This author says a ‘good boss’ can make or break your career (especially if you’re a woman)

Kate Eberle Walker’s guide for supporting women at work remains timely as well as insightful. This book goes beyond being a handy tool for professionals looking to do right thing by serving key insights on touchy subjects all too often ignored in the office, or even in remote work cyberspace.

In 2022, a book like The Good Boss shouldn’t still need to exist. Our bosses shouldn’t require a guide for supporting women because that should be a given. Yet, here we are with the growing number of scandals around the mistreatment of women in the workplace. It seems each day that we hear of someone in a position of power taking advantage of their female counterpart or employee.

For this reason, Walker’s guide becomes essential in the modern workplace, even if just showcasing nine of the many ways a manager can support women. In fact, I’m surprised such a book isn’t required reading at business schools and corporate training.

The good boss

With a background that includes globally-recognized companies in the education space such as Kaplan, The Princeton Review, and now PresenceLearning, Walker brings years of corporate experience to this book.

She has spent her career serving as a CFO, CEO, and board member to various large institutions, and that leadership experience becomes especially clear while reading this guidebook.

She calls on those experiences, as well as findings from her own research, to help aspiring professionals at every level, whether in their first management role or a tenured executive, to navigate the ever-important relationship between them and their female employees.

The very first point the book stresses is that a good boss is often what makes the difference in a women’s career. When it comes to women leaders, Walker notes the onus is on them to ‘pay it forward’ and help lift up other women. She goes on to note, however, that the solution cannot just be women helping women. Men must be a part of the equation, too, especially given they currently constitute the majority of leaders.

Therefore, the next step is to explain how a leader, whatever gender they identify with, can be a ‘good boss.’ For that, she offers her nine-rule approach, which I found to be enlightening as well as entertaining. These are noted not to be in order but to stand alone, and are not mutually exclusive.

As I dove deeper into the book, I found myself agreeing more and more with Walker’s arguments. Whether not treating women as though they are on their way out once they get engaged, or even picking on them the way you might pick on a male colleague, it was difficult to argue with any of the points made.

The more I read, the more it became clear that while the book is structured around straightforward rules, there are layers of meaning within each point, providing various ways in which the nine teachings can be applied – and highlighting even more ways in which they are misused.

My favorite part of The Good Boss was Walker’s anecdotes. The experiences she shares from years in the workplace will resonate especially well with those with more tenure but are not limited to established professionals. As someone who had spent only half the time the author has in an office setting, I easily saw myself in her shoes.

Perhaps it was the descriptiveness with which she describes these experiences. These shorter stories, typically coming at the beginning of chapters, make the book immersive and engaging.

At a minimum, these stories effectively drive each of the author’s points home. Moreover, they help make the serious lessons she shares all the more palatable to an audience who may not have sat in a deal room, for example, as she describes in one of the anecdotes.

With a market of corporate-focused literature saturated with male perspectives, I found the point of view shared in this book refreshing. More importantly, I found it uncomfortable. As a man, it forced me to confront some of the behaviors I’d seen and emulated growing up or being mentored by other male leaders.

Walker shows us that no one is immune to mistakes and even gives a powerful example involving President Obama during his campaign run. If he can fumble, surely I could, too. And, fortunately, the book does a great job explaining how to avoid such mistakes in the future.

The bottom line

The truth is that I cannot find any negatives to critique when it comes to Walker’s book.

This may be in praise of the simple nine-step approach. Alternatively, one might argue that it shines in its uniqueness. Many of these ideas were fresh compared to the stale human resources training we’re used to.

So The Good Boss is ultimately a winner among the crowded genre of business-related literature. Whether you take Walker’s advice to heart or not, even reading a portion of the book is sure to leave you a better leader than you were before it.