Lean In: Chapter 7, Don't Leave Before You Leave

Chapter 7: Don't Leave Before You Leave

This chapter isn't actually split into two parts, but has two discrete messages.

Part 1: Don't opt out before you need to

Sandberg starts this chapter with her famous story about the woman who was thinking of pulling back at work for the sake of her future kids, when she didn't even have a boyfriend.  She backs up this idea of "leaving before you leave" with persuasive evidence that from a young age, both boys and girls learn that women will have a difficult time balancing work with family, while men can expect to focus on work and have a partner who supports them.  As a result, many women limit their careers before they need to, and end up with less satisfying jobs. By the time they do need to pull back temporarily, they are more likely to opt out of their unfulfilling job altogether. So women should lean in before they have kids, so they have more of a choice when the time comes.

However, she does not recommend that every woman lean in all the time. Her example is that she says she turned down the CEO position at LinkedIn because she was trying to get pregnant with kid #2. She doesn't say whether she regretted it, but says Facebook came along when the timing was better and it turned out fine, even though her daughter was only 7 months old and it was really hard for the first 6 months or so. I'm not sure what we should take away from this story.

To help women avoid leaving before they leave, Sandberg says companies should talk openly with employees about their reproductive plans, including during the job interview process. This gets a big fat no from me. If it's done in a very sensitive way by the right person, maybe -- but as a policy, forget it. This requires a major change in the workplace before it's a viable option. And if that change occurred, women wouldn't have to be afraid of reconciling their reproductive plans with work, so it wouldn't be an issue.

Part 2: Both men and women need to be equally likely to be the primary caregiver

When a couple announces that they are having a baby, everyone says "Congratulations!" to the man and "Congratulations! What are you planning on doing about work?" to the woman.

The second half of the chapter discusses the assumption that women will be the primary caregivers for children. She has some sobering but unsurprising statistics here. Women whose husbands work 50+ hours per week are 44% more likely to quit their jobs and care for children than women whose husbands work less. I've seen this repeatedly at the firm, where the intelligent and accomplished wives of my male colleagues drop out of the workforce like flies. Surveys of Harvard Business School and Yale alumni reveal that 90+% of male graduates are continuously employed full-time, while female graduates' full-time participation in the workforce drops to about 50-60% two decades out. Out of male college students who anticipate work-life balance issues, 46% expect their spouse to drop out of the workforce to raise their children. Only 5% of women expect the same. Sandberg argues that "[t]his exodus of highly educated women is a major contributor to the leadership gap."

Sandberg has a great analogy here. A career is like a marathon. As the men run along, people shout words of encouragement. As the women run along, people shout, "You don't have to do this!" or even, "Why are you running when you should be home taking care of your kids?"

She goes on to say why staying in the workforce is a good idea -- satisfaction, potential earnings, ability to have greater satisfaction and more flexible schedules as you grow more senior, difficulty of rejoining the workforce after a break.

Finally, she points out that "[i]f we make it too easy for women to drop out of the career marathon, we also make it too hard for men." Both men and women should be able to make the same choices, and have them be equally valid choices, when it comes to careers and personal lives.