By Thomas C | Strong Female Leaders

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Top 6 Business Leadership Books of All Time
When you read, you learn; When you learn, you grow.
No matter which phase of your leadership journey you are tackling right now, reading top leadership books of all time enables you to increase knowledge base, stay grounded, and find the motivation to push through hardship. Great leaders never stop learning. If you aim to be a great leader, and are constantly searching for ways to learn, then start with our all time favorites below:

1. Harvard Business Review Ultimate Box Set
Composed of the best HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW articles thus far on leadership, management and business, HARVARD BUSINESS REVIEW'S ULTIMATE BOX SET tackles the concept of true power and authority in the modern business setting. With titles such as The Discipline of Building Character, The Human Side of Management, and The Manager’s Job: Folklore and Fact, these books benefit anyone with keen interest in self improvement, leadership and overall emotional intelligence.

2. Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action by Simon Sinek
In START WITH WHY, Author, Entrepreneur and Leadership Expert, Simon Sinek, explores the characteristics true leaders possess. He explains how knowing your "WHY" defines the underlying reason why some companies and individuals thrive and others don't, given that they hold the same pedigree, market advantage and likelihood to succeed. Sinek supports his idea by providing examples of the most influential leaders of all time, such as Steve Jobs, Warren Buffet, Mark Zuckerberg and Mahatma Ghandi, and shows us how, by knowing and starting with their WHY's, these great leaders led their organizations and communities to social and economic triumph.



3. How to Win Friends and Influence People by Dale Carnegie
Published in 1936, this TIMELESS CLASSIC has sold over 15 million copies around the world. Its simple and commonsensical teachings apply to all people who are open to changing their mindsets to a service-based thinking.


4. Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead by Sheryl Sandberg and Nell Scovell
LEAN IN is arguably one of the best books for female leaders. Written by Facebook COO, Sheryl Sandberg, LEAN IN aims to motivate other women to ascend in the business world by courageously and unhesitatingly leaning in and grabbing opportunities.

Sandberg encourages us to chase our biggest and most bodacious ambitions, because it is a God-given right to pursue our dreams. Even though society views women as the weaker gender, we don't have to comply to society's view, we must defy it. With a little audacity and by leaning in, in the boardroom, at the courthouse and just about anywhere we want, women can prove that we are as capable as men.



5. The One Minute Manager by Ken Blanchard and Spencer Johnson
Time is a thief that waits for no one. THE ONE MINUTE MANAGER protects you from that.

In this swift read, you will find three practical techniques that makes time work for you. You will find one minute goals, one minute praising methods, one minute reprimands and other one minute actions that convey your intention clearly without bleeding into verbose conversations.





6. Delivering Happiness by Tony Hseih
DELIVERING HAPPINESS is a best-selling book written by former CEO of Zappos and LinkExhange and Harvard Grad, Tony Hseih.

In DELIVERING HAPPINESS, Hseih leverages his own stories of success and failure to assert his belief that to succeed in the long run, leaders must put culture before profit, and put employees before shareholders. Because happy employees are the most productive, loyal and innovation; and they are the building blocks of a great organization.



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By Sarah Go | Strong Female Leaders

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The Rise of the Female STEM Leader
We often hear that there is a shortage of women in STEM (Science, Engineering, Technology and Math) fields. For example, former astronaut, Sally Ride, publicly referred to the "persistent gender gap in STEM fields” as a “national crisis that will be deeply detrimental to America’s global competitiveness." To boost her statement's credibility, statistics do show a pronounced gender gap in some of the hard core STEM careers such as Software Development and Engineering. As science and technology increasingly become a larger part of our lives, the drive forward in STEM fields also grows, along with the gender gap between men and women in these fields.

Our article today will not preach for more young women take an interest in STEM fields, or highlight the obvious gender gap that exists in these fields. Instead we want to focus on the STEM female leaders who have succeeded in these fields. We want young women to know that, despite having to face the persistent gender biases that exist in STEM fields, women can excel in a challenging STEM career, and that they do have incredible role models to look up to.

