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

Summary

Lean In Women, Work, and the Will to Lead , by Sheryl Sandberg was primarily written to address and encourage women to rise and pursue leadership roles as allocated by the HRM (Sandberg, 2013).The book is a sort of feminist manifesto advocating for the rights of women and their position in the society. Sandberg extensively cited various studies to support her argument and describe how and why women in most cases miss out in different top positions. For instance, she emphasized the notion that likability and success often are positively related for men however it is negatively correlated for women and contends that the concept of inequality at home dramatically impedes women at their place of work. 

Sandberg (2013) asserts that Lean In poses certain level of ambitious problems to women in the society including; creating the type of life they want, to be partners in their homes, to become champions of other women and to be leaders in their work. Sandberg offers pragmatic advice on strategies women can use to meet these challenges in the twenty-first century. Further, in Lean In , Sandberg provides an in-depth insight on women’s ambition, work, and family. Being a mother of two, her personal experiences helped to bring out the life’s reality on the working mothers and offers advice that would be critical in assisting the women to integrate better for the attainment of professional achievement together with professional accomplishment for regarding ways to bring about equitable relationships with their partners. Such advice to women apparently resonates for women to various stages of the professionalism. Women’s progress within the leadership ranks across the industries has been precisely stagnant within the past decades. 

Three chapters of this book focus on the issues of family and work balance, but the rest of the chapters critically focuses on how women would be able to take charge of their careers and get ahead at a time when gender bias seems to be alive. A reader will be introduced to a well-researched book on sexism and how it pervades the workplace in the contemporary world. 

Sandberg wrote the story to encourage women to make well-informed decisions regarding career progression and increased their chances to make it to the top of any job position in the society (Sandberg, 2013). Evidently, it can be considered as one of the most suitable sources for the individuals who wish to understand diverse problems that women tend to face when advancing their careers. 

In this book, Sandberg also made strong contrarian point regarding the mentors. She stated that women should not stay as any person to be their mentor. She noted this point majorly to encourage women that they can be their mentors. She specifically encouraged the women to take the opportunity and ask people both juniors and seniors for advice on ways to resolve a particular problem rather than mentorship. However, such an aspect will engender majority of the productive relationship than a simple plea for mentoring (Sandberg, 2013). 

Main Topic

Motherhood versus Career and How Women Can Progress in the Organizational Leadership Ranks 

Opinion

The book seemingly is packed with various anecdotes that focus on the life of the author hence can extensively speak to each persona that might suffer specific professional woes. In her analysis, she proposes possible solutions to every concern that she rose which I am sure helped to embolden the readers of both sexes to take the initiative and turn their day job day into a dream job (Sandberg, 2013). However, it is important to note that Sandberg does suggest that we should move beyond feeling confident into arrogance or even boastfulness. However, feeling confident plays an imperative role for an individual to reach for opportunities. Based on her analysis, it becomes clear that she lays much emphasis on the need to talk about and transform different existing obstacles that women face within their contemporary professional world. It offers rich ideas and tools that would ultimately help women to overcome the obstacle that limits them from achieving the professional and career goals irrespective of whether they emerge due to institutional discrimination or the sexism. 

Going through her book, it becomes apparent that she was highly sensitive to the force of mothering and how it sharply conflicts with work’s demand. Further, she focused on how it has become difficult to raise a child while at the same time working hard. Sandberg (2013) posits that Lean In is not entirely about balancing act of working versus parenting because it tries to bring out the massive challenges that women face when attempting to get ahead regarding their career. Going through the book, I agree that gender wars demand an immediate and lasting peace. She asserts that a true equality will be accomplished by women when every individual stands up and fight the existing stereotype that seems to hold women back. 

