This week, Americans across the country will be watching fireworks as they celebrate Independence Day -- an important day in U.S. history. So it's fitting the nation will mark another milestone this week.

On July first, Ursula Burns takes over as the new chief executive officer of Xerox. A recent Business Week cover noted the news with a bold headline: "Xerox: An Historic Succession."

It's historic for many reasons. Ursula Burns, 50 years old, will be the first African-American woman to lead a major U.S. corporation. It's also historic because she is taking over from another female CEO: Anne Mulcahy. This is the first time that one woman CEO has groomed another and handed her the top job. That hasn't happened before -- at least not at a fortune 500 company. And Mulcahy will continue as chairman of Xerox, so there will be two women in two very powerful jobs at the same company -- that's a first.

Now I have a confession to make.

I never imagined Anne Mulcahy would make history like this. I've interviewed her many times. The first time was in 2001. She was just named CEO of Xerox. She didn't strike me as a pioneer. She wasn't the feminist type either. She told me she never even pictured herself as CEO. It wasn't her dream job.

Back then Xerox surprised the business world by naming a woman to be CEO of this legendary company. Xerox was in serious financial trouble, and Mulchay was brought in to fix it.

She had been working at Xerox for 24 years with little hard core executive experience. She had a degree in English and journalism from Marymount College and had spent most of her career in sales and human resources. As you can imagine, it wasn't exactly the kind of resume that impressed Wall Street. Mulcahy looked like a desperation choice. Not surprisingly, the day of the announcement, Xerox stock plunged 15%.

But over these past eight years, Mulcahy surprised everyone -- including me.

She is credited for leading an extraordinary turnaround at Xerox. She a took a money-losing company, mired in debt, and on the verge of bankruptcy, and she made it profitable, efficient, and developed an entire new line of successful color printers.

That's why Wall Street and Corporate America respect her. And President Obama too. She's one of an exclusive group of CEOs who he regularly consults with on business and economic issues. She's part of his inner circle.

But I think Mulcahy's achievement is actually something much bigger than the financial turnaround. She transformed the culture at Xerox. And I'm not talking about the "corporate culture" cliche that you always hear CEOs talk about. She re-defined what we mean by leadership and what we mean by success.

Every time I visited Xerox headquarters after Mulcahy took the reigns, I sensed things were different. It was hard to put my finger on it. So many employees told me how wonderful Anne was as a boss, how much they loved working for her, and on and on.

Over time I realized that Mulcahy's style of leadership wasn't "command and control" like her male predecessors. She didn't lead like she had all the answers. She's completely disarming in telling people what she "doesn't" know. When I first met her, for example, she was upfront in telling me that she didn't know the first thing about finance when she became CEO (pretty amazing since Xerox had so many financial problems). In fact she told me stories of how she stayed up late at night teaching herself the basics.

So Mulcahy created an environment at Xerox where it was okay to improvise. Mistakes were considered a learning experience. And asking for help was respected. The result: Mulcahy built a healthy, vibrant company culture.

Here's my takeaway on this: Businesses benefit greatly from female leadership. Women bring a different perspective to the workplace and to problem solving. When women have a seat at the table, the conversation changes. This is a good thing, particularly these days as corporate executives -- and government policymakers -- are desperately trying to come up with solutions and new strategies to deal with the economic downturn and the financial crisis. They need people with a wide array of skills and backgrounds. They are testing fresh ideas and methods. And I believe smart female leaders can certainly bring different perspectives to those conversations.

That's why I see the succession at Xerox as historic. One woman mentoring another; one woman CEO succeeded by another. I believe this is a profound transformative change in corporate America.

A footnote. There are 12 female CEOs in the Fortune 500 -- including Xerox. Here are their names in order of their company's ranking on the Fortune 500:

Angela Braly -- Wellpoint.
Patricia Woertz -- Archer Daniels Midland.
Indra Nooyi -- Pepsi.
Irene Rosenfeld -- Kraft Foods.
Carol Meyrowitz -- TJX.
Mary Sammons -- Rite Aid.
Anne Mulcahy (Ursula Burns) -- Xerox.
Brenda Barnes -- Sara Lee.
Andrea Jung -- Avon Products.
Susan Ivey -- Reynolds American.
Carol Bartz -- Yahoo!
Christina Gold -- Western Union.