In the spirit of my last two posts, Nice Girls Don’t Make Partner and Dress for Success, I thought I would devote some more time to mistakes women make on the job.

Or, purported mistakes. I don’t necessarily believe that these are mistakes or that there is necessarily one particular way to act on the job, but it seems as though many authors are in consensus that certain behaviors are taboo.

I’ve been reading quite a bit lately. On my way back from New York City, I picked up an appropriate book, written by a well known New Yorker: If you Have to Cry, Go Outside by Kelly Coutrone.

For those of you who follow fashion publicity, Kelly Coutrone is a well known fashion publicist. And she’s known for being brutally straightforward. This is a woman who told The Donald that he was not hot, to his face!

In her book, she is equally brutal and straightforward but she stresses certain business behavior needed to get ahead in the fashion world. What’s one of the biggest mistakes that women make, according to her? While she outlines many, she mentions the sense of entitlement.

Essentially, she says what many of us already know– that to get to the top, you have to start at the bottom. And in the New York City fashion industry, that may mean drudging up and down 8th avenue with racks of clothing in the bitter cold New York snow.

She also stresses the importance of being tough in the business world. In her view, tough seems to equate iteself with being straightforward and speaking your mind. This may be the part I disagree with, since I believe that there needs to be a sense of diplomacy in the workforce as well.

Nevertheless, her point of view echoes the points I presented in Nice Girls Don’t Make Partner, which is that women that exhibit so-called “girly” behavior don’t rise the ranks in their career, be it in law or even in “girlier” industries such as fashion.