We know you’re busy, so we’ll keep this short. This summary of Lean In (written by Sheryl Sandberg) is designed to give you the main ideas you need to know from this great book in the quickest format possible.
What You Will Learn:
Why women’s role in leadership has stalled Empowering advice for how women can achieve their true potentialHow to make the right choices for yourself, your career, and your familyAdvice on negotiating and finding the perfect mentorHow to achieve a rewarding careerMany more hacks and strategies on how women can become limitless
What Is Inside This Summary:
A comprehensive overview of the entire bookDetailed summaries of each chapterImportant and memorable quotes from each chapterA bulleted list of key takeaways from the book
Excerpt from the summary of Lean In
Book Overview
In the book Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, Sheryl Sandberg seeks to empower women to pursue their goals both at home and in the workplace, in addition to encouraging women to proactively engage in leadership roles. She provides an overview of the socio-historical factors that set the stage for the increasing participation of women in the workplace, while at the same time highlighting that there is still work to be done in order to ensure a truly equitable work and home life. The book addresses the role of women and men in ensuring that the complex challenges faced by women in the workplace can be properly confronted.
Introduction
Internalizing the Revolution
In the introduction, Sheryl Sandberg tells how her pregnancy affected her outlook on women in the workplace. During her tenure at Google, Sandberg had a difficult pregnancy, which included a great amount of weight gain and persistent nausea. On one particular morning, Sandberg had an early meeting to which she was running late. In addition to this delay, she had a hard time finding a parking spot, and the only place available was farther away from the Google campus. Since she was already running late, Sandberg had to rush to the Google campus after parking. The strenuous pace made her even more nauseous, and she arrived at the meeting feeling terrible. That night, she recounted her ordeal to her husband, Dave, who was working as an executive at Yahoo! at the time. Dave mentioned that at the Yahoo! campus, there were priority parking spots for pregnant women next to every building. The next day Sandberg went into the CEO’s office at Google and asked for reserved parking spots for pregnant employees.
The response she received from Google was positive and immediate, however this experience left Sandberg with a lot to think about. She questioned the gender-specific needs of women in the workplace and how often the lack of thought about these issues had led to a disadvantageous situation for female employees. Because these are not the traditional obstacles highlighted by the feminist movement (i.e., glass ceiling, overt gender discrimination), the “internal barriers” faced by females in the workplace are hardly discussed, and often underplayed. Sandberg contends that these barriers need to be openly discussed, and proactively addressed by men and women alike in order to achieve true equality.
Memorable Quote
“…knowing that things could be worse should not stop us from trying to make them better. 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…trying to bring that vision into focus. The blunt truth is that men still run the world.”
