Seeking more diverse resources on management and professional leadership

June 21, 2015 3:00 PM

I am a new manager, and most of the resources (books, blogs, and podcasts) on management and professional leadership that have been recommended to me or that I've found through my own research are written or curated by white men. I'd like recommendations for leadership and management resources from a much more diverse set of people.

I am a white woman working as a middle manager at a Bay Area tech company. I've been doing my own research and taking recommendations for books and blogs on personnel management and workplace leadership. While many have been useful and informative, they are overwhelmingly written or curated by white men. (The go-to suggestions from my professional contacts are Rands's blog and books, and the manager tools podcast.)

Only reading or hearing stuff by white men feels like it is seriously limiting my perspective at an early, formative point in my career, and I want to correct for that as quickly as possible. Also, I would eventually like to be able to mentor people of color, women, QUILTBAG folks (or anyone who identifies as fitting into any number of intersections of the above) into leadership positions, and it is embarrassing how little guidance or help I could give them. Finally, as a woman, I'm finding this situation just kind of personally alienating and tiresome.

I've been reading Alison Green's excellent blog for years, and recently read her book, Managing to Change the World, which was great, but I don't want that to be the end of the road. I have tried to make a good-faith effort to search the MeFi archives and Google before posting this question, but if I've overlooked a really obvious set of resources and suggestions, that's absolutely my fault.

AskMeFi, do you have any recommendations? Books, blogs, or podcasts about personnel or project management and professional leadership would all be very welcome and appreciated.

posted by guybrush_threepwood to Work & Money (6 answers total)

Carla Harris: http://carlaspearls.com
posted by CMcG at 3:48 PM on June 21, 2015

I was going to suggest Managing to Change the World! I also went through their management crash course and it was incredibly helpful, if you want to go a bit further into the whole Management Center school.
posted by lunasol at 4:00 PM on June 21, 2015

I find a lot of the content on popforms to be good, and it's mostly free. The founders are women and write a lot of the content.
posted by ch1x0r at 5:07 PM on June 21, 2015

The HBR IdeaCast is a podcast that typically interviews authors published in the most recent Harvard Business Review. The principle podcaster is Alison Beard, Senior Editor at Harvard Business Review. Counting the last ten episodes half featured female interviewees, with topics like:

1. Beating Digital Overload with Digital Tools
2. Condensed Review of June 2015 Issue
3. Consumer Privacy in the Digital Age
4. Why we pretend to be workaholics
5. Noone Understands You And What To Do About It
posted by pwnguin at 12:11 AM on June 22, 2015 [1 favorite]

These may be obvious and not so incredibly diverse, but at least women and reasonably recent. When I meet other senior women in management, I always make a point of asking them their favorite books. I've put together an interesting and pretty interesting list that way myself.

What Works for Women at Work, Joan Williams

How We Lead Matters: Reflections on a Life of Leadership, Marilyn Carlson Nelson

Executive Presence, Sylvia Ann Hewlett
posted by frumiousb at 3:04 AM on June 22, 2015 [1 favorite]

I love Heidi's blog: http://heidiroizen.tumblr.com/
posted by pando11 at 5:17 PM on June 22, 2015