The future is bright in the STEM world; and women and girls must be empowered to contribute their skill sets to the future of STEM. The STEM females who contributed to closing the gender gap in STEM can inspire young women to follow in their footsteps and guide us to a better future.


Here are six of those women from both past and present:
1. Florence Nightingale
Florence Nightingale pioneered the notion of women in leadership roles in the medical field, by applying her statistician, nursing and design skills.

Known as “the Lady with the Lamp,” she maximized her nursing skills in the Crimean War during the 1800's, by greatly reducing the death rate in hospitals. Leveraging her visual statistic analysis ability to discover the cause of a high mortality rate among soldiers, she resolved to adopt better sanitary practices in hospitals and prevented an untimely death for many. She also designed hospital systems to apply better sanitary practices, and brought new ideas to sanitation in homes. Later, she opened her own nursing school to introduce modern nursing skills to other young women. Nightingale's leadership and innovation in modern nursing improved health care practices all over the world.

2. Rachel Carson
Rachel Carson was an early mover in the national environmental movement. Born in 1907 in Pennsylvania, she studied biology and became a Marine Biologist and Conservationist. She worked at the US Fisheries Bureau while publishing journals about the wildlife. Her growing popularity in the industry helped her achieved the Editor-in-Chief position for the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

Combining her love for wildlife and writing, Carson eventually became a well-known writer, and authored popular books such as the "The Sea Around Us," "Under the Sea-Wind" and "The Edge of the Sea." Later in career, she shifted her focus towards wildlife conservation, including decrying the use of pesticides and banning the use of DDT, one of the most harmful pesticides used. aHer work propeled the environmental movement forward, paving the way for young conservationists and women leaders.

3. Mae Jemison
Mae Jemison is an American astronaut and physician. She graduated from Stanford University in 1977, with a Bachelor of Science degree in chemical engineering. She then attended Cornell University Medical College, and became a physician. In 1985, Jemison changed her direction in life and decided to pursue her dream of becoming an astronaut. She applied for admission to NASA's astronaut training program. Jemison was admitted to the program, being one of only 15 candidates chosen from around 2,000. She was the first African-American woman to be admitted into NASA’s program. On September 12, 1992, Jemison flew into space with six other astronauts aboard the shuttle Endeavour. As she flew through the stratosphere, she became the first African-American woman in space.


4. Elizabeth Blackburn
Elizabeth H. Blackburn is an Australian-American molecular biologist and biochemist. In the 1970's, Blackburn completed both a bachelor’s and a Master’s degree in biochemistry from the University of Melbourne. She then became a graduate student in molecular biology at the University of Cambridge, in England.

At Cambridge, Blackburn studied nucleic acid compositions and also experimented with techniques of DNA sequencing, which would prove helpful later in her career. In 1975, she finished a Ph.D. in molecular biology and began her postdoctoral research. She joined the laboratory of American biologist Joseph Gall, at Yale University. Later she was a professor at the University of California, Berkeley and then at the University of California, San Fransisco.

In 2009, she and two colleagues were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physiology or Medicine. She made discoveries about the genetic composition and function of telomeres, which are segments of DNA at the ends of chromosomes. She also won the prize for her part in the discovery of an enzyme called telomerase, which is an essential factor in maintaining chromosomes.

5. Gwynne Shotwell
Born in 1963 in Evanston, Illinois, Gwynne grew up as the middle child in a house of three daughters. She earned a Bachelor of Science degree and a Master of Science degree in Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mathematics, from Northwestern University.

After her studies, she entered the automotive industry and headed down a corporate career path, but changed her mind to pursue a more practical use of her engineering education. For over a decade she did technical work in military space research and development, including thermal analysis as it pertains to spacecraft design. In 2002, she joined the space exploration company, SpaceX, founded by Elon Musk, where she combined her engineering knowledge with business. She signed on as Vice President of Business Development and was the eleventh employee at the company.

Currently, Shotwell is the President and COO of SpaceX, and manages overall company operations. She also oversees customer and strategic relationships. In 2010, SpaceX became the first private company to launch a spacecraft, achieve orbit, and then recover the spacecraft.

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