Nice Girls Get Even

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Likewise, Elinor Stutz, a sales coach and the author of Nice Girls Do Get the Sale (Sourcebooks), takes it to the nth degree. She points to her own experience as an example. After 15 years as a stay-at-home mom, she took a job in the early '90s selling copiers. At first, Stutz says, "I was always looked at as weak because I cared too much about the client." By the fourth month, she was the top rep. One of her male colleagues grilled her about the secret of her success. "I said, 'I do one thing none of you do. I'm actually nice to my clients.'" The boys were busy backslapping themselves about how they were ripping off their clients. "That must come across to the client. I used to get to know the person behind the title and get to know them well," says Stutz, although perhaps that's properly filed under "great customer service" rather than "nice."

There are skeptics who still say nice can be a negative. Debra Condren, a psychologist and business coach, is one. "Sometimes women are too nice and let other people in the workplace steal their credit. They don't know how to stick up [for themselves]." In her new book, Am•BITCH•ous (Morgan Road), out in December, she views the bitch label as a component of admirable ambition. Her definition of ambitchous: a woman who "makes more money, has more power, gets the recognition she deserves, and has the determination to go after her dreams with ... integrity."

She too reaches for fashion terms to make her point about how female ambition is thwarted: "A staple of movies, novels and TV: the hard-charging female executive in her Armani power suit and Manolo heels. She's smart, aggressive, successful--and most people can't wait to see her get her well-deserved comeuppance."

There is another common problem for female executives: commonly known as men. They tend to show up in a lot of companies, exhibiting varying levels of bad behavior. Another new book, Alpha Male Syndrome by executive coaches Kate Ludeman and Eddie Erlandson (Harvard Business School), says that uncontrolled alpha is out. Just as sheer numbers are allowing female executives to release their stifled femininity, women's increased presence in the workplace appears to be taming the corporate caveman in male colleagues. When they are brought in as consultants, say the authors, newly emboldened employees tell them that autocratic alpha managers are abusive and unwilling to listen.

The authors praise the appearance of dominant, creative alpha 2.0 (alpha beta?) men in the office but warn of the dangerous excesses attached to the personality type: "The other half consists of a package of not-so-positive symptoms that leads to everything from minor business problems to full-fledged organizational catastrophes and personal disasters." The last years of Disney CEO Michael Eisner's reign is cited as a perfect example of a misguided alpha tenure disintegrating into "paranoia, backbiting and civil war." The authors have great faith, though, in alpha consciousness raising: "Alpha males who face up to their risks often learn with experience how to rise above them."