Readers who enjoy learning about women who are successful leaders in higher education have two more books to add to their libraries. The authors of these two books had similar motivations for their research and subse- quent publications. Their research methodologies were similar in that both works are based on qualitative studies of women college and university presidents. The analysis and synthesis ofthe information gleaned from the studies, and the presentation of that information, differ in ways that make for interesting comparisons.
The subtitles of each book provide clues as to the motivations behind the research. Madsen wants us to learn from the experiences ofthe women she interviewed; Wolverton, Bower and Hyle rely on the women in their study to speak to us in first person about leadership. Madsen is motivated to tell us what experiences make for successful women presidents. Wolverton, et al. want to let the women in their study tell us what makes for an effective leader

Morgan, Catherine L.

English

DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska

University of Nebraska - Lincoln DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln Journal of Women in Educational Leadership Educational Administration, Department of 7-2009 Book Review of On Becoming a Woman Leader: Learning From the Experiences of University Presidents & Women at the Top: What Women University and College Presidents Say About Effective Leadership Catherine L. Morgan Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/jwel  Part of the Educational Administration and Supervision Commons This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Educational Administration, Department of at DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Women in Educational Leadership by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. Book Review Catherine L. Morgan On Becoming a Woman Leader: Learning From the Experiences of Uni-versity Presidents, Susan R. Madsen. San Francisco, CA 2008. John Wiley & Sons. 321 pages. Women at the Top: What Women University and College Presidents Say About Effective Leadership, Mimi Wolverton, Beverly L. Bower, and Adrienne E. Byle. Sterling, VA 2009. Stylus Publishing, LLC. 157 pages. Introduction Readers who enjoy learning about women who are successful leaders in higher education have two more books to add to their libraries. The authors of these two books had similar motivations for their research and subse-quent publications. Their research methodologies were similar in that both works are based on qualitative studies of women college and university presidents. The analysis and synthesis ofthe information gleaned from the studies, and the presentation of that information, differ in ways that make for interesting comparisons. The subtitles of each book provide clues as to the motivations behind the research. Madsen wants us to learn from the experiences of the women she interviewed; Wolverton, Bower and Hyle rely on the women in their study to speak to us in first person about leadership. Madsen is motivated to tell us what experiences make for successful women presidents. Wolverton, et al. want to let the women in their study tell us what makes for an effective leader. The intended audiences for the books overlap considerably. Wolverton, et al. write for an audience that can find inspiration in reading about women who have succeeded in leadership in higher education. The authors are clear that their purpose is to celebrate the women in the book and to inspire others to follow in the footsteps of those women. Madsen writes for the same audience but she focuses more on providing the reader with ideas that will help them develop as leaders. She also writes for an audience of readers who may be in a position to help girls and women develop to take advantage of leadership opportunities. The professor who wrote the preface to On Be-coming a Woman Leader said that the book gave her hope to see how people can contribute when their goal is to make a difference. Madsen's purpose in writing the book is to help others have the same hope for themselves and for Journal of Women in Educational Leadership, Vol. 7, No.3-July 2009 ISSN: 1541-6224 ©2009 Pro>Active Publications 159 160 C. Morgan About the Author Catherine Morgan is Dean of the School of Business at Bridgewate State in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. Prior to this position, she was act ing president to a private university. Email: C2morgan@bridgew.edu. others. She also wants to write the "definitive work" on women presidents in their fifties and mid-sixties. Susan R. Madsen has a doctorate in work, community, and family educa-tion with a specialization in human resource development. At the time of publication of her book, she was an associate professor of management. She has conducted significant research and published in the fields of lead-ership, change, and professional development. She serves on the editorial board of the journal Advances in Developing Human Resources. Mimi Wolverton is a retired professor of higher education. Beverly L. Bower is professor, Don A. Buchholz Endowed Chair, and director of the Bill J. Priest Center for Community College Education, University of North Texas. Adrienne E. Hyle, at Oklahoma State University at the time of publication, is professor of educational leadership at The University of Texas-Arlington. Wolverton and Bower co-authored an earlier version of this research in the Journal of Women in Educational Leadership (2006), "Leading ladies: Women university and college presidents: what they say about effective leadership. " Overview Since Peters and Waterman published In Search of Excellence (1982), au-thors have incorporated their model of identifying exemplars in various fields. Through interviews and data analysis, they seek to find commonali-ties that explain excellence in corporations, nonprofit organizations and in-dividual leaders. Jim Collins, for example, employed the same methodology in his highly successful management book, Good to Great. The implication is that if those commonalities can be duplicated in other businesses and organizations, they too can be 'excellent' and' great.' Both books in this review are based on face-to-face interviews with women who were, at the time, either presidents or recently retired presi-dents of higher education institutions. Madsen's book is based on inter-views with 10 women presidents; Wolverton, et al. based their book on interviews with nine women presidents. In each case, the authors con-ducted face-to-face interviews lasting two to four hours with each presi-dent. For both books, the authors studied transcripts of the interviews, looked for themes of differences and similarities, drew conclusions, and verified their analysis with the interviewees. Wolverton, et