Author: Sheryl Sandberg and Nell Scovell.
Publication date: 11 March 2013.
Publisher: Alfred A. Knopf.
Number of pages: 247 pages.
Review
Sheryl Sandberg is a Chief Operating Officer of Facebook, now known as Meta. As its book title, Sheryl Sandberg highlights the issue of gender equality and women’s empowerment based on the challenge that she has been going through in her real-life journey. She points out the struggle of women to put themselves forward and insecure to fulfill certain job positions because most women think that they don’t have enough skill in compared to men.
When we talk about gender equality, we also have to talk about the struggle of men who wants to be out of the society’s stereotype. In Lean In, Sheryl talks about how our society build negative label to fathers who want to drop out of the employment and commited themselves to child-rearing. People love to judge men by their professional success or how much income they earn.
Leaning In is about how women maximize their potential effectively. Instead of compromise too much or settle for less, women deserve to get what they want to be.
“The most common way people give up their power is by thinking they don’t have any”
Alice Walker
Highlights
- Fear is at the root of so may of the barriers at that women face. Fear not being liked. Fear of making the wrong choice. Fear of drawing negative attention. Fear of overreaching. Fear of being judged. Fear of failure. And the holy trinity of fear: the fear of being a bad mother/wife/daughter.
- Asking for input is not a sign of weakness but often the first step to finding a path forward – communication works best when we combine appropriateness with authenticity, finding that sweet spot where opinior are not brutally honest but delicately honest.
“[…] when you want to change things, you can’t please everyone. If you do please everyone, you aren’t making enough progress”.
Mark Zuckerberg
- Being aware of the problem is the first step to correcting it.
- Personal choices are not always personal as they appear. We are all influenced by social conventions, peer pressure, and familial expectations.
- If i had to embrace a definition of a success, it would be that success is making the best choices we can . . And accepting them.
“[…] there is no perfect fit when you’re looking for the next big thing to do. You have to take opportunities and make an opportunity fit for you, rather than the other way around. The ability to learn is the most important quality a leader can have”.
Padmasree Warrior
- Until women have supportive employers and colleagues as well as partners who share family responsibilities, they don’t have real choice. And until men are fully respected for contributing inside the home, they don’t have real choice either. Equal opportunity is not equal unless everyone receives the encouragement that makes seizing those opportunities possible. Only then can both men and women achieve their full potential.
- We all want the same thing: to feel very comfortable with our choices and to feel validated by those around us. So let’s start by validating one another.
