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

by Sheryl Sandberg

when I remember that no one can do it all and identify my real priorities at home and at work, I feel better, and I am more productive

Stanford professor Jennifer Aaker’s work shows that setting obtainable goals is key to happiness.

Seeing attainable goals is the key to happiness

The right question is not “Can I do it all?” but “Can I do what’s most important for me and my family?”

If I had to embrace a definition of success, it would be that success is making the best choices we can … and accepting them.

The secret is there is no secret—just doing the best you can with what you’ve got.”

In her 2011 article, “The New F-Word,” Marianne wrote about college English professor Michele Elam, who observed something strange in her Introduction to Feminist Studies course. Even though her students were interested enough in gender equality to take an entire class on the subject, very few “felt comfortable using the word ‘feminism.’ ” And even “fewer identified themselves as feminists.”

sounds like a joke: Did you hear the one about the woman taking a feminist studies class who got angry when someone called her a feminist? But when I was in college, I embraced the same contradiction. On one hand, I started a group to encourage more women to major in economics and government. On the other hand, I would have denied being in any way, shape, or form a feminist. None of my college friends thought of themselves as feminists either. It saddens me to admit that we did not see the backlash against women around us.3

employees were judged not by their objective performance, but by the subjective standard of how well they fit

It was a no-win situation. I couldn’t deny being a woman; even if I tried, people would still figure it out. And defending myself just made me seem … defensive. My gut and the signals I received from others cautioned me that arguing the issue would make me sound like a strident feminist. And I still did not want that. I also worried that pointing out the disadvantages women face in the workforce might be misinterpreted as whining or asking for special treatment. So I ignored the comments. I put my head down and worked hard.

watched as the promise my generation had for female leadership dwindled.

in business we are taught to fit in, but that I was starting to think this might not be the right approach. I said out loud that there are differences between men and women both in their behavior and in the way their behavior is perceived by others. I admitted that I could see these dynamics playing out in the workforce, and that, in order to fix the problems, we needed to be able to talk about gender without people thinking we were crying for help, asking for special treatment, or about to sue.

Major changes can result from these kinds of “nudge techniques,” small interventions that encourage people to behave in slightly different ways at critical moments.

simple act of talking openly about behavioral patterns makes the subconscious conscious.

keep speaking up and encouraging others to do the same. It is essential to breaking the logjam. Talking can transform minds, which can transform behaviors, which can transform institutions.

Anyone who brings up gender in the workplace is wading into deep and muddy waters. The subject itself presents a paradox, forcing us to acknowledge differences while trying to achieve the goal of being treated the same.

he shares my belief that women sometimes hold themselves back. He also believed this message was easier to hear from a woman than a man. His point is valid. If a man had delivered the same message or even gently pointed out that women might be taking actions that limited their options, he would have been pilloried. Shutting down discussion is self-defeating and impedes progress. We need to talk and listen and debate and refute and instruct and learn and evolve.

acknowledges that in meetings, both men and women are more likely to interrupt a woman and give credit to a man for an idea first proposed by a woman.

One stumbling block is that many people believe that the workplace is largely a meritocracy, which means we look at individuals, not groups, and determine that differences in outcomes must be based on merit, not gender.

Men at the top are often unaware of the benefits they enjoy simply because they’re men, and this can make them blind to the disadvantages associated with being a woman. Women lower down also believe that men at the top are entitled to be there, so they try to play by the rules and work harder to advance rather than raise questions or voice concerns about the possibility of bias.

The laws that protect women and minorities and people with disabilities, among others, from discrimination are essential, and I am not suggesting they be circumvented. But I have also witnessed firsthand how they can have a chilling effect on discourse, sometimes even to the detriment of the people they are designed to defend. I don’t have a solution to this dilemma and will leave it to public policy and legal experts to solve. I do think this is worth some serious attention so we can find a way to deal with these issues in a way that protects but doesn’t suppress.

2012 study found that when evaluating identical résumés for a lab manager position from a male student and a female student, scientists of both sexes gave better marks to the male applicant. Even though the students had the same qualifications and experience, the scientists deemed the female student less competent and offered her a lower starting salary and less mentoring.

gender-blind evaluations still result in better outcomes for women.

thinking that we are objective can actually make this even worse, creating what social scientists call a “bias blind spot.” This blind spot causes people to be too confident about their own powers of objectivity so that they fail to correct for bias.

respondents who claimed to be the most impartial actually exhibited more bias in favor of male candidates. This is not just counterproductive but deeply dangerous. Evaluators in that same study actually shifted hiring criteria to give men an advantage. When a male applicant possessed a strong educational record, that quality was considered critical to the success of a police chief. But when a male applicant possessed a weaker educational record, that quality was rated as less important. This favoritism was not shown to female applicants. If anything, the reverse happened. When a woman possessed a particular skill, ability, or background, that quality tended to carry less weight.

“merit” can be manipulated to justify discrimination.9

Compared to men in modern marriages, men in more traditional marriages viewed the presence of women in the workforce less favorably. They also denied promotions to qualified female employees more often and were more likely

researchers speculated that men in traditional marriages are not overtly hostile toward women but instead are “benevolent sexists”—holding positive yet outdated views about women.10

“nice guy misogynists.”) These men might even believe that women have superior strengths in certain areas like moral reasoning, which makes them better equipped to raise children—...

Another bias arises from our tendency to want to work with people who are like us. Innovisor, a consulting firm, conducted research in twenty-nine countries and found that when men and women select a colleague to collaborate with, both were significantly more likely to choose someone of the same gender.12 Yet diverse groups often perform better.

When reviewing a woman, the reviewer will often voice the concern, “While she’s really good at her job, she’s just not as well liked by her peers.” When I hear language like that, I bring up the Heidi/Howard study and how success and likeability are negatively correlated for women. I ask the evaluator to consider the possibility that this successful female may be paying a gender-based penalty.

the success and likeability penalty is imposed by both men and women. Women perpetuate this bias as well.

a real problem or a perception problem. The goal is to give women something men tend to receive automatically—the benefit of the doubt.

the lesson of her story is “Don’t be afraid to ask,”

Being forthright led to opportunity.

Every job will demand some sacrifice. The key is to avoid unnecessary sacrifice. This is especially hard since our work culture values complete dedication. We worry that even mentioning other priorities makes us less valuable employees.

while the impact of my actually leaving work early was negligible, admitting that I went home at five thirty turned out to be kind of a big deal.

“a level of mindfulness.” Without calling for major overhauls, they tackled the soft stuff—

“Leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence and making sure that impact lasts in your absence.”

Leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence and making sure that impact lasts in your absence

another benefit too. In a result many considered surprising, overall student satisfaction went up, not just for the female and international students, but for American males as well. By creating a more equal environment, everyone was happier.

spoke out loudly and bravely to demand the rights that we now have. Their courage changed our culture and our laws to the benefit of us all. Looking back, it made no sense for my college friends and me to distance ourselves from the hard-won achievements of earlier feminists. We should have cheered their efforts. Instead, we lowered our voices, thinking the battle was over, and with this reticence we hurt ourselves.

A feminist is someone who believes in social, political, and economic equality of the sexes”—the percentage of women who agree rises to 65 percent.16 That’s

We can no longer pretend that biases do not exist, nor can we talk around them. And