al. supple-mented their interview material with other printed and web sources, includ-Book Review 161 ing college documents, newspaper stories, and interviews conducted by others. From that basic methodological approach, the two works diverge. Women at the Top is structured as nine stories, each about one woman presi-dent. Each woman, who is identified by name and institution, tells her story in her own words and the authors supplement the stories with third person perspectives. Each chapter is devoted to a single president's story; the chapters are short, highly readable, and use some part of the president's story to create a message. For example, one chapter is titled "Having Fun," another "I Never Met an Opportunity I Didn't Like." The book is a small pa-perback and can be, but should not be, a quick read. In contrast, Madsen's presentation of her research is more detailed and more rigorous. On Becoming a Woman Leader is a scholarly publication. Rather than tell the stories of the women presidents in biographical form, Madsen integrates and synthesizes the interview material into chapters that follow the progression of lifetime experiences from childhood through ad-olescence through adulthood. Another interesting difference, and a bit dis-turbing to the reader, is that Madsen does not reveal the names or institutions of her subjects. She notes that some ofthe women did not want to be identified in the book; to protect their identities, she did not reveal the names of any of them. In some ways, that takes a personal ingredient out of the work - an ingre-dient that can be a source of inspiration for the reader when we can find something about that president to identify with. That is, however, a small matter and does not take away in any measure from the significance of Madsen's work. From another perspective, that becomes a strength of Madsen's approach since there is a risk in identifying as excellent a leader who might falter at some point after the book's publication. That happened after the publication of In Search of Excellence and after Good to Great. It also happened to one of the women presidents in Leading Ladies-one has experienced two votes of no confidence from the faculty at her institution. She still enjoys the support of the board, however. We know the identities of the women in Leading Ladies. We know that they are pioneers in the sense that all but one was the first woman presidents of their institutions. Betty Siegel, retired president of Kennesaw State Uni-versity, was also the first woman president of a public college or university in the state of Georgia. She also distinguished herself by being one of the longest serving presidents (25 years) in the country at the time of her retire-ment. All but three of the nine presidents are still at the institutions where they served at the time of the book's publication; those three have retired. The key questions in On Becoming a Woman Leader are (a) how did these women develop the knowledge, skills, and competencies that allowed them to become effective leaders; (b) at what stage of their careers did they develop those skills and competencies; and (c) who were the persons who influenced them throughout their careers. The book is structured into three parts, Youth, Adulthood, and Leadership. Madsen enhances readability 162 C. Morgan and further creates a scholarly tone to the book by placing in appendices her discussion of research methodology, interview question categories, and ba-sic descriptive information about the presidents. She also has created an ex-tensive reference list for readers who want to extend their knowledge and understanding. Wolverton, et aI. note that they selected their women presidents for inter-view based on participants' ability to inform the study; they amplified that description by stating that these women were deemed to be effective lead-ers based on criteria of reputation and longevity. Madsen tells us only that she invited twenty-five women college presidents to interview; the ten in the book agreed to be interviewed and were available at a time that she could travel to their institutions. It would have been interesting to know more about the criteria for each of the studies that led to the specific women who were interviewed. Like the authors of In Search of Excellence and Good to Great, the au-thors of these two books summarize their research into succinct themes. Madsen identifies nine motivations for leadership (e.g. to accomplish and achieve; to make a difference, contribution, or impact). She also summa-rizes the presidents' leadership philosophies into six primary themes: (l)hiring the right people and firing the wrong, (2) power and empower-ment, (3) ethics, honesty, and openness, (4) developing and supporting oth-ers, (5) collaboration and teamwork, and (6) creating a vision and making a difference. She devotes a chapter to discussing those themes. Wolverton, et aI. concluded their publication with a synthesis of existing literature on leadership to develop a concise list of nine tenets of effective leadership. They identified characteristics of effective leaders as passion, reflection, competency, great communicators, understanding ofthe role of culture, possessing the stamina to lead, focused and forward thinking, re-specting of individuality, and possessing credibility. Conclusions The authors of both books offer the reader insights and conclusions that they gleaned from their research. Madsen clearly articulates her inferences at the end of each chapter in the form of "takeaways." Wolverton, et aI., do so more subtly in the words they choose to tell the president's story. There are, not surprisingly, some conclusions in the two books that are very simi-lar. For instance, in her chapter on Career Paths and Barriers, Madsen gives us this takeaway. "Women academic leaders do not always intentionally look for leadership positions, but instead work hard and perform to the best of their abilities in their current posts." (p. 152) One of the presidents in Women at the Top tells us the same thing, in her own words. "I never aspired to be a president. It happened. But it wouldn't have happened if I had not done agoodjob as a faculty member, as a chair, as a dean, and so on." (p. 9) For different reasons, both books are best read in sections, not all in one sitting. Women at the Top is a deceptive fast read. If you read On Becoming Book Review 163 a Woman Leader too fast, you will get lost in the details of the transcript quotes and references to the scholarly literature. If you read either ofthese two books without pausing to reflect, you will miss leadership lessons and ideas that could inspire you and, perhaps more importantly, validate you. And that is, after all, why we take pleasure in these books on successful women leaders. 

