Episode 35- Review and Summary of Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg

As someone who works with a team mostly composed of women, and also have the chance to lead my team with women. This was a very eye-opening book as I too have a small little girl in my life who I want to Lean In and seize the opportunities she has in life and be strong enough to stand toe to toe with the rest.

It sheds light on how even in today's modern society where 57% of undergrads and 60% of master’s degrees in the US from are women, gender inequality exists, at home and in the workforce. Sheryl shares anecdotes from her own life to bring attention to this fact as well as solid data to back it up.

She informs us as a top Exec at Facebook, that career progression depends on taking risks and confidently advocating for ourselves, which girls are discouraged to do starting a very young age, because, for some odd and weird reason, we think that success and achievement are reserved for the men in society only.

Her goal for writing this book is that she contends that in her lifetime, data shows that this inequality will not be corrected, but she hopes to bring this to our attention so that we the younger generation can have a better effect on it and as we raise our little girls to be women.

As both a father of a daughter, husband to my wife and leader to some women in the workplace. I took away powerful lessons I can share with them and also how I should act to empower them to be the best versions of themselves.

My favorite quote from this book is this.

“In the future, there will be no female leaders. There will just be leaders.”

The book presents so many great lessons. I will focus on the 5 main key takeaways from it.

So let’s dive right in.

A final quote I would like to share with you is this

“A truly equal world would be one where women ran half our countries and companies and men ran half our homes.”

Allow me to leave you with my final thoughts.

Women today are still taking a backseat in leadership positions despite the ardent push for gender equality.

This is caused by the still existing gender biases and stereotypes, as well as women’s lack of confidence in themselves and the anxiety of trying to balance raising a family and a career.

In order to change this for the future of our children, we must start today, from our current dealings with women and the way we raise our daughters.

I will definitely keep my awareness up to help my daughter feel empowered to take a seat at the table and step up for other women, only when we do this can we correct these issues and benefit our entire society as a whole.