What interested me is her claim that, it is critical to ensure that women ask their partners to perform specific parenting work. In her argument, she brought out a highly controversial ground on such a point also. What might not work better for women is based on her evidence that should immediately stop being the maternal gatekeepers (Sandberg, 2013). Instead, they should insist that their partners also do most of the parenting and even housework roles that initially were grouped as female’s roles and avoid any attempts to control the manner in which their partners perform such jobs. It is true that this might appear as one of the most challenging efforts; however, she went on to make a highly convincing case related to how important it was if women will be given opportunities to pursue the most demanding careers. Irrespective of the impression that Sandberg firmly believes that women would become corporate titans in the future while at the same time perfectly parenting their children, she wrote affectingly on how difficult it was for her to find a balance that would work. 

Course Connection

Throughout the course, we have covered various concept and contents that connects to the arguments put forward by Sandberg in Lean In . The course has included the concept of sexism that women face in their place work and the same has been addressed critically by Sandberg. This is apparently obvious among women in the workforce and tends to bears reminding and repeating (Sandberg, 2013). The other course concept is gender bias, and sexual harassment and Sandberg addressed them using specific sad statistics concerning how far women are forced to go even with numerous successes accomplished by the feminist movement. Focusing on the concept of leadership and human resources covered in class, the book has explained how women have continued to trail far behind men regarding leadership positions. She focused on what should be done by women to ensure that get ahead and what the workplace has to do to enhance the women’s position through the following significant solutions also covered in the course content: paternity leave, equal pay and even better child care options (Sandberg, 2013). 

Sandberg as a feminist went further to acknowledge massive contributions that have been achieved by women of the past generation to pave the way for interested women like herself (Sandberg, 2013). She, however, went on to talk about how the women establish barriers for themselves at their place of work. Such cases are often experienced inform of negotiating wage packages or even keeping their profiles low for fear of not being preferred or also liked at their workplace. The concept of an individual being liked at their workplace is of greater importance and women mostly equate their success with aspects of unpopularity. 

Based her view, she believes that all these factors considerably hold women back. It is imperative that each should be comfortable with the females’ leaders. Women leadership, also one of the course contents has been an area of concern for Sandberg book where she advocates for the need for women to encourage each other to lean in, identify the commonalities in managing the primary inequality issues that they experience and pave the way forward. Sandberg (2013) affirms that this is a social movement that she wishes to create and take part in to see to it that women establish themselves as corporate leaders and hold top offices. She hoped that women should be inspired by their fellow women leader to break down the inequality experienced at the workplace. 

Analysis

Evidently, it is challenging for an individual to manage both motherhood and career. In the anecdote of the book, Sandberg describes the terrible time she had when she was pregnant with her first child including swollen feet and gained about 70 pounds. Apparently, it highlights the challenges I should be prepared to encounter in my future professional career as an employee and employer in addition to being a mother. Sandberg considers herself as a feminist that greatly benefited from the activity’s struggles which had to battle with the rights of women. It is true that as a woman, I would have to create a balance between motherhood and career at the same time ensure that I advance career-wise (Sandberg, 2013). 

Sandberg arguably got it the right way based on her in-depth analysis concerning the compensation of women. Sandberg (2013) notes that, despite the fact that the women’s compensation used to be worse throughout the 1970 women used to make about 59 cents per dollar gained by men, however, the situation has remained worse today. For instance, in the year 2010, women were reported to earn 77 cents for each dollar earned by men. Therefore, based on her proposed solution for such a problem, she suggested the need for women to come out and negotiate like men. When Sandberg was talking to Mark Zuckerberg concerning the idea of joining Facebook, she asserted to be inclined to accepting the offers he made. After the encouragement from her husband to make counter-offer, she agreed, and Zuckerberg approached her again with a highly lucrative proposal (Sandberg, 2013). Therefore, to ensure that one gets the best deal or proposal in the business venture, there is the need to develop strong negotiation skills that would ensure that women access better offers must like men. In this way, woman, the position of women in the job market and career progression would be redefined resulting to equitability. 