Book Review of On Becoming a Woman Leader: Learning From the Experiences of University Presidents & Women at the Top: What Women University and College Presidents Say About Effective Leadership

UNL | Libraries

University of Nebraska - Lincoln 
DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln 
Journal of Women in Educational Leadership Educational Administration, Department of 
7-2009 
Book Review of On Becoming a Woman Leader: Learning From 
the Experiences of University Presidents & Women at the Top: 
What Women University and College Presidents Say About 
Effective Leadership 
Catherine L. Morgan 
Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/jwel 
 Part of the Educational Administration and Supervision Commons 
This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Educational Administration, Department of at 
DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Women in 
Educational Leadership by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@University of Nebraska - Lincoln. 
Book Review 
Catherine L. Morgan 
On Becoming a Woman Leader: Learning From the Experiences of Uni-
versity Presidents, Susan R. Madsen. San Francisco, CA 2008. John 
Wiley & Sons. 321 pages. 
Women at the Top: What Women University and College Presidents Say 
About Effective Leadership, Mimi Wolverton, Beverly L. Bower, and 
Adrienne E. Byle. Sterling, VA 2009. Stylus Publishing, LLC. 157 
pages. 
Introduction 
Readers who enjoy learning about women who are successful leaders in 
higher education have two more books to add to their libraries. The authors 
of these two books had similar motivations for their research and subse-
quent publications. Their research methodologies were similar in that both 
works are based on qualitative studies of women college and university 
presidents. The analysis and synthesis ofthe information gleaned from the 
studies, and the presentation of that information, differ in ways that make 
for interesting comparisons. 
The subtitles of each book provide clues as to the motivations behind the 
research. Madsen wants us to learn from the experiences of the women she 
interviewed; Wolverton, Bower and Hyle rely on the women in their study 
to speak to us in first person about leadership. Madsen is motivated to tell us 
what experiences make for successful women presidents. Wolverton, et al. 
want to let the women in their study tell us what makes for an effective 
leader. 
The intended audiences for the books overlap considerably. Wolverton, 
et al. write for an audience that can find inspiration in reading about women 
who have succeeded in leadership in higher education. The authors are 
clear that their purpose is to celebrate the women in the book and to inspire 
others to follow in the footsteps of those women. Madsen writes for the 
same audience but she focuses more on providing the reader with ideas that 
will help them develop as leaders. She also writes for an audience of readers 
who may be in a position to help girls and women develop to take advantage 
of leadership opportunities. The professor who wrote the preface to On Be-
coming a Woman Leader said that the book gave her hope to see how people 
can contribute when their goal is to make a difference. Madsen's purpose in 
writing the book is to help others have the same hope for themselves and for 
Journal of Women in Educational Leadership, Vol. 7, No.3-July 2009 
ISSN: 1541-6224 ©2009 Pro>Active Publications 159 
160 C. Morgan 
About the Author 
Catherine Morgan is Dean of the School of Business at Bridgewate 
State in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. Prior to this position, she was act 
ing president to a private university. Email: C2morgan@bridgew.edu. 
others. She also wants to write the "definitive work" on women presidents 
in their fifties and mid-sixties. 
Susan R. Madsen has a doctorate in work, community, and family educa-
tion with a specialization in human resource development. At the time of 
publication of her book, she was an associate professor of management. 
She has conducted significant research and published in the fields of lead-
ership, change, and professional development. She serves on the editorial 
board of the journal Advances in Developing Human Resources. 
Mimi Wolverton is a retired professor of higher education. Beverly L. 
Bower is professor, Don A. Buchholz Endowed Chair, and director of the 
