Lean In, Breathe Out

Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In:  Women, Work, and the Will to Lead encourages women to try to overcome both the external and internal barriers that prevent women from gaining power and taking advantage of (or better yet, envisioning and creating) leadership opportunities in the workplace.  I thought the most interesting parts of the books were the recent statistics and studies that Sandberg highlights about men and women in the workplace, rather than Sandberg's personal journey from her college days to her now being the COO of Facebook.  Having gone to an MBA program that focuses largely on women's leadership, and having read many books by feminists, I didn't find much of what Sandberg wrote to be new information, though it did confirm and mirror some of my own experiences in the workplace.  The dean of the Mills College MBA program wrote a response article entiled, "Women can move up if men 'lean in'" in which she states, "Sandberg's strategy for change confounds me" because she felt that Sandberg, "continues to place the onus for change on women" as opposed to encouraging men to "lean in" as advocates and allies of women so that they can advance to leadership positions.  I agree with Sands that it is equally, if not more important for men to read Sandberg's manifesto.