Reflections from the Glass Ceiling

This is one woman's remarkable story about how she fought blatant discrimination to reach the top of her profession and become acting Chief Information Officer for United Airlines, and then CEO of the United Airlines Employees' Credit Union. At times the book reads like an intense drama, as Fridrych shares the negative emotions that discrimination evoked in her. And yet, this is an empowering book, where Fridrych encourages women to not only take action against discrimination, but to do the internal work that is required to become a powerful woman. With hindsight vision, Fridrych provides insight into her successes, reflection on her shortcomings, and ideas about how she would do things differently today. In addition to sharing a roadmap for achieving a successful career, she provides the reader a list of lessons learned, and questions to consider individually or in group discussions.

Throughout her story, Fridrych offers advice on how to handle the specific, discriminatory situations that most women will face during their careers. She writes about feeling angry (and sometimes defeated), when she was ignored in meetings, intimidated by bosses, given unequal pay, overlooked for deserved promotions, and eventually furloughed from her company. While the book is intended to help all aspiring businesswomen, it is especially pertinent for women of color who are experiencing the same degree of discrimination that white women faced fifty years ago. Fridrych notes that it would be easy to blame all her workplace struggles on men and the patriarchal mindset that governs corporate America. While she does address sexual harassment, intimidation, unequal pay, and exclusion from the good-old-boys' network, she also focuses on feelings that many women share: anger (sometimes rage), unworthiness, lack of confidence, and fear of success. Fridrych maintains that women must address these disempowering demons, not only to become successful, but to feel good about themselves.

While women have struggled in the past to be successful, Fridrych believes that we are at a pivotal point in our history, where the onus will be on businesses to make it easier for women to succeed. As women have developed the left side of their brain through education and experience, they have also brought their right-brain, intuitive, collaborative skills into the workplace. This use of balanced skills is the reason why current studies have shown that female leadership produces better results in terms of overall effectiveness-including financial strength, customer satisfaction, and innovation. It is the reason that women will be pursued by businesses in the future to work at all levels in the workplace.

Though she acknowledges that the Covid-19 pandemic has placed more stress on women as they try to juggle work and family, she foresees a much brighter and easier future for women in the workplace. Companies are now incentivized to help women, because female leadership improves their bottom line. She sees companies making it easier for women to flourish by adopting all kinds of innovative programs to support them. The book provides examples of programs women should look for and demand, in order to make their lives easier.

Fridrych encourages women to make a mindset shift. She writes: "A woman should not only think about what she can do for her company, she should ask what her company can do for her." And eventually, that means reducing (if not eliminating), all the discriminatory practices of the past against women, and providing them with the necessary support to excel.