Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead by Sheryl Sandberg

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Recommended: An essay on women power

Lean In: Women, Work and The Will To Lead, by Sheryl Sandberg, addresses how women can achieve professional achievement and overcome the lack of leadership progress that has been absent over the past few years. Sandberg uses personal experience, research and humor to examine the choices that working women make everyday. She argues that women can achieve professional goals while still being happy within their personal lives. She argues this by going into detail about what risks to take, how to pursue certain professional goals and how to overcome struggles such as balancing a family and a career. All through Lean In, Sandberg uses the fourth dimension of interpersonal effects through a Narrative to show her indicated stance on gender construction, she includes examples of marked forms as well as cultural gender expectations within communication.
From the start of the introduction Sandberg indicates her stance, a key factor to a narrative, by saying “It has been more than two decades since I entered the workforce, and so much is still the same. It is time for us to face the fact that our revolution has stalled. The promise of equality is not the same as true equality”(Sandberg, 7). She writes about equality in hopes that one day we will live in an equal world. The only way to achieve this goal is by affecting the identities of today’s women. Some women may be persuaded to change their identities through reason, such as why it’s important for women to “lean in”. Sandberg elaborates her reasoning by saying “I believe that if more women lean in, we can change the power structure of our world and expand opportunities for all”(Sandberg, 171). She is telling her own story as well as others to fully relate to the audience in hope of chan...

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...ory. A main weakness would be how she discusses a certain topic in one chapter and then in the next she goes against everything she just said. For example she discusses the topic of mentors and how she does not really agree with people seeking mentors but then goes onto write “The more women help one another, the more we help ourselves. Acting like a coalition truly does produce results”(Sandberg, 164). This statement like others in the book leaves you wondering what she truly believes because she continues to contradict herself. Even with this said the book outweighs in strengths than weaknesses. Its main strength is its persuasiveness to influence the future and get rid of the gender biases of today. Her personal stories and success show that it is possible for women to “lean in”.

Works Cited

Sandberg, Sheryl. Lean In . New York : Alfred A. Knopf, 2013. Print.

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