Bill J. Priest Center for Community College Education, University of 
North Texas. Adrienne E. Hyle, at Oklahoma State University at the time of 
publication, is professor of educational leadership at The University of 
Texas-Arlington. Wolverton and Bower co-authored an earlier version of 
this research in the Journal of Women in Educational Leadership (2006), 
"Leading ladies: Women university and college presidents: what they say 
about effective leadership. " 
Overview 
Since Peters and Waterman published In Search of Excellence (1982), au-
thors have incorporated their model of identifying exemplars in various 
fields. Through interviews and data analysis, they seek to find commonali-
ties that explain excellence in corporations, nonprofit organizations and in-
dividual leaders. Jim Collins, for example, employed the same 
methodology in his highly successful management book, Good to Great. 
The implication is that if those commonalities can be duplicated in other 
businesses and organizations, they too can be 'excellent' and' great.' 
Both books in this review are based on face-to-face interviews with 
women who were, at the time, either presidents or recently retired presi-
dents of higher education institutions. Madsen's book is based on inter-
views with 10 women presidents; Wolverton, et al. based their book on 
interviews with nine women presidents. In each case, the authors con-
ducted face-to-face interviews lasting two to four hours with each presi-
dent. For both books, the authors studied transcripts of the interviews, 
looked for themes of differences and similarities, drew conclusions, and 
verified their analysis with the interviewees. Wolverton, et al. supple-
mented their interview material with other printed and web sources, includ-
Book Review 161 
ing college documents, newspaper stories, and interviews conducted by 
others. 
From that basic methodological approach, the two works diverge. 
Women at the Top is structured as nine stories, each about one woman presi-
dent. Each woman, who is identified by name and institution, tells her story 
in her own words and the authors supplement the stories with third person 
perspectives. Each chapter is devoted to a single president's story; the 
chapters are short, highly readable, and use some part of the president's 
story to create a message. For example, one chapter is titled "Having Fun," 
another "I Never Met an Opportunity I Didn't Like." The book is a small pa-
perback and can be, but should not be, a quick read. 
In contrast, Madsen's presentation of her research is more detailed and 
more rigorous. On Becoming a Woman Leader is a scholarly publication. 
Rather than tell the stories of the women presidents in biographical form, 
Madsen integrates and synthesizes the interview material into chapters that 
follow the progression of lifetime experiences from childhood through ad-
olescence through adulthood. Another interesting difference, and a bit dis-
turbing to the reader, is that Madsen does not reveal the names or 
institutions of her subjects. She notes that some ofthe women did not want 
to be identified in the book; to protect their identities, she did not reveal the 
names of any of them. 
In some ways, that takes a personal ingredient out of the work - an ingre-
dient that can be a source of inspiration for the reader when we can find 
something about that president to identify with. That is, however, a small 
matter and does not take away in any measure from the significance of 
Madsen's work. From another perspective, that becomes a strength of 
Madsen's approach since there is a risk in identifying as excellent a leader 
who might falter at some point after the book's publication. That happened 
after the publication of In Search of Excellence and after Good to Great. It 
also happened to one of the women presidents in Leading Ladies-one has 
experienced two votes of no confidence from the faculty at her institution. 
She still enjoys the support of the board, however. 
We know the identities of the women in Leading Ladies. We know that 
they are pioneers in the sense that all but one was the first woman presidents 
of their institutions. Betty Siegel, retired president of Kennesaw State Uni-
versity, was also the first woman president of a public college or university 
in the state of Georgia. She also distinguished herself by being one of the 
longest serving presidents (25 years) in the country at the time of her retire-
