Lean In

Key Concepts

To get ahead, women need to address the internal barriers to success 

“In addition to the external barriers erected by society, women are hindered by barriers that exist within ourselves. We hold ourselves back in ways both big and small, by lacking self-confidence, by not raising our hands, and by pulling back when we should be leaning in. We internalize the negative messages we get throughout our lives—the messages that say it’s wrong to be outspoken, aggressive, more powerful than men. We lower our own expectations of what we can achieve. We continue to do the majority of the housework and child care. We compromise our career goals to make room for partners and children who may not even exist yet. Compared to our male colleagues, fewer of us aspire to senior positions. This is not a list of things other women have done. I have made every mistake on this list. At times, I still do.” (p. 8)

“My argument is that getting rid of these internal barriers is critical to gaining power.” (p. 8)

There is a “Leadership Ambition Gap” that stems from the messages we give to girls and women

“In comparison to their male counterparts, highly trained women are scaling back and dropping out of the workforce in high numbers. In turn, these diverging percentages teach institutions and mentors to invest more in men, who are statistically more likely to stay.” (p. 14)

“Career progression often depends upon taking risks and advocating for oneself—traits that girls are discouraged from exhibiting.” (p. 15)

“The gender stereotypes introduced in childhood are reinforced throughout our lives and become self-fulfilling prophesies. Most leadership positions are held by men, so women don’t expect to achieve them, and that becomes one of the reasons they don’t. The same is true with pay. Men generally earn more than women, so people expect women to earn less. And they do.” (p. 22)

“For many men, the fundamental assumption is that they can have both a successful professional life and a fulfilling personal life. For many women, the assumption is that trying to do both is difficult at best and impossible at worst.” (p. 23)

“This phenomenon of capable people being plagued by self-doubt has a name—the impostor syndrome. Both men and women are susceptible to the impostor syndrome, but women tend to experience it more intensely and be more limited by it.” (p. 29)

The behaviors that lead to success for men can often lead to a “likeability” problem for women 

“This experiment supports what research has already clearly shown: success and likeability are positively correlated for men and negatively correlated for women. When a man is successful, he is liked by both men and women. When a woman is successful, people of both genders like her less. This truth is both shocking and unsurprising: shocking because no one would ever admit to stereotyping on the basis of gender and unsurprising because clearly we do.” (p. 40)

“Still, we sense this punishment for success. We’re aware that when a woman acts forcefully or competitively, she’s deviating from expected behavior.” (p. 41)

“When a man helps a colleague, the recipient feels indebted to him and is highly likely to return the favor. But when a woman helps out, the feeling of indebtedness is weaker. She’s communal, right? She wants to help others. Professor Flynn calls this the “gender discount” problem, and it means that women are paying a professional penalty for their presumed desire to be communal.” (p. 44)

“Professor Hannah Riley Bowles, who studies gender and negotiations at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, believes that women can increase their chances of achieving a desired outcome by doing two things in combination.19 First, women must come across as being nice, concerned about others, and “appropriately” female…. But a communal approach is not enough. According to Professor Bowles, the second thing women must do is provide a legitimate explanation for the negotiation.”(p. 47)

“In my experience, more men look for stretch assignments and take on high-visibility projects, while more women hang back. Research suggests that this is particularly true for women in environments that emphasize individual performance or when women are working closely with men.” (p. 62)

Mentorship is important to achievement, but it comes from performance

“Both men and women with sponsors are more likely to ask for stretch assignments and pay raises than their peers of the same gender without sponsors. Unfortunately for women, men often have an easier time acquiring and maintaining these relationships. One recent study shows that men are significantly more likely than women to be sponsored and that those with sponsors are more satisfied with their rates of advancement.” (p. 66)

“Studies show that mentors select protégés based on performance and potential. Intuitively, people invest in those who stand out for their talent or who can really benefit from help. Mentors continue to invest when mentees use their time well and are truly open to feedback. It may turn into a friendship, but the foundation is a professional relationship. Given this, I believe we have sent the wrong message to young women. We need to stop telling them, ‘Get a mentor and you will excel.’ Instead, we need to tell them, ‘Excel and you will get a mentor.’” (p. 68)

“Don’t Leave Before You Leave”

“But when it comes to integrating career and family, planning too far in advance can close doors rather than open them. I have seen this happen over and over. Women rarely make one big decision to leave the workforce. Instead, they make a lot of small decisions along the way, making accommodations and sacrifices that they believe will be required to have a family. Of all the ways women hold themselves back, perhaps the most pervasive is that they leave before they leave.” (p. 93)

“Before, she was a top performer, on par with her peers in responsibility, opportunity, and pay. By not finding ways to stretch herself in the years leading up to motherhood, she has fallen behind. When she returns to the workplace after her child is born, she is likely to feel less fulfilled, underutilized, or unappreciated. She may wonder why she is working for someone (usually a man) who has less experience than she does. Or she may wonder why she does not have the exciting new project or the corner office. At this point, she probably scales her ambitions back even further since she no longer believes that she can get to the top.” (p. 94)

“What I am arguing is that the time to scale back is when a break is needed or when a child arrives—not before, and certainly not years in advance. The months and years leading up to having children are not the time to lean back, but the critical time to lean in.” (p. 95)

“One miscalculation that some women make is to drop out early in their careers because their salary barely covers the cost of child care. Child care is a huge expense, and it’s frustrating to work hard just to break even. But professional women need to measure the cost of child care against their future salary rather than their current salary.” (p. 102)

“Make Your Partner a Real Partner”

“According to the most recent analysis, when a husband and wife both are employed full-time, the mother does 40 percent more child care and about 30 percent more housework than the father.” (p. 106)

“As women must be more empowered at work, men must be more empowered at home.” (p. 108)

“When looking for a life partner, my advice to women is date all of them: the bad boys, the cool boys, the commitment-phobic boys, the crazy boys. But do not marry them. The things that make the bad boys sexy do not make them good husbands.” (p. 115)

“Doing it all” is impossible, yet leads to stress

“‘HAVING IT ALL.’ Perhaps the greatest trap ever set for women was the coining of this phrase.” (p. 122)

“Because no matter what any of us has—and how grateful we are for what we have—no one has it all. Nor can we. The very concept of having it all flies in the face of the basic laws of economics and common sense.” (p. 122)

“A study that conducted in-depth interviews with mothers and fathers in dual-earner families uncovered similar reactions. The mothers were riddled with guilt about what their jobs were doing to their families. The fathers were not.” (p. 138)

Quotables

“When the suffragettes marched in the streets, they envisioned a world where men and women would be truly equal. A century later, we are still squinting, trying to bring that vision into focus.” (p. 5)

“Legendary investor Warren Buffett has stated generously that one of the reasons for his great success was that he was competing with only half of the population.” (p. 7)

“Taking initiative pays off. It is hard to visualize someone as a leader if she is always waiting to be told what to do.” (p. 35)

“This is why a woman needs to combine niceness with insistence, a style that Mary Sue Coleman, president of the University of Michigan, calls ‘relentlessly pleasant.’” (p. 48)

“We can joke, as Marlo Thomas did, that ‘a man has to be Joe McCarthy in order to be called ruthless. All a woman needs to do is put you on hold.’” (p. 50)

“ABOUT A MONTH AFTER I joined Facebook, I got a call from Lori Goler, a highly regarded senior director of marketing at eBay. I knew Lori a bit socially, but she made it clear this was a business call and cut to the chase. ‘I want to apply to work with you at Facebook’” she said. ‘So I thought about calling you and telling you all of the things I’m good at and all of the things I like to do. Then I figured that everyone was doing that. So instead, I want to ask you: What is your biggest problem, and how can I solve it?’” (p. 52)

Eric Schimdt: “If you’re offered a seat on a rocket ship, you don’t ask what seat. You just get on.” (p. 58)

“Women are also more reluctant to apply for promotions even when deserved, often believing that good job performance will naturally lead to rewards.8 Carol Frohlinger and Deborah Kolb, founders of Negotiating Women, Inc., describe this as the ‘Tiara Syndrome,’ where women ‘expect that if they keep doing their job well someone will notice them and place a tiara on their head.’” (p. 63)

“O’Connor now refers to herself as ‘a career-loving parent,’ a nice alternative to ‘working mom.’” (p. 97)

“Anyone lucky enough to have options should keep them open. Don’t enter the workforce already looking for the exit. Don’t put on the brakes. Accelerate. Keep a foot on the gas pedal until a decision must be made. That’s the only way to ensure that when that day comes, there will be a real decision to make.” (p. 103)

“I have seen so many women inadvertently discourage their husbands from doing their share by being too controlling or critical. Social scientists call this ‘maternal gatekeeping,’ which is a fancy term for ‘Ohmigod, that’s not the way you do it! Just move aside and let me!’” (p. 108)

“No wonder when asked at a conference what men could do to help advance women’s leadership, Harvard Business School professor Rosabeth Moss Kanter answered, ‘The laundry.’” (p. 110)

“Gloria reiterated that progress for women in the home has trailed progress in the workplace, explaining, ‘Now we know that women can do what men can do, but we don’t know that men can do what women can do.’” (p. 120)

“Dr. Laurie Glimcher, dean of Weill Cornell Medical College, said the key for her in pursuing her career while raising children was learning where to focus her attention. ‘I had to decide what mattered and what didn’t and I learned to be a perfectionist in only the things that mattered.’” (p. 124)

“As Marie Wilson, founder of the White House Project, has noted, ‘Show me a woman without guilt and I’ll show you a man.’” (p. 139)

“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.” (p. 156)

“As Professor Williams explains, ‘These mommy wars are so bitter because both groups’ identities are at stake because of another clash of social ideals: The ideal worker is defined as someone always available for work, and the ‘good mother’ is defined as always available to her children. So ideal-worker women need to prove that, although they weren’t always there, their children are fine, fine, fine.… Women who have rejected the ideal-worker norm and settled for a slower career (or no career) need to prove that their compromise was necessary for the good of their families. So you have each group of women judging the other, because neither group of women has been able to live up to inconsistent ideals.’” (p. 167)