Careerpreneurs: Lessons From Leading Women Entrepreneurs on Building a Career Without Boundaries

From market creators and boundary spanners to mavericks and copreneurs, author Dorothy Moore identifies multiple distinct entrepreneurial patterns and explores the unique aspects of organizational structure, leadership, and management sytles found in women-owned businesses. With a variety of assessment tools, exercises, worksheets, and practical resources for business start-up, Careerpreneurs provides hands-on guidance to help readers determine whether they have what it takes to build a fulfilling career as an entrepreneur.

Each chapter is designed to provide personal insight on successful careerbuilding strategies including transitions, leadership and management style, and negotitating techniques. Many of the chapters include self-assessment exercises (e.g., entrepreneurial style, strategies for coping with conflict), and guidelines for handling specific situations (e.g., designing a transition strategy, a four-step plan to analyze the financial feasibility of starting a business).

This is a book that will be useful to organizational women, to those considering entrepreneurship, just starting out or for those without a mentor. The book serves as a valuable reference guide and you will find yourself returning to it time and again as you meet new challenges in growing and developing your career. For more established entrepreneurs, it will spark ideas on new ways to do business and cause you to re-examine and re-think current strategies that may be holding you back from further expansion. You'll finding the chapter on "Growth, Transition and Success" to be especially helpful.

Moreover, the book is inspirational as it contains honest accounts of how these women struggled and overcame barriers to achieve success. The scenarios in the book provide snapshots of the vaired roads to success. Among the role models you will meet are Suzy Spafford, CEO of Suzy's Zoo greeting cards and stationery, and Deborah Szekely, founder of Rancho La Puerta, the Golden Door, and Eureka Communities. If you want to break the glass ceiling and follow your passion, this book will provide the guidance, information, and inspiration you need.

The quotes from successful women really hit home. One in particular hit a key for me: "An elephant gets more attention than a mouse. But if the mouse is the leader of company... the mouse needs to learn how to manage the elephant. We manage at least one elephant per day." So true! What manager out there has never felt like that mouse?

The chapter on networking has helped me better understand how to support my customers and co-workers. Working for a company that is a leader in providing equal opportunities for everyone, I assumed that women would have equal access to strong networks and mentors. As I dug into this further, I found that, indeed, there are stark differences in how men and women can approach making and maintaining these contacts. We are now working in my department to break down this barrier so we can retain the talented women who keep leaving when the doors are closed!

While targeted for women entrepreneurs, Careerpreneurs provides an excellent resource for men and women in entrepreneurial ventures as well as large organizations.