Sally Helgesen

Sally Helgesen is an American author, speaker, and leadership coach whose work examines women’s leadership, inclusive organizations, and workplace culture. She began her career as a journalist before turning to writing and consulting on leadership and organizational change. Her official site describes a practice that includes keynotes, seminars, and master classes for organizations internationally.

Her early book The Female Advantage: Women’s Ways of Leadership (1990) studied leadership approaches associated with women executives. In 1995, she developed a non-hierarchical model of organizational life in The Web of Inclusion: A New Architecture for Building Great Organizations, arguing for connected, flexible workplaces in which information and participation extend beyond formal rank. The supplied catalog record, Inclusion: A New Architecture for Building Great Organizations, appears to abbreviate that 1995 title; the bibliographic title recorded by Google Books and Thinkers50 includes “The Web of.”

Helgesen later co-authored How Women Rise with Marshall Goldsmith, on habits that can impede women’s advancement, and wrote Rising Together: How We Can Bridge Divides and Create a More Inclusive Workplace. She was inducted into the Thinkers50 Hall of Fame in 2022, whose selection recognizes sustained contributions to management thinking. Her official site continues to present writing and speaking on women’s and inclusive leadership as the focus of her work.