Only 15 percent of corporate officers at Fortune 500 companies are women, according to the nonprofit organization Catalyst. Yet, Catalyst also has found that Fortune 500 companies with the highest percentages of women officers average a 35 percent higher return on equity, and a 34 percent higher total return to shareholders, than companies with the lowest percentages of women executives.

These facts raise the question: how can women thrive in a business world that encompasses both daunting challenges for women who try to ascend the corporate ladder and superior achievement for those who make it to the top rungs?

The new book “Women in Business: The Changing Face of Leadership” offers answers in the form of insightful and inspiring interviews with 22 prominent women executives who, through determination and inventiveness, became successful leaders. The book explores how these trailblazers are revolutionizing traditional male management practices and providing role models for young women in business.

The book’s subjects include Deborah L. DeHaas, Midwest managing partner of the global accounting firm Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu; Margaret Blackshere, the first woman president of the Illinois AFL-CIO; Desiree Rogers, president of People’s Gas; Sondra Healy, Co-Chair, TurtleWax; M. Martha Ries, vice president at Boeing; Phyllis Apelbaum, CEO of Arrow Messenger service; Paula Sneed, retired executive vice president at Kraft Foods; Adela Cepeda, president of the financial firm A.C. Advisory Inc.; Ellen Carnahan, a venture capitalist; and Dr. Mary Ann Leeper, president of Female Health Co.

The book’s five authors—professors Patricia Werhane, Margaret Posig, Lisa Gundry and Laurel Ofstein of DePaul University’s Kellstadt Graduate School of Business and their colleague Elizabeth Powell of the University of Virginia’s Darden Graduate School of Business—use their expertise in management, ethics, business creativity and entrepreneurship to reveal the common leadership qualities of the women executives profiled.

“These women are very smart—often smarter than the men they work with—although not all of them are well-educated,” observed Werhane, Wicklander Chair in Business Ethics at DePaul. “They got to know their businesses so well, and got so good at what they do, that they had to be successful. Their leadership style is collaborative and value-based. They are fearless. They don’t complain— they persevere.”

Some of the common characteristics and qualities of the women profiled include:

• Transformational leaders, communicators and collaborators: Accounting firm executive DeHaas tells the authors she is motivated by influencing people to do their best. Her golden rule: be a good communicator and treat people with dignity, respect and fair-mindedness. And for Boeing executive Ries: “The ideal organization is threat-free. Employees can raise issues without concern. It’s trusting, where everyone is working together.”
• Self-confidence: “Take advantage of every opportunity,” union pioneer Blackshere advises. “Just do it, because it will lead to something and make you a better person,”
• Family role models: “My father was vice president of manufacturing of a small family-owned company, and he had to deal with family politics, unions, dumping, questionable incentives and other such practices,” relates Donni Case, whose 30-year career in investor relations included serving as president of the Financial Relations Board. “He never wavered from his moral compass, so I knew by his example”…
• Mentoring: While not all of the women profiled had mentors themselves, they believe it is important for them to mentor others. “I think my future will be measured by my ability to identify talent that takes me to the next dimension,” says health care executive Gail Boudreaux.
• Personal values equal professional values: Harvard-educated Adela Cepeda discusses being a community and family role model while overcoming obstacles as a Latina leader in the white male-dominated municipal finance industry. “Since I was a little girl, I have been trying to set an example— first for my sisters and now for my daughters,” she says. “I also recognize that in the Latino community in general, there are not a lot of people with my educational skills and with the opportunities I’ve had. And that’s an obligation, to set a high level of behavior”…

Ofstein, who conducted most of the interviews, said she was impressed with the women leaders’ openness to share how they got to where they are today.

“Many came from very meager backgrounds and all achieved their current positions through hard work, dedication and an unwavering commitment to the values they learned early in life,” she said. “As a young woman in the early stages of my own career, I was moved and inspired by the unique stories each woman shared about the obstacles she had to overcome and the mentors she learned from along the way.”

The idea for the book was hatched five years ago when Donni Case, now chair of DePaul’s Institute for Business and Professional Ethics advisory board, Werhane and other women in academia and business began discussing ways to share the stories of successful women leaders to encourage others to follow in their footsteps. Case suggested that they start with members of The Chicago Network, the premiere organization for Chicago-based women executives with national profiles, to which she belonged. Many of the book’s interviewees were drawn from the ranks of this organization.

“Women are almost half the work force, own almost half of all public equities and influence 95 percent of all goods and services purchased,” said Case, who chaired The Chicago Network’s recently released 2007 Census, the organization’s 10th annual report on women in Chicago business, which found that 13.8 percent of executive officers in Chicago’s 50 largest public companies are women. “Our economic power is not only under-represented in the leadership of Corporate America, but also companies clearly are not drawing from the full talent pool. ‘Women in Business’ dramatically demonstrates just how rich and profound our contributions are to the lifeblood of organizations.”

Werhane said she and her co-authors hope the women’s personal stories will encourage more women to reach for positions in the corporate suites or with boards of directors, two areas where the representation of women has not improved significantly in Chicago or nationally, according to The Chicago Network’s and Catalyst’s recent surveys. And to start down this path, more women need to consider graduate business study, Werhane said. Currently, a little more than a third of MBA students are women.

“The important message of the book is to show how these women succeeded, despite the obstacles,” said Werhane, the mother of four daughters. “Studies show that women are not going into MBA programs because they don’t see themselves as achievers. These women provide inspiring models for ways to be successful.”