Why Good Girls Don't Get Ahead_. But Gutsy Girls Do - Kate White [58]
• Wear the clothes and accessories with the maximum style you can get away with in your company and field. You probably have a decent sense of what's considered appropriate for your firm, your industry, and your region of the United States. What works in New York can bomb in Dallas. The outfit that will dazzle them in advertising will get you banished in banking. I'm not going to advise that you be in the vanguard of breaking down existing dress codes in your company—it's really essential to stay within the parameters. But I think you should go absolutely as far as those parameters allow, rather than stay safely in the middle. Dressing with as much gutsiness as you can get away with will add energy to your image and make people notice and remember you.
I ran this theory by a woman who teaches management courses and she hinted that I was out of my mind. She said that a woman must dress conservatively and not do anything to stand out as different from “them.”
And yet, every place I turn, the women with clout have abandoned any kind of uniform. Linda Fairstein, the head of the New York County sex-crimes prosecution unit, has said that she believes her feminine suits by Escada and Calvin Klein give her more authority than “dumpy but sincere lady-lawyer suits.”
• When in doubt, or when you need to look authoritative, do not wear pants.
• If you need clout, wear high heels.
• Never wear stockings that give your legs a fake suntan.
• Wear makeup—and always freshen it after lunch.
WHAT YOUR BODY SAYS ABOUT YOU
A very successful entrepreneur told me that several months after she had started her consulting business, a client asked if he could videotape one of their sessions for reference. She agreed and then a few days later borrowed the tape because she'd begun to get curious about how she came across. What she saw horrified her.
“Through at least half the session, I was covering my mouth with my hand,” she recalls. “It was if I was saying, ‘I'm new at this and I don't have much faith in what I'm saying.’ ”
After body language was introduced as a hot topic in the 1970s, there followed dozens of books and articles on the subject, some of which I wrote myself because editors were always looking for pieces on the subject. Today it's not as hot and sexy a topic, and yet body language remains a powerful communicator of your feelings about yourself and how you're reacting to a specific situation.
Good girls especially have to be on guard about their body language. If you feel uncertain or insecure, it will show up in your posture, your gestures, your facial expressions. When I was in my twenties I felt like my body was a walking advertisement for the self-doubt I experienced in certain professional situations. One of my most hilarious memories involves going to a press event for Paul Newman's new salad dressing. I was sitting at a table, wolfing down the free hors d'oeuvres (something poor single girls always do in New York), when the press agent unexpectedly brought Newman over for me to meet. I jumped up in such an awkward manner that the strap of my purse, which was draped over my shoulder, became tangled around the chair, and once I was on my feet, the chair was actually dangling from my neck, like the world's largest pendant. “Please sit down,” Newman said curtly, looking at me as if I were a total doofus.
Even after you've developed a comfort level with your body in work situations, residual insecurities can sneak out in your gestures and movements. Once, during a rehearsal for a speech that I was dreading. I noticed in the mirror that I was literally wringing my hands as I talked. There's lots of fascinating information on body language, but these are the two most important points for good girls:
1. Be the boss of your body