Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead

Lean in to leadership without sacrificing likability in Sheryl Sandberg’s guide to women in leadership.  It is a gripping instruction on why women hold so few positions of power when we make up half the pool.  

Sandberg provides stacks of information like the leadership role gap between men and women in politics and business which contradicts how girls and boys perform in school.  She brings up glaring differences in how mothers care for their babies such as “mothers overestimate the crawling ability of their sons and underestimate the crawling abilities of their daughters.” 

The author not only explains the differences in how our culture treats men versus women but how and why women retreat from excelling to the top of their fields on their own after education.  Factors like perceptions, expectations and confidence define women and their opportunities.  However, abilities do not define those opportunities.  

Lean In would be an illuminating book for women, career driven or not, because it urges women to not think like a man like some advice, but to acknowledge the rules culturally placed on women and excel at those to get ahead.  This could be clearly applied to a career or any woman who’d like to command her deep will to lead in any circumstance.  

Sandberg makes clear that she doesn’t think it’s fair that women must adhere to different rules than men but the implicit goal is to get more women in leadership to change that expectation.

When it comes to co-parenting and managing careers, Sandberg suggests not only do parents buck entrenched norms, but actively challenge those stereotypes and don’t humble-brag that you’ve done it. She reminds readers that, “gender specific expectations reman self-fulfilling.” 

Sandberg’s advice often comes off as, “it’s so easy you just… one, two three.”  And some of the counsel she suggests were possible because she and her since deceased husband had lives of privilege.  But Sandberg does acknowledge how fortunate she and her husband had been.  

The frankness and deftness Sandberg writes with is a refreshing voice in the self-help book market.