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

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#1 INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER • “A landmark manifesto” (The New York Times) that’s a revelatory, inspiring call to action and a blueprint for individual growth that will empower women around the world to achieve their full potential. 

In her famed TED talk, Sheryl Sandberg described how women unintentionally hold themselves back in their careers. Her talk, which has been viewed more than eleven million times, encouraged women to “sit at the table,” seek challenges, take risks, and pursue their goals with gusto. Lean In continues that conversation, combining personal anecdotes, hard data, and compelling research to change the conversation from what women can’t do to what they can. Sandberg, COO of Meta (previously called Facebook) from 2008-2022, provides practical advice on negotiation techniques, mentorship, and building a satisfying career. She describes specific steps women can take to combine professional achievement with personal fulfillment, and demonstrates how men can benefit by supporting women both in the workplace and at home.

Our Top Reviews

Reviewer: S. M. Grigsby
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Could this be the next step?
Review: I had heard the buzz about Sheryl Sandberg’s Lead In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead that many of you may have heard as well. Written by an elitist with a double Harvard degree who was mentored by Larry Summers (gasp!) and is worth hundreds of millions in stock from Google and Facebook (oh no!), she couldn’t possibly have anything to say to women in less fortunate positions. It was a vanity book designed to elevate Facebook (really?). I have to admit that it has been a long time since I remember a book being so roundly condemned by so many who hadn’t even read it. The fact that a book authored by a woman about women was raising such a stink intrigued me. If I hadn’t planned to read it before, I certainly looked forward to reading it now.I should be used to pundits being wrong.Honestly, there were some points in this book that almost had me wishing I were thirty years younger and still working. It takes a lot to do that. I am happy with my life (except for the grief part) and I don’t generally envy the lot of today’s working women.Lean In is not so much a feminist manifesto, as it is a hands-on guide to how a woman can think about and alter her chances for success. From the cultural inhibitions that women internalize to the social judgments levied on our performance, Sandberg presents possibilities for change. She addresses many of the same issues I tried to deal with in my career. And although I did okay, I know that some of the advice she offers would have made it possible for me to do a lot more. (Of course in those days she could not have attended Harvard. Or Yale. And COO of Facebook? Not likely.)Times have changed since Betty Friedan. Women can now attend Harvard. Women can become the COO of Facebook. But not enough of them do. And that is what Sandberg is trying to change with Lean In.Well researched and documented, Sandberg uses statistics, personal anecdotes, and stories from other successful women to present her case. She then uses some common sense, more research, and creative thinking to propose solutions.From the book:”I am fully aware that most women are not focused on changing social norms for the next generation but simply trying to get through each day. Forty percent of employed mothers lack sick days and vacation leave, and about 50 percent of employed mothers are unable to take time off to care for a sick child. 21 Only about half of women receive any pay during maternity leave. 22 These policies can have severe consequences; families with no access to paid family leave often go into debt and can fall into poverty. 23 Part-time jobs with fluctuating schedules offer little chance to plan and often stop short of the forty-hour week that provides basic benefits. 24Too many work standards remain inflexible and unfair, often penalizing women with children. Too many talented women try their hardest to reach the top and bump up against systemic barriers. So many others pull back because they do not think they have a choice. All of this brings me back to Leymah Gbowee’s insistence that we need more women in power. When leadership insists that these policies change, they will. Google put in pregnancy parking when I asked for it and it remains there long after I left. We must raise both the ceiling and the floor.”Yes, Sheryl Sandberg has had a storied career, leaving her worth close to a billion dollars, named as one of Forbes top five most powerful women in the world, but then, who would want to read a book by a failure? Who wants advice from someone who hasn’t succeeded in making a difference?Maybe this is all just an evil plot to grow Facebook’s audience and the value of her stock. Or maybe it just is what she says it is. A way forward for women and their life partners. (She devotes an entire chapter to how important a life partner is to anyone’s success in life.)Lean In doesn’t have to have all of the answers in order to be pointing in the right direction. It is clear that the women’s movement has stalled: on Friday North Dakota passed the most repressive anti-women laws the nation has ever seen, virtually denying women the rights guaranteed by Roe vs Wade, and we learned that NYPD officers have been ordered to run criminal record checks on the victims of domestic abuse. Clearly we need to do something. Until we have a greater share of power, our rights will continue to be dictated to us by others. It is time women started reaching for the levers of power in corporations, institutions and governments.Lean In doesn’t stop with the last page. In addition to her TED talk, she has set up, of course, a Facebook page, and a website looking to continue the conversation. She envisions women meeting in small (8 to 12) Lean In Circles to learn from each other and support each other’s growth. Small circles that have been disparagingly referred to as a throwback to the consciousness raising of times gone by. What her critics forget is that those consciousness raising parties did a lot of good back in the day.Jodi Kantor, of the New York Times, in an attempt to show how evil this plot is, published a copy of the document that is being circulated to potential corporate partners in the Lean In movement. (BTW, said corporate partners are only asked the use of their logos and endorsement, not funding, and their support for their employees who chose to join the circles.) I read the document, which I found here: […] And wish that when my girlfriends and I got together during the 70s in an informal support group at a nearby watering hole that we could have had access to the material and format of the new Lean In Circles. We got the job done, and helped other women move along their career paths, but not nearly enough and not quickly enough.All profits from her book go to LeanIn.org which is a non-profit public benefit corporation that runs the website of the same name.Lean In is not for all women. Nor is it meant to be. Not all women want a high powered career and a family. But for those who do, and for their partners, it is a book well worth reading.

