Lois Frankel, author of 'Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office' recently spoke with Jullian St. Charles of AOL Coaches. Here are excerpts from the interview:

Jillian St. Charles: You wrote 'Nice Girls Don't Get the Corner Office,' so does that mean you have to be mean to succeed?

Lois Frankel: Absolutely not. What it means is that you can't be the nice little girl that you were taught to be in childhood and expect to achieve your adult goals. Niceness is something that is required in the workplace. You just can't over-rely on it as an excuse when you have to make some tough calls when necessary.

Jillian St. Charles: How do you find that line between making the tough calls – really standing up for yourself – and just being a jerk?

Lois Frankel: It is really all about the other person. You can stand up for yourself and not demolish the other person. You can give your opinion and not put people down. So it is about combining this direct, honest communication while showing concern for your co-workers. So they are not that mutually exclusive, they should be going together all the time.

Jillian St. Charles: Let talk about what we do when we are on our best behavior, but one of our co-workers is not.

Lois Frankel: It makes it a little harder, right.

Jillian St. Charles: Let's start with the office bully. She is probably not going to push you down in the parking lot but her aggression has you walking on eggshells. Is it best to challenge her or avoid her?

Lois Frankel: I'd say neither. I think what you need to do with the office bully is to maintain a professional relationship. And you need to understand that you are not going to control the bully. A few minutes ago you said that it is hard to control the other person. That is the main thing that people need to understand: we never control other people. We only control our own behavior. So with a bully you want to continue to be cordial and professional. You don't necessarily have to be friendly and you don't have to be best friends, but you want to maintain a relationship. At times you may want to set boundaries. In other words, what are the rules of engagement? If someone bullies me and charges into my office and talks down to me, I may say, 'hold on a minute here. I am happy to talk to you about this, but I'm not going to talk about it in this way.' So setting boundaries is important.