Power Moms: How Executive Mothers Navigate Work and Life

by Joann S. Lublin

Overview

A retired Wall Street Journal editor and mother compares two generations of women—boomers and GenXers—to examine how each navigates the emotional and professional challenges involved in juggling managerial careers and families.

For the first time in American history, a significant number of mothers are heading major corporations, including General Motors, Ulta Beauty, and Best Buy. Over the past several decades, women have made gains throughout executive suites. Yet these “Power Moms” still struggle with balancing their management responsibilities with raising children. Joann S. Lublin draws on the experiences of the nation’s two generations of these successful women to measure how far we’ve come—and how far we still need to go.

Lublin combines her own insights with those of eighty-five executive mothers across industries—including experienced public-company chiefs such as Carol Bartz, the first woman to command Autodesk and Yahoo; Hershey’s Michele Buck, DuPont’s Ellen Kullman, ITT’s Denise Ramos, and WW International’s Mindy Grossman—and twenty-five of their grown daughters. Lublin reveals how trailblazer boomers, many now in their sixties, often endured sweeping disapproval for their demanding management careers, even as their own daughters sometimes rejected their choices. While the second wave of executive mothers—all under forty-five—handle working parenthood with less angst, they still lead stressful lives. 

Power Moms provides lessons and advice to help today’s professional women, their families, and their employers navigate this challenging terrain.  Lublin looks at the trade-offs mothers are too often forced to make between work and family and the root causes, including the dearth of large-scale paid parental leave and other family-friendly policies. While it celebrates the gains women have made, Power Moms makes clear how much more must be done to make being a working mother easier.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062954909
Publisher:	HarperCollins Publishers
Publication date:	02/16/2021
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	129,937
Product dimensions:	6.10(w) x 8.70(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Joann S. Lublin was management news editor for The Wall Street Journal, working with reporters in the U.S. and abroad, until she retired in April 2018.  She continues to frequently appear at conferences to discuss leadership, executive women and other management issues.  She created The Journal’s first career advice column in 1993 and kept writing its “Your Executive Career” column until May 2020. She shared its Pulitzer Prize in 2003 for stories about corporate scandals. She won the 2018 Lifetime Achievement from the Loeb Awards, the highest accolade in business journalism. She earned a bachelor’s degree in journalism with honors from Northwestern University and a master’s degree in communications from Stanford University. She lives in Dresher, Pa.

Table of Contents

Introduction ix

1 Hard Work for Working Mothers 1

2 High Potentials with High Hopes for Motherhood 17

3 When Work and Family Collide 41

4 Trials and Triumphs of Domestic Labor 63

5 Being Always On Doesn't Always Work 87

6 Making Room for Careers and Kids 101

7 My Mother, My Coach 121

8 Better Mom, Better Boss 141

9 Power over Pain 157

10 Ditch Working-Mother Guilt 175

11 Now and Then 195

12 Making Work Workable for Parents 211

Acknowledgments 231

Interviewed Executive Women 233

Interviewed Adult Daughters of First-Generation Executive Moms 237

Notes 239

Selected Bibliography 247

Index 249

Editorial Reviews

12/07/2020

Journalist Lublin (Earning It) wonders whether Gen-X women “tackle the daunting challenges of parenthood” differently than baby boomers in this frank exploration of the struggles and triumphs of C-suite mothers. The author interviewed 86 “experienced female business executives with successful careers and children” and concluded that the differences between them lie in the support they had: for the Baby Boomer “First-Wave Power Mom,” benefits such as telecommuting weren’t an option and she had to conceal “the chaos of motherhood,” whereas Gen X’s “Second-Wave Power Mom” is better supported in using parental leave, expects a partner to share household duties, and “brings her authentic self to work.” Lublin provides a brief history of working mothers in the U.S., then shares her subjects’ stories; a “first-wave” CEO of a software company had to cut her maternity leave short to get a promotion, while the “second-wave” founder of Rent the Runway was met with enthusiasm after announcing to her board that she was trying to get pregnant. Though Lublin’s survey covers relatively familiar ground— navigating the guilt of time spent at work or with kids, the importance of a company culture that celebrates rather than punishes family commitments—the generational comparison makes for an informative glimpse into the lives of a rarified group. Readers curious about what’s changed and what hasn’t for high-ranking working mothers will find much to consider. Agent: Karen Gantz, Karen Gantz Literary Management. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

”Power Moms releases us working mothers from the guilt of outdated roles and unrealistic expectations. Most important, Lublin empowers us with the stories of incredible female leaders.” — Sarah Alter, CEO and president of Network of Executive Women

”Joann Lublin helps unravel the myth of having it all and reminds working moms to embrace the messy realities of work/life balance. It’s a fantastic case study of working women.” — Meg Whitman, former CEO of Quibi, Hewlett Packard Enterprise, and Hewlett-Packard

”Powerful women aren’t yet powerful enough because they still face obstacles their male counterparts don’t, such as the motherhood pay gap and unequal division of labor in the home. That’s both unfair and costly, not only to the individual women who suffer unjustly but also to families, communities, businesses, and society. Thanks to Joann Lublin for her gripping account of the real lives of today’s executive mothers and her practical recommendations for our movement to an egalitarian world.” — Stewart D. Friedman, Professor Emeritus of Management Practice, University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, and author of the bestsellers Total Leadership and Leading the Life You Want and co-author of Parents Who Lead

“Power Moms is a must read for the next generation of business leaders and working moms and moms-to-be. Yes, the world has changed for young women balancing motherhood and business. But Power Moms illustrates how much further we have to go so that women and men can raise their children well while carving out successful careers.” — Abbe Raven, former CEO and acting chairman, A+E Networks

“There is no person better qualified to opine on this subject than Joann Lublin. Through her career at the Wall Street Journal, she has developed an unparalleled understanding of the world of work as seen through the eyes of highly successful women. As a devoted journalist, wife, and mother, she has a deep and visceral understanding of the dance required to raise a family and navigate one’s career journey through that world of work. As a society, we can do better, and Joann helps us see how.” — Doug Conant, founder, ConantLeadership; former CEO, Campbell Soup Company; New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestselling author

From the Publisher

”Powerful women aren’t yet powerful enough because they still face obstacles their male counterparts don’t, such as the motherhood pay gap and unequal division of labor in the home. That’s both unfair and costly, not only to the individual women who suffer unjustly but also to families, communities, businesses, and society. Thanks to Joann Lublin for her gripping account of the real lives of today’s executive mothers and her practical recommendations for our movement to an egalitarian world.

Stewart D. Friedman

Power Moms is a must read for the next generation of business leaders and working moms and moms-to-be. Yes, the world has changed for young women balancing motherhood and business. But Power Moms illustrates how much further we have to go so that women and men can raise their children well while carving out successful careers.

Abbe Raven

There is no person better qualified to opine on this subject than Joann Lublin. Through her career at the Wall Street Journal, she has developed an unparalleled understanding of the world of work as seen through the eyes of highly successful women. As a devoted journalist, wife, and mother, she has a deep and visceral understanding of the dance required to raise a family and navigate one’s career journey through that world of work. As a society, we can do better, and Joann helps us see how.

Doug Conant

”Joann Lublin helps unravel the myth of having it all and reminds working moms to embrace the messy realities of work/life balance. It’s a fantastic case study of working women.

Meg Whitman

”Power Moms releases us working mothers from the guilt of outdated roles and unrealistic expectations. Most important, Lublin empowers us with the stories of incredible female leaders.

Sarah Alter