Some Thoughts on the Legacy of "Lean In"

A recent studyconcluded that messages from Sheryl Sandberg’s book, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead,cause people to believe that women are responsible for gender inequality, whereas messages about structural problems cause people to see a need for institutions and society to address discrimination. 

After tweeting about this study I saw many say that it validated what they had long thought and found bothersome – even oppressive – about the 2013 book: That encouraging women to adapt to and play a “man’s” game that is structurally stacked against them and beyond their control, and tailoring this advice to a small subset of privileged women, is misguided and insensitive (as Sandberg later acknowledged).

But Lean In still made an important contribution to discourse about women and leadership. At the time it came out, Sandberg’s message was a highly unusual one in the corporate world, which liked to parade successful women on panels for "women in business" events to say they had never experienced or seen gender bias and brag about their masculine skills and roles. Here was Sandberg, COO of Facebook, with ties to powerful male mentors (Larry Summers at Harvard, Mark Zuckerberg at Facebook), declaring that women remained vastly underrepresented in leadership, that this was a real problem, and that it was was due to the discouragement women faced and internalized. Sandberg encouraged women be aware of obstacles and try to work around and through them -- to go for it and not give up. She noted the strong wind faced by women that is often at men's backs, and thoroughly referenced studies on bias against women. Though gender scholars had long moved past a “fix the women” approach to gender in organizations, when Lean In came out, the corporate world remained mostly mum on this topic and in denial that there was a problem at all. Sandberg's book made that world listen and start to acknowledge and discuss it. A better title may have been “Lean In – To The Wind,” but the corporate audience wasn’t ready for that. In 2017 #MeToo forced it to listen.  

I’ve been teaching about women and leadership in business schools for 20 years. Sandberg’s book marked a turning point in my classrooms, b-school dean’s suites, and among corporate audiences. Before Lean In it was considered impolite or shrill to mention the dearth of women in leadership, and especially in poor taste to bring up structural and social biases that keep women down. Students resisted class discussions about gender at work. Women students mostly remained silent as male ones explained that “women don't negotiate, that’s why they earn less,” “I'd never hire or promote a mother,” “women don’t really want the responsibility of leadership,” “women don’t have the personalities or stomachs for that kind of work,” or “sexual harassment -- there should be more of it! ha ha.” No amount of logic or evidence would sway them from their entrenched positions that the lack of women leaders was women’s choice or fault.

After Sandberg’s book came out there was a complete change of tone in my MBA classrooms. Women spoke up with anger and confidence about their experiences of bias and discrimination at work. Men acknowledged sexism and even brought concerns about their wives’ or female coworkers' careers to the discussion. Whereas in 2006 my Gender in Organizations MBA elective (the most highly rated course I’d taught) was cancelled by the dean’s office because it was “too narrow” and enrollment numbers didn’t make it profitable (students told me they feared being labeled as “trouble makers” for taking it), in 2014 I was recruited to be the inaugural holder of a professorship for women in leadership and expected to teach courses and organize events around gender at work. In 2007 I was told by a senior male “mentor” that my research on sexual harassment didn’t belong in a business school, but since 2013 (and #MeToo in 2017) I’ve been invited by top business schools around the world to talk about sexual harassment and masculinity contest cultures in organizations.

Lean In turned a lot of people off with good reason. It encouraged women to lean into the wind rather than encouraging organizational leaders and policy makers to stop the wind. But the book came from a good (if naïve) place, meant to cheer on the weary. When I spoke to her about it in 2014, Sandberg agreed that organizational structures and masculine cultures were the real root of the problem. But Lean In broke a glass ceiling of sorts, lifting what was an implicit gag rule on the topic in corporate circles and contributing to a broader social movement of awareness raising. We should celebrate such efforts, and recognize both their limitations and their contributions.