ment. All but three of the nine presidents are still at the institutions where 
they served at the time of the book's publication; those three have retired. 
The key questions in On Becoming a Woman Leader are (a) how did 
these women develop the knowledge, skills, and competencies that allowed 
them to become effective leaders; (b) at what stage of their careers did they 
develop those skills and competencies; and (c) who were the persons who 
influenced them throughout their careers. The book is structured into three 
parts, Youth, Adulthood, and Leadership. Madsen enhances readability 
162 C. Morgan 
and further creates a scholarly tone to the book by placing in appendices her 
discussion of research methodology, interview question categories, and ba-
sic descriptive information about the presidents. She also has created an ex-
tensive reference list for readers who want to extend their knowledge and 
understanding. 
Wolverton, et aI. note that they selected their women presidents for inter-
view based on participants' ability to inform the study; they amplified that 
description by stating that these women were deemed to be effective lead-
ers based on criteria of reputation and longevity. Madsen tells us only that 
she invited twenty-five women college presidents to interview; the ten in 
the book agreed to be interviewed and were available at a time that she 
could travel to their institutions. It would have been interesting to know 
more about the criteria for each of the studies that led to the specific women 
who were interviewed. 
Like the authors of In Search of Excellence and Good to Great, the au-
thors of these two books summarize their research into succinct themes. 
Madsen identifies nine motivations for leadership (e.g. to accomplish and 
achieve; to make a difference, contribution, or impact). She also summa-
rizes the presidents' leadership philosophies into six primary themes: 
(l)hiring the right people and firing the wrong, (2) power and empower-
ment, (3) ethics, honesty, and openness, (4) developing and supporting oth-
ers, (5) collaboration and teamwork, and (6) creating a vision and making a 
difference. She devotes a chapter to discussing those themes. 
Wolverton, et aI. concluded their publication with a synthesis of existing 
literature on leadership to develop a concise list of nine tenets of effective 
leadership. They identified characteristics of effective leaders as passion, 
reflection, competency, great communicators, understanding ofthe role of 
culture, possessing the stamina to lead, focused and forward thinking, re-
specting of individuality, and possessing credibility. 
Conclusions 
The authors of both books offer the reader insights and conclusions that 
they gleaned from their research. Madsen clearly articulates her inferences 
at the end of each chapter in the form of "takeaways." Wolverton, et aI., do 
so more subtly in the words they choose to tell the president's story. There 
are, not surprisingly, some conclusions in the two books that are very simi-
lar. For instance, in her chapter on Career Paths and Barriers, Madsen gives 
us this takeaway. "Women academic leaders do not always intentionally 
look for leadership positions, but instead work hard and perform to the best 
of their abilities in their current posts." (p. 152) One of the presidents in 
Women at the Top tells us the same thing, in her own words. "I never aspired 
to be a president. It happened. But it wouldn't have happened if I had not 
done agoodjob as a faculty member, as a chair, as a dean, and so on." (p. 9) 
For different reasons, both books are best read in sections, not all in one 
sitting. Women at the Top is a deceptive fast read. If you read On Becoming 
Book Review 163 
a Woman Leader too fast, you will get lost in the details of the transcript 
quotes and references to the scholarly literature. If you read either ofthese 
two books without pausing to reflect, you will miss leadership lessons and 
ideas that could inspire you and, perhaps more importantly, validate you. 
And that is, after all, why we take pleasure in these books on successful 
women leaders. 


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Book Review of On Becoming a Woman Leader: Learning From the Experiences of University Presidents & Women at the Top: What Women University and College Presidents Say About Effective Leadership

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