Expand your networking through centrality
and a high diversity of connections
who have different life experiences.
Women need a second network.
Perhaps anyone bumping up against glass ceilings
needs a second network.
Centrality & High Diversity Of Connections
Brian Uzzi, Yang Yang, and Nitesh V. Chawla found that centrality in networking is essential to success.
Centrality means being connected to people who have a lot of contacts, particularly people who have a lot of connections across diverse groups. Centrality provides quick access to information that advances careers.
High diversity means connections who do not all know each other because they have different life experiences. Not “friends of friends” who “are friends of each other.” This diversity of connections who do not know each other offers…
More information about opportunities for success (Yang, Chawla, Uzzi)
Insights for success in a variety of situations (Paula)
Women Need A Second Network
Women need centrality the same way men do, but they also need a second network to overcome the obstacles most men don’t face — stereotyping and discrimination. (Anyone bumping up against glass or concrete ceilings faces stereotyping and discrimination.)
The second network is an inner circle of 1 to 3 women who share private information. The best inner circles share few connections. Inner circle members should have different experiences and goals.
The researchers found that random selection of inner circle members increases the effectiveness of the inner circle. Inner circles with individual similarities and similar contacts do not generate “key insights and opportunities.”
“A network’s gender composition and communication pattern predict women’s leadership success”
Yang Yang, Nitesh V. Chawla, and Brian Uzzi
PNAS
Volume116, Number 6, pages 2033-2038.
January 22,2019
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© Paula M. Kramer, 2021 to the present
All rights reserved.
Updated February 14, 2026.