When you are a leader, people watch your every move, including in your most vulnerable moments. Embrace these moments and allow them to shape your growth.

Iram Shah learned a valuable lesson about vulnerability that shaped her into the leader she is today, an adviser to CEOs and a member of various boards of directors. She led the digital transformation at Schneider Electric as a senior vice president and managed a global career in Fortune 100 companies across four industries.

Shah was born and raised in Peshawar, Pakistan, where women often married young and lived without freedom or empowerment. She shocked her family when she pursued a career in business. As the only woman at her business college, she went on to complete the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School. Shah shaped a variety of brands, including Gatorade and Coca-Cola, and was a top executive at Zurich Financial and British Petroleum.

“You cannot lose hope; always try to learn from your experiences, no matter how painful.”

Her life changed when her 18-year-old daughter Sonia died in a car crash. Shah’s intense grief exposed her vulnerability to her peers. She sought support and advice from her friends and family and resolved to turn tragedy into action.

Before Sonia died, Shah had been involved in building a school for women in rural Pakistan. She finished building the school as part of her new nonprofit, the Sonia Shah Organization. The school provides its students with electricity, computers, uniforms and clean water. It serves 200 students, 75% of whom are girls. More than 200 women who graduated from the organization’s vocational center have achieved financial independence.

Shah established scholarships for girls to study in the United States and created the Sonia Shah Young Ambassadors program, which teaches young women to become influential leaders. She pushed through her personal grief and now celebrates her daughter’s life by pursuing Sonia’s dream to empower girls and women through education.

The hardships you face will teach you important leadership skills.

These profiles offer a behind-the-scenes look at the painful side of falling down and an honest view of what it takes to get back up.

“Every person who has ever done anything meaningful has done it in the midst of challenge, struggle and pain. If you’re struggling, you are not alone, and… there is hope ahead.”
Women who share their courage, resilience, adaptability, strategic thinking and vulnerability provide a realistic, inspiring picture of the path to success. They demonstrate ways to power through your struggles, embrace your challenges, and consider the encouragement and energy your actions could spark in other women.

About the author

Bonnie Hagemann (Author)
Bonnie Hagemann is the CEO of EDA, Inc. formerly known as Executive Development Associates. EDA is a progressive firm using its HR/Culture Tech platform and it 37-year history of top-of-the-house executive development to create compelling cultures and advance the strategy of the companies we serve.

Lisa Pent (Author)
Lisa Pent is a financially literate FTSE 100 senior executive fluent in the worlds of Business Development, Finance, Governance, Strategy, Transformation, Innovation, and Digital Transformation. Lisa sits on the board of the Wall Street Women’s Alliance and was in the inaugural Class of Harvard Business School’s Executive Education – Women on Boards: Succeeding as a Corporate Director program.

WomenExecs on Boards is a global network of Women Prepared for Board Service at Harvard Business School with over 190 members from 23 countries. They are deeply committed to one another’s success and are working together systematically to advance the state of gender equality in corporate governance and senior executive positions.

Bonnie Hagemann and Lisa Pent and their colleagues in the WomenExecs on Boards network are graduates of the Harvard Business School.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments xiii
Dedication xv
Foreword xvii
Preface: Leadership Gets Real xix

Chapter 1 Courage
Surviving and Leading Through Extreme Circumstances: Saniye Gülser Corat 3
Everything on the Line: Virginia Parker 9
Facing Down Imposter Syndrome: Maria del Carmen Garcia Nielsen 14
Blindsided by Voters: Heidi Zuckerman 18
Grace Under Fire: Chris Cheesman 22
Standing Up, Walking Out: Suzanna de Baca 27
Breaking Stereotypes: Judy Lee 32

Chapter 2 Resiliency
Surviving Downturns: Bonnie Hagemann 40
Owning and Addressing Product Launch Failure: Ainslie Simmonds 45
A New Job with a Newborn: Christine Fellowes 49
Losing Balance, Finding Joy: Emmanuelle Mace-Driskill 54
Taking on the Establishment: Rebecca (Riv) Goldman 59
The Art of the Pivot: Joanna Dodd Massey 65
Make Your Own Rules to Avoid Burnout: Annabelle Vultee 70

Chapter 3 Adaptability
Making Your Voice Heard Over Culture Shock and Discrimination: Shing Pan 79
Managing Through Gender Bias: Lisa Pent 84
Picking Up the Mantle: Roberta Sydney 89
Pivots and Priorities: Valerie Robert 94
Leaving Good, Pursuing Great: Patricia Hurler 99
Disrupting Sameness: Laura Kiernan 104
Getting Enough and Making Changes: Gisella Benavente 108

Chapter 4 Sensemaking
Learning Awareness: Cynthia (Cinny) Murray 117
Overcoming Unfairness: Rosie Bichard 123
From Setback to Success: Dorlisa Flur 128
Learning to Manage Difficult People: Sonja Vodusek 134
Facing Giants and Coming Out Stronger: Jeanine Charlton 138
Standing Up for What’s Right: Elaine Dorward-King 143
Finding Fit: Arti Singh 149
Bouncing Back from Betrayal: Nicole Parent Haughey 154

Chapter 5 Vulnerability
Finding Good in the Deepest Pain: Iram Shah 162
Brave Leaps and a Need for Help: Bhavani Amirthalingam 168
From Deepest Pain to Highest Purpose: Jocelyn Martin-Leano 173
Finding Order in Chaos: Hana’a AlSyead 177
Laying Down a High-Level Position for the Love of Another: Patricia Fortier 181
Overcoming Cancer: Patricia Rodriguez Christian 187
Say Yes. Keep Living.: Lynda Bourque Moss 191

Conclusion 197