In the offices of Facebook posters exhort employees to take risks. COO Sheryl Sandberg’s favorite reads, “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?” Her own answer to that question is writing a book titled Lean In—Women Work and the Will to Lead. Sandberg may have been afraid to write the book because she anticipated the voices that say, as a multimillionaire with a Harvard degree and powerful mentors, she couldn’t possibly offer advice that is relevant to most women in the workplace. But I believe if change is to come, a powerful voice is needed.
In Lean In Sandberg proves that in spite of her advantages, she shares the concerns of many working women and has herself made many of the mistakes she sees other women making that undermine their success. She recognizes that women in leadership have to speak up for the women who don’t want to ask for special treatment.
Her first “aha” moment came during her tenure at Google, when she was pregnant with her first child. “To this day I’m embarrassed that I didn’t realize pregnant women needed reserved parking until I experienced my own aching feet. As one of Google’s most senior women, didn’t I have a special responsibility to think of this?”
In her position at Facebook, Sandberg is now senior enough and confident enough to lead by example, leaving the office at 5:30 to have dinner with her kids. In today’s culture of endless work, she was sheepish about her schedule, so when she first started trimming her typically 12-hour workdays she hid her comings and goings by scheduling her first and last meetings of the day in outlying buildings, or waiting until there were no other employees around and making a dash to her car. But Sandberg insists that, in addition to the barriers from society, “women hold ourselves back in ways both big and small” and that women have to “dream big, forge a path through the obstacles,” and “set (their) own goals and reach for them with gusto.”
When I was writing my book, Knowing Your Value, about women getting paid what they’re worth, Sandberg told me, “A lot of getting ahead in the workplace has to do with being willing to raise your hand, having the confidence to say ‘I want that job, or I see that problem and I’m going to fix it.’” And, she noted, women don’t raise their hands like men do, sometimes literally. She recalled the time she gave a talk to a few hundred Facebook employees about owning your own success. At the end of the talk she told the audience she had time to take a couple of questions. After answering two more questions, hands were still waving so she continued to call on people. When she returned to her desk a young woman was waiting for her. Sandberg asked if she had learned anything from the talk, and the woman said, “I learned to keep my hand up.” She continued, “After you answered those last two questions all the women put their hands down. The men kept their hands up and you took more questions.” That proved Sandberg’s point; men get more opportunities in the workplace because they keep their hands up.
Full article
And in The New York Times
When I was writing my book, Knowing Your Value, about women getting paid what they’re worth, Sandberg told me, “A lot of getting ahead in the workplace has to do with being willing to raise your hand, having the confidence to say ‘I want that job, or I see that problem and I’m going to fix it.’” And, she noted, women don’t raise their hands like men do, sometimes literally. She recalled the time she gave a talk to a few hundred Facebook employees about owning your own success. At the end of the talk she told the audience she had time to take a couple of questions. After answering two more questions, hands were still waving so she continued to call on people. When she returned to her desk a young woman was waiting for her. Sandberg asked if she had learned anything from the talk, and the woman said, “I learned to keep my hand up.” She continued, “After you answered those last two questions all the women put their hands down. The men kept their hands up and you took more questions.” That proved Sandberg’s point; men get more opportunities in the workplace because they keep their hands up.
Full article
And in The New York Times
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