Quite simply, promotions are not just functions of ability, values, or the numbers you hit, but also rest critically on how you are perceived.

The decision to have a child is both a private and a public decision, for children are our collective future.

Quite simply, promotions are not just functions of ability, values, or the numbers you hit, but also rest critically on how you are perceived.

There are three pillars, regardless of your work culture, whether you're in Silicon Valley or on Wall Street: how you look, how you speak, and how you behave. It's all three things, and nailing them makes you a contender.

Women have made enormous progress on the lower and middle rungs of the career ladder, but we are failing to make the leap into senior positions. Everyone jumps to the conclusion that it's motherhood that holds women back, but often the big roadblock is the lack of executive presence.

If you show up without makeup or looking sloppy, no matter how impressive your ideas are, no one is going to pay attention to you. People take you more seriously if you look polished.

The degree to which the child-rearing professionals continue to be out of touch with reality is astounding. For example, a widely read manual on breast-feeding, devotes fewer than two pages to the working mother.