Sandberg (2013), posit that she believes that based on the past years and the contemporary world, the concept of feminist revolution has stalled. She went further to extensively write about established barriers that still face women in their workplace among them including sexual harassment, blatant and subtle sexism in addition to massive discrimination. There is the need to have measures in place that would help counter any form of sexual harassment at workplace. For instance, there might be the need to have a policy that places heavy punishment such as dismissal and using the legal means that would help prevent any form of sexual harassment in the organization (Sandberg, 2013). Irrespective of the impressions that she might have ignored the topic, Sandberg underlines the overall significance of workplace flexibility in addition to the need to have accessible childcare and parental leave policies. She went further to note a 2011 McKinsey study that showed that while men seem to be promoted based on potential, women got a leg up according to the previous achievement. 

Sandberg convincible argued that currently, there exist various internal obstacles that apparently hold women back, as an employer, it would be essential to identify these barriers and ways to manage them. Arguably, one can see that this is the nut and the considerable controversial part of her argument and the point that has actually stirred intense criticism among the rest of the feminists. She claims that women over the years have been keeping themselves from advancing and climbing the ladder in their workplace because they rarely have self-confidence and the drive that all men have. She noted that women tend to lower their expectations of what they might be able to accomplish (Sandberg, 2013). 

According to Sandberg (2013), convincingly, it can be affirmed that personal motivation is of paramount importance despite being a complicated thing because employers would be able to ensure that women progress in their careers just like men do. Personal motivation complexity is molded by our own internal will, and further, it is influenced by the form of parenting we tend to receive, educational opportunities we access, linkages we make, and peer groups we grow up with in addition to the prejudices of people around us. 

Sandberg seeming agreed with the argument above on personal motivation and went further to cite dozens of examples which primarily underline the obstacles that women often face in life. Sandberg (2013) suggests that one of the most compelling examples that Sandberg mentioned was the case she termed Howard/Heidi study. Based on this case, she concluded that when a man becomes successful, then it follows that he will be well-liked. However, the disturbing aspect is when the woman does something well, she is instead least liked. To unravel this problem, she wrote about the conundrum that is problem presents for the women. Arguably we all want to be appreciated and loved by others, however, if it happens that our success implies that other people will not like them then the question raised is, how motivated are we to do even better? 

She also confessed having undermined her achievement for fear that other people would be turned off. However, she encourages women to strive and overcome the Howard/Heidi stereotype and at the same time advocated on the women’s behalf (Sandberg, 2013). As a woman and an employer in future, it is my believe that I would be able to stand up for my fellow women and advocate for their rights and equality in terms of promotion and compensation. As a manager, it would be essential to come up with a strategy that would ensure that both men and women are celebrated equally on their achievement either using monetary or non-monetary sources of motivation. Being recognized before the rest of the team would be of paramount importance as a manager since it would make a difference in the workplace. 

Conclusion

Sandberg perfectly understood the fact that majority of the women do not want both families and career, further, there are those that rarely care about the idea of ascending to the power position. She noted that majority of the working women in the society have to struggle only to meet their monthly expenses and access essential commodities. She came to the understanding that preaching to the most privileged few women who have been able to acquire education and social connection to make it to tops positions and power would help address women’s problems. Having more women in the leadership positions in the society will ultimately help improve the women’s status and available opportunities for all women. She encourages women to come together and strive on getting ahead and the meaning of seeking leadership roles. Arguably, Sandberg could have made her work highly preachy and less substantive, but instead, she has been able to achieve the opposite regarding a book with a most potent message and full of personal vulnerabilities and anecdotes combined with statistics which strongly backed her significant points. For instance, she focused on her divorce when she was only 24 years of age and how she felt that it meant to her failing and how she felt ashamed when she was referred to as ‘bossy.’ Using Howards/Heidi study, she showed how women gave themselves low grades compared to men despite the fact that the faculty evaluation gave women a higher level of ratings. 

The other example she noted was in the 2002 survey of the political candidates which revealed that men were about 60 percent more probable to say that they were qualified to run for office. Based on the above analysis and various examples used by Sandberg, it becomes apparent that it is possible for women to progress in the leadership ranks just like men provided that they have the will and desire fight on and get ahead. This goal-driven ideology brought out by Sandberg has some form of fascinating insights into the business world. 

References 

Sandberg, S. (2013). Lean in: Women, work, and the will to lead . Random House.