Reviewer: John Jenkins
Rating: 4.0 out of 5 stars
Title: Who wears a tiara on a jungle gym?
Review: I hope that Sheryl Sandberg’s “Lean In” will make the workplace a bit more rewarding for my daughters and granddaughters. Even though this book is somewhat flawed, it is getting a lot of attention for a lot of good reasons; and I believe that it already has and will continue to bring about positive changes in business and in government.Ms. Sandberg states that women should continue fighting to break down barriers until the goal of equality is achieved. She uses the term ‘equality’ (or ‘equal’ or ‘equally’) 62 times in this book. She seems to define equality completely by results – equality will be achieved when 50% of businesses and governments are run by women and 50% of homes are run by men. I would think that equality will be achieved when there is a level playing field and women are not prevented by cultural obstacles from fulfilling their potential. With a level playing field, women might occupy 50% – or more or less – of all CEO positions. But the definition of equality should be based on the existence of equal opportunity and the absence of impediments, not rigid results.In Chapter One, Ms. Sandberg’s use of the infamous 77% statistic is misleading. This statistic might imply that there is a 23% compensation gap between men and women working for the same employer in the same position. This is not the case. This statistic does not factor in position, experience, or hours worked. Of course, this is one of the author’s points – that women don’t choose fields, acquire experience, or work the same number of hours as men because of cultural or other barriers – but the author should have made this clearer in using the 77% statistic.My group at work (8 men and 2 women) is reviewing this book at our monthly staff meeting – one chapter per month. At the first meeting, one of the women in the group made the point that there are innate differences between men and women that make Ms. Sandberg’s equality goal unrealistic and unattainable – not because women are less competent at work, but because men are less nurturing and less competent at home. I tend to agree. (And in chapter 1, Ms. Sandberg acknowledges that this might be true.)Ms. Sandberg makes many reference to academic and other research from which the results support her themes. Does she exclude research that might contradict her themes? Perhaps. Chapter 3, “Success and Likeability” is based on a 2003 experiment conducted with New York business students. Based on this study, Ms. Sandberg concludes that successful women are unfairly considered less likeable than successful men. In a 2013 article in The Atlantic, Eleanor Barkhorn points out two problems with this conclusion: (1) The subjects are all students who were not active members of the full-time workforce when the survey was conducted, and (2) There was a 2011 study published in ”Human Relations” of 60,000 full-time workers on their attitudes toward male and female managers. The study showed that “people who actually had female managers did not give them lower ratings than people who had male managers.”Ms. Sandberg had her writing reviewed by many skilled thinkers and editors, so it is surprising that the writing is sloppy at times. For example, in chapter 3, she compares her reaction to being one of seven business school students who won a Henry Ford scholarship to the other winners who all boasted about winning the scholarship. She claims that, unlike the other six winners, all male, she never went public. As though including this achievement in a bestselling book is not going public.So, while some of the writing is unexceptional, I am impressed by the last paragraph, and more specifically the last sentence, of each chapter. My favorite is the conclusion to chapter 4: “And anyway who wears a tiara on a jungle gym?” Ms. Sandberg clearly knows how to close!The subtitle of the first chapter is “What would you do if you weren’t afraid?” Motivational posters at FaceBook carry this theme, which applies to both men and women. The author states that writing this book is what she would do if she weren’t afraid – and clearly she is not. And she should be commended for not fearing critics like this reviewer.

