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Until recently, there hasn’t been much in the way of career advice specifically for LGBTQ+ people. But in the past couple of years some great new books have been published that support LGBTQ+ people in their careers, written in all sorts of different styles so there’s hopefully something for everyone.
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Breaking the Rainbow Ceiling brings fasciating data and research alongside unique personal stories and insights from LGBTQ+ senior leaders from Fortune 500 CEOs to Ambassadors and senior government officials to understand why LGBTQ+ people are underrepresented in the most senior roles, and what to do about it. It’s a book for LGBTQ+ people with career ambitions at every level and their employers, managers, coaches and educators. It has practical advice. It has great anecdotes. It has a ‘letter to our younger selves’ at the end that might make you cry. (Full transparency: this book was written by the author of this list)
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This book is about harnessing the resilience and power of queer leaders. It’s written by Colonel Bree Fram, who is is an active duty US Space Force astronautical engineer, and Liz Cavallaro who works as an Executive Coach and in leadership development. It looks at the personal stories of people who work in different fields, with a particular but not exclusive military focus, to understand how the prejudice, discrimination, bias, stigma and other types of adversity associated with being LGBTQ+ forge adaptive, resilient traits that can become a leadership strength.
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Margot Canaday is a Professor of History at Princeton University, specialising in gender and sexuality in modern America. Her book, published by Princeton, is about the history of LGBTQ+ people in the US workplace in the second half of the twentieth century. It looks at how the ‘lavender scare’ was just one defining part of the queer experience at work in the 20th century. It shows us why businesses led the way in solidifying LGBTQ+ rights and how the queer workforce essentially created a precursor for the precarious labor system of late capitalism.
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This book tells the story of Jim Fielding’s career path and what he has learned about authentic leadership and having a positive impact in the world during leadership stints in globally-recognised companies from Disney and Dreamworks to The Gap.
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Parmesh Shahani is a diversity, equality and inclusion specialist in India. This book combines his own story as a queer person in business with those of the leaders who have worked towards LGBTQ+ inclusion in the Indian workplace, and some people this has benefitted. It articulates what businesses can do to improve LGBTQ+ inclusion.
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Breaking the Rainbow Ceiling brings fasciating data and research alongside unique personal stories and insights from LGBTQ+ senior leaders from Fortune 500 CEOs to Ambassadors and senior government officials to understand why LGBTQ+ people are underrepresented in the most senior roles, and what to do about it. It’s a book for LGBTQ+ people with career ambitions at every level and their employers, managers, coaches and educators. It has practical advice. It has great anecdotes. It has a ‘letter to our younger selves’ at the end that might make you cry. (Full transparency: this book was written by the author of this list)
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This book is about harnessing the resilience and power of queer leaders. It’s written by Colonel Bree Fram, who is is an active duty US Space Force astronautical engineer, and Liz Cavallaro who works as an Executive Coach and in leadership development. It looks at the personal stories of people who work in different fields, with a particular but not exclusive military focus, to understand how the prejudice, discrimination, bias, stigma and other types of adversity associated with being LGBTQ+ forge adaptive, resilient traits that can become a leadership strength.
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Margot Canaday is a Professor of History at Princeton University, specialising in gender and sexuality in modern America. Her book, published by Princeton, is about the history of LGBTQ+ people in the US workplace in the second half of the twentieth century. It looks at how the ‘lavender scare’ was just one defining part of the queer experience at work in the 20th century. It shows us why businesses led the way in solidifying LGBTQ+ rights and how the queer workforce essentially created a precursor for the precarious labor system of late capitalism.
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This book tells the story of Jim Fielding’s career path and what he has learned about authentic leadership and having a positive impact in the world during leadership stints in globally-recognised companies from Disney and Dreamworks to The Gap.
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Parmesh Shahani is a diversity, equality and inclusion specialist in India. This book combines his own story as a queer person in business with those of the leaders who have worked towards LGBTQ+ inclusion in the Indian workplace, and some people this has benefitted. It articulates what businesses can do to improve LGBTQ+ inclusion.
© Five Books 2024
