In corporate Canada you see this scenario play out all the time: Highly qualified and ambitious women enter the workforce all charged up and ready to change the world, only to be disappointed as they watch male colleagues pass them on the climb up the corporate ladder. Then they drop out. It's no surprise, then, that women today occupy only 10 per cent of the highest paying jobs in corporate Canada. That's not a very impressive number after all the effort to increase the number of women in corporate leadership. What's the problem? The authors of this book, a former CEO and an accomplished academic, argue that women are held back by a series of invisible rules that tilt the playing field in favor of white men. They back up their case with deep interviews with 50 senior female Canadian executives who talk about the real-life challenges in the C-Suite and on the way up. This book aims to expose these hidden rules and show ambitious women how they can get ahead - and how executives, particularly men, can level the playing field in the future. The authors offer a new plan of action they call the CAPS Leadership Framework. CAPS stands for Credentials, Adaptability, Profile, and Support. It offers both women and employers a step-by-step plan to help qualified and committed women to ascend to senior leadership positions more rapidly and successfully by building increasing levels of awareness, credibility, celebrity, and authority on a strategic basis.

Paul Harrietha is a former board chair, CEO, and academic. He is the co-author of The Invisible Rules: What's Really Holding Women Back in Business — and How to Fix It. Paul lives in Toronto.

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