Reviewer: Paulina
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Lectura fácil sobre la experiencia femenina. Súper recomendable!!!

Reviewer: Sandy
Rating: 2.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Did not impact me as a woman much. It targets working moms specifically and not women in general in the workplace. Nice to read if you ran out of new books ideas but did not make any impact.

Reviewer: アラフォー二児ママ
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: 当方トイック840点、英語中級程度です。話せるが雑な英語なので、洗練された英語にブラッシュアップしたく、読んでいます。期待した通りの洗練された文章に、ワクワクして読んでいます。トイック800点程度でも単語、表現共に読みやすい英語なので、すんなりと進んでストレスないです。何より内容にハッとさせられるので、読みすすめたくなります。短い文は話せる、書けるが、長い文の構築が苦手なので、この本を徹底的に精読、音読、暗唱したら自分のものにする予定です。日本語訳も出ているので、分からない所は参照しています。日本語訳版は面白みのある言い回しや大げさな表現が多く、やはり意訳も多いので勉強に使う方は気をつけて読みましょう。ちなみに、私はaudibleでも音声ダウンロードをしていますが、所々本文が飛ばされていました。

Reviewer: Billi Baloo
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: Ich habe lange gezödert, das Buch zu kaufen und zu lesen, denn zum einen wbin cih kein karriere-Typ, zum anderen mag ich Facebook nichts besonders. Wals also sollte mir eine FB-Topmanagerin schon sagen können?Es war dann aber doch interessanter als erwartet. Vieles betrifft mich zwar nicht (eben z.B. die Karrierrepläne), dennoch kann ich vieles, was Sandberg schreibt, unterstreichen. Vor allem in Deutschland gibt es noch viel zu tun, bis Frauen im Berufsleben gleichberechtigt sind. Da müssen noch viele Vorurteile abgebaut werden – auch bei Frauen!Das Buch hilft, sich selbst im Klaren darüber zu werden, welche Position man bzw. frau vertritt und eben das eine oder andere Vorurteil abzubauen. Deshalb: Empfehlens- und lesenswert!

Reviewer: Kindle Customer
Rating: 5.0 out of 5 stars
Title:
Review: I don’t really enjoy the capitalistic feminism in which women are superior and men are not or women are always the victims and men attack.This book was more about humanism and equal rights. It’s not about women taking advantage for granted but more like, women should also work hard enough. Also, the business (or the world) has been so man-centric which resulted in disregarding woman’s needs. Women have been forced to work and live in a man-centric world and the author was saying that we should come forth to speak out. Also, we should respect one’s choice. We shouldn’t blame women who want to work after giving birth. Also, we should support when a man quits to take care of his children.Although by the end of the book, the story becomes a bit like feminism but to a rational level only.It was very relevant to current society and enlightening.

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