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

... practical advice for both professional women (take more risks and do not be so silent about the risks) and any male managers or executives (look for and recognize women's contributions; encourage women to 'sit at the table') ... This title should be encouraged reading for all working women as well as all members of management.

No one who reads this book will ever doubt that Sandberg herself has the will to lead, not to mention the requisite commitment, intelligence and ferocious work ethic ... Sandberg is not just tough, however. She also comes across as compassionate, funny, honest and likable ... Sandberg’s advice to young women to be more ambitious, which can sound like a finger-wagging admonishment when taken out of context, is framed here in more encouraging terms ... Most important, Sandberg is willing to draw the curtain aside on her own insecurities ... Lean In is full of...slogans that ambitious women would do well to pin up on their wall ... But for the 229 missing female Fortune 500 leaders, as well as the hundreds of thousands of women who should be occupying lower-level leadership positions but aren’t, the problem is not leaning back but encountering a tipping point, a situation in which what was once a manageable and enjoyable work-family balance can no longer be sustained ... if in fact it’s the tipping points that tip women out of the work force, or at least prevent them from rising, then no amount of psychological coaching will make a difference ... Yet she chooses to concentrate only on the 'internal obstacles,' the ways in which women hold themselves back. This is unfortunate. As a feminist and a corporate leader, Sandberg seems ideally placed to ask the question that all too often gets lost amid the welter of talk about what women should do, what they should want and how they should behave. When it comes to ensuring that caregivers still have paths to the corner office, how can business lean in?

I dozed off twice while reading it. Most of the book is kind of blah, composed of platitudinous-corporate-speak-intermixed-with-pallid-anecdotes ... Even though, Oprah-esque, Sandberg resolves to speak her 'truth,' mostly mild confessions follow ... If Mary Wollstonecraft had written this tepidly, the first women's movement might have wilted before it ever took root ... But, but, but ... there are still some compelling reasons why, echoing some of Sandberg's supporters, I'd optimistically slide Lean In into my teenage daughter's bookshelf. First of all, the final two chapters of the book are more hard-hitting, riskier, less worried about alienating those readers, like stay-at-home moms, who may not share Sandberg's vision ... toward the end of Lean In, some of her intellectual charisma breaks through the blandness. Lean In is worth reading because, even though many of its observations about internalized sexism may be old hat to us older feminists, they're, sadly, still true ... Lean In may not be the most impassioned or entertaining feminist manifesto ever written and, sure, Sandberg is somewhat blinkered by her big bucks and privilege and inhibited by corporate caution. Yet, it's great to have a woman with such a platform speak up about sexism.