James Temple, San Francisco Chronicle
Sheryl Sandberg delivered her “Lean In” message in San Francisco on Thursday, encouraging more than 4,000 attendees at the Professional BusinessWomen of California conference to take risks and assert themselves in the workplace.
During the half-hour keynote at Moscone Center, Facebook’s chief operating officer hit the key themes of her best-selling and much-discussed book, “Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead.”
“Men still run the world,” Sandberg said, “and I’m just not sure it’s going that well.”
The central point of the book, released in March, is that women too often undermine themselves in corporate America. They assume they’re under-qualified for positions, fail to demand the plum assignments and compensation they deserve, and steer themselves off career tracks in anticipation of children they don’t yet have.
Sandberg argues that women can and must exercise confidence, demonstrate leadership and push for the things they want.
“Don’t worry if you don’t think you’re fully qualified,” Sandberg said. “You are. Raise your hand.”
Modern feminist manifesto
It’s a message that has resonated deeply with professional women, becoming something of a modern feminist manifesto and inspiring Lean In groups around the country.
Sandberg began her speech Thursday by asking women to stand if they’d ever said out loud that they want to become chief executive officer of their company. Few did, and Sand-berg ticked through the common reasons why: Fear that they are not qualified, that they might sound obnoxious, or that they can’t be good parents, too.
By and large, she said, these are not concerns men share, or at least don’t allow to hold them back as easily. And much of it has to do with the way children are socialized from an early age. Assertive young girls are deemed bossy; boisterous young boys are natural leaders.
These stereotypes continue into adulthood.
“Success and likeability are positively correlated for men, and negatively correlated for women,” Sandberg said. “As a woman becomes more successful and powerful, they are less liked.”
‘Your daughter’s not bossy’
Changing that perception requires fundamental shifts in the thinking of men and women alike. Sandberg advised audience members who overhear a young girl being called bossy to walk up and say: “Your daughter’s not bossy. Your daughter has executive leadership skills.”
She added that challenges in the workplace begin with hurdles at home, where women still do the vast majority of the housework and child-rearing.
“That means women have two full-time jobs while men have one,” she said. “We’ll never get to equality in the workplace until we have equality in the home.”
Sandberg, a mother of two, certainly has the credentials to carry this message. Before earning her C-suite role at one of the most high-profile tech companies of the age, she rapidly rose through the ranks of another, ending a stretch at Google as vice president of global online sales and operations.
Before that, she was chief of staff to former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers. She earned an undergraduate degree and MBA from Harvard. On Wednesday, Forbes magazine ranked her sixth on its list of the world’s 100 Most Powerful Women.
Criticism of message
As a message of personal empowerment, the Lean In advice is difficult to argue with. But some reviewers of the book have criticized it as an incomplete message, and one that’s ultimately self-serving for corporate America.
Sandberg doesn’t ignore the many external challenges that women face in the workplace: subtle or blatant sexism, pay inequity, sexual harassment and institutionalized penalties for having and raising children. But it’s not the focus of her book, speeches or nonprofit organization, the Lean In foundation in Palo Alto.
“For both the women who have made it and the men who work with them, it is cheaper and more comfortable to believe that what they need to do is simply urge younger women to be more like them, to think differently and negotiate more effectively, rather than make major changes in the way their companies work,” wrote Anne-Marie Slaughter, professor of politics and international affairs at Princeton, in a New York Times review of the book.
“Young women might be much more willing to lean in if they saw better models and possibilities of fitting work and life together: ways of slowing down for a while but still staying on a long-term promotion track; of getting work done on their own time rather than according to a fixed schedule; of being affirmed daily in their roles both as parents and as professionals,” she said.
Big gender gap persists
Rachel Thomas, president of the Lean In foundation, said that these are very serious challenges. But she said that public policy is not a focus of the organization, which offers free lectures and other educational material for women, because there are already many effective groups working on those issues.
She added that big gender gaps persist in the corporate world even in regions with better workplace rules for women, including much of Scandinavia.
“Our philosophy is you need the external and internal change, and we’re going to focus on where we can make an immediate difference,” she said.
James Temple is a San Francisco Chronicle columnist. Dot-Commentary appears three days a week. E-mail: [email protected] Twitter: @jtemple
