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For great management models, women need not look any further than the backyard they grew up in, asserts Rhonda Abrams, the Los Altos author of "Wear Clean Underwear: Business Wisdom from Mom."

Abrams, a business writer, entrepreneur and Stanford Hillel board member, struggled to find a management model that worked for her, a 4-foot-11 woman.

The shark-like management style counseled by books didn't work for her. Neither did just being her employees' buddy. Moms, she realized, monitor group interactions, make each individual feel valued, celebrate successes and console when there are failures.

"That's a pretty good job description for a manager today," she writes in her latest book.

"It took awhile for me to realize that mom makes a good role model as a manager, not just getting kids to school on time, but leading a team that works, bringing out the individuality of each member," she explained in an interview. "Women often do very well as team leaders. They have a lot of the same skills as mothers."

The title of her book, "Wear Clean Underwear," comes from a familiar maxim from mom: to wear clean underwear in case of a car accident. Abrams writes that the real message in this advice is, "to be clean, to do the right thing, just because it's the right thing to do — even when no one else will notice."

Abrams said her own values were informed by her Reform Jewish upbringing in Los Angeles, where she went to Jewish summer camp and attended services at Wilshire Boulevard Temple.

"The Jewish tradition of recognizing that we have responsibility toward others and that we're going to be judged by our acts and not just our faith, that the whole world is interconnected. I think those are meaningful values," she said.

As an adult, Abrams worked for more than seven years as regional director for the Anti-Defamation League in San Francisco.

As a management consultant, Abrams observed that a business' core values enabled a firm to survive.

"I realized there was more to it than strategy. There was business character,"she said. "I started looking at values — creating a blame-free atmosphere, a willingness to try new things. I started thinking, whoa, some of the things that Mom said, like, 'How do you know you won't like it if you don't try it?' fit business as well."

One of the book's chapters, "If you keep making that face, some day it'll freeze like that" talks about behavior on a day-to-day basis, she said.

Abrams describes how Zingerman's Deli in Ann Arbor, Mich., supports its employees to an unusual degree, allowing them to learn from their mistakes and pursue goals even if it takes them away from the deli. As a result, turnover there is less than a third the industry average.

In the chapter, "If all your friends jumped off a bridge, would you jump, too?" Abrams describes how Southwest Airlines went against the trend of keeping wages and benefits low, and still kept their prices competitive.

Employees, she said, are willing to work harder because they are treated well.

The book also describes how Kinko's was founded by Paul Orfalea, a severely dyslexic man. To compensate for his disability, he gives his employees an unusual degree of autonomy. Orfalea's unlikely success story has taught him and his employees not to judge books by their covers or customers by their appearance.

Consequently, they get the repeat business of high-paying customers who show up in their jogging clothes.

The 3M company adheres to mom's old adage, "How do you know you don't like it, when you've never tried it?" by allowing their employees to spend 15 percent of their time pursuing their own projects. This has allowed them to consistently come up with innovative products..

The companies Abrams interviewed didn't mimic the military or a football team. Instead, they ran their businesses like a family.

Said Abrams, "Companies underestimate the importance of having employees feel valued and having an opportunity to grow. It's such a valuable business commodity and it's hardly ever talked about."