Why do talented people sometimes hold themselves back?
Why do capable women remain underrepresented in senior leadership, ownership and board positions?
Why can two equally qualified people assess the same opportunity differently—one thinking, “I can do this”, while the other thinks, “I’m not ready yet”?
And how much of this is about individual confidence and choice—and how much reflects organisational structures, workplace expectations, family responsibilities, cultural norms and unconscious assumptions?
These are some of the questions at the heart of Sheryl Sandberg’s LEAN IN: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead.
Published in 2013, LEAN IN became one of the most discussed leadership books of its era. Sandberg, then Chief Operating Officer of Facebook, combined personal experiences, research and workplace observations to examine why women continued to be significantly underrepresented in positions of power and influence.
The book’s central message became encapsulated in two words:
Lean in.
Speak up.
Take the opportunity.
Sit at the table.
Negotiate.
Seek responsibility.
Don’t automatically disqualify yourself.
Don’t allow anticipated future circumstances to restrict present opportunities.
And don’t assume that a successful career and meaningful personal life must necessarily be mutually exclusive.
More than a decade later, some aspects of the book deserve critical reconsideration. The workplace has changed. Sandberg’s own career and Facebook’s controversies inevitably influence how some readers now view the author. Critics have also questioned whether LEAN IN places too much responsibility on individual women to overcome barriers that are partly structural.
Those criticisms matter.
But dismissing the book entirely because it is imperfect would overlook a number of important leadership lessons.
For small-to-medium business owners and leaders, LEAN IN raises questions extending well beyond gender.
It asks us to examine confidence, opportunity, leadership pipelines, workplace culture, mentoring, sponsorship, flexibility, unconscious assumptions and whether talented people genuinely have an equal opportunity to contribute and progress.
That makes it highly relevant to anyone responsible for building and leading an organisation.
Table of Contents (Leadership Development Perth)
- Who Is Sheryl Sandberg?
- What Is LEAN IN Really About?
- The Leadership Ambition Gap
- Sit at the Table
- Success and Likeability
- Don’t Leave Before You Leave
- Careers Are a Jungle Gym, Not a Ladder
- Mentors and Sponsors Matter
- Seek and Speak Your Truth
- Make Your Partner a Real Partner
- The Myth of Doing It All
- Confidence, Competence and Self-Doubt
- Why SME Leaders Should Care About Gender Equality
- Talent Is Too Valuable to Waste
- The Role of Workplace Culture
- Flexible Work Without Creating a Two-Tier Workforce
- What LEAN IN Gets Right
- Where LEAN IN Deserves Criticism
- Individual Agency Versus Structural Barriers
- Leadership Lessons That Apply to Everyone
- A Practical LEAN IN Framework for SME Leaders
- Practical Recommendations
- Key Takeaways
- FAQs
- Conclusion
Who Is Sheryl Sandberg? (Leadership Development Perth)
Sheryl Sandberg became one of the world’s most prominent female technology executives.
Before joining Facebook, she worked at Google and earlier served in the US Treasury Department. At Facebook, later renamed Meta, she became Chief Operating Officer and played an important role in developing the company’s advertising business and commercial model.
When LEAN IN was published, Sandberg was therefore writing from an unusual position.
She had reached a level of corporate leadership occupied by relatively few women.
Rather than presenting her career as evidence that gender inequality had been solved, she used her experiences to examine why relatively few women were reaching similar positions.
That distinction is important.
The book is partly autobiographical, partly motivational and partly an examination of workplace inequality.
It is not an academic study of gender economics.
Nor is it a comprehensive organisational strategy for achieving workplace equality.
It is better understood as an argument for combining