The four Rs of career and life success.(reading, writing and arithmetic)

The three Rs taught in elementary school--reading, 'riting and 'rithmetic--form the basis of academic success.

But workplace success is predicated on the four Rs, according to Dr. Lillian Ann Farris. These four Rs--roles, rules, relationships and results--determine career success or failure, she said at the University of Nebraska's Women in Educational Leadership conference in Lincoln in October.

Farris, an assistant professor in the department of educational leadership and policy studies at Tarleton State University in Texas, admits she learned the four Rs through trial and error.

She spent the first 33 years of her career in public education, first as an English teacher, eventually rising to deputy school superintendent. After earning a doctorate, she brought her experience to Tarleton State as a faculty member.

Roles

"I've never lived my life as a man," said Farris, "only as a woman, so I don't know what it's like to be a man." In the early stages of the feminist movement, women thought that the road to success was to behave exactly like their male peers. Remember the book, Dress for Success, which exhorted us to hide our femininity and dress like a man in suits and even a tie?

Our frustration and the lack of progress when we didn't play to our strengths hurt not only our careers, but our self-esteem. It's taken several decades for women to realize we can successfully lead as women and embrace the softer parts of our personalities in the workplace.