Why do you need to read “LEAN IN” by Sheryl Sandberg right away!
“I hope you find true meaning, contentment, and passion in your life. I hope you navigate the difficult times and come out with greater strength and resolve. I hope you find whatever balance you seek with your eyes wide open. And I hope that you — yes, you — have the ambition to lean in to your career and run the world. Because the world needs you to change it.”
“Leadership is about making others better as a result of your presence and making sure that impact lasts in your absence.
There are thousands of books focused on women, equality, and feminism but no book can convince you that you woman is a leader, not a Women Leader like society refers as but a Leader just like any other gender is referred as. This book will make you unlearn and relearn women’s role and position as a whole, be it a stay home mom or a working wife / a mother. The author is a successful leader herself shares her experience to the world about what she faced being a top leader (women leader as people refer) in top companies like Facebook, Google etc. She brings her experience in comparison with any of the working women out there and asks each woman to demand the respect and rights she deserves, unlike any working human.
She talks so much about having a baby yet being equally successful just like a man, this only because she alone isn’t the parent but a man too. She emphasizes and tells each woman to make her partner a real partner which means that the partner understands, respects, and learns to be equally responsible at house works, at kids, and at life in general. Another important topic she highlights is letting people choose their life as their own, let Man choose if he wants to stay at home and take care of the house without being judged or a woman is at the office without worrying about people calling her bad mom just because she prioritizing work. She very precisely explains what is the real meaning of feminism and what it means to the world.
This is one such book every woman must read, especially working at office women who always get judged for her choices and every man who thinks it’s a shame taking care of the house and his own child.
Briefing the topics below in short for you all to understand how beautiful and must this book is,
- The leadership Ambition Gap — Professional ambition is expected of men but judged of women- Get rid of it!
- Sit at the table -If you want to be a successful leader, learn to put your hands up and learn to sit at the table, do not compromise!
- Success and Likeability — Accepts her success and like her for that, not just appreciate when men succeed and criticize when women do!
- It’s a jungle gym, not a ladder — Women always reject opportunity because they are not ready yet, but men take it anyway. Make it a habit to take anything even if you are unsure!
- Need of mentor — Stop telling, get a mentor you will excel, instead tell them Excel and you will find a mentor.
- Seek and speak your Truth — The ability to listen is as important as the ability to speak
- Don’t leave before you leave — Of all the ways. the most pervasive is that women leave even before they leave, stop planning your future and work thinking about kids and others even before you are married and having kids.
- Make your partner a real partner — Most of the successful women in the world aren’t the single / separated ones but the ones who is having a supportive partner.
- The myth of doing it all — No you don’t have to do it all and you don’t have to know it all. Be you and be good at what you do!
- Let’s start talking about it — Talk and question it when you are considered different for being a woman, start asking questions when you are referred to as a Women leader instead of a leader!
- Working towards equality — Men needs to support a woman and most importantly women need to understand and support another woman! Men also should be given a choice to choose what makes them happy!
And the below lines from the book is my absolute favs of all,
“Feminism wasn’t supposed to make us feel guilty, or prod us into constant competitions over who is raising children better, organizing more cooperative marriages, or getting less sleep. It was supposed to make us free — to give us not only choices but the ability to make these choices without constantly feeling that we’d somehow gotten it wrong.”
- “Today, despite all of the gains we have made, neither men nor women have a real choice. Until women have supportive employers and colleagues as well as partners who share family responsibilities, they don’t have a real choice. And until men are fully respected for contributing inside the home, they don’t have a real choice either”
- “If we push hard now, this next wave can be the last wave. In the future, there will be no female leaders. There will just be leaders”
I hope each man and women out there get to read this book and excel at their career to be a successful leader. I hope the society we live in becomes less judgemental and more supportive of one’s choices. Accept the fact that all men need not be the same and got to work outside the house full-time but can have a life differently, he might want to stay at home care of the house. Accept the fact that it is okay for men to earn less than his women and yet be happy and manage things well. Accept the fact that not all women have a passion for cooking, not all women like kids and want to have them, also respect the women who love cooking and kids and want to be at home and take care of the house entirely. The choice is yours and lets it only be yours.
Teach your son and daughter both to be equally economically independent and self-sufficient. Cooking and house chores are life skills and have to be taught irrespective of gender, do not label and stamp it to the specific gender and insult them when they do otherwise. Do not make your conversation gender bias instead make them gender inclusive!
I just hope we the generation who has seen it all be a bit more responsible and sensible and bring the change and make the world a better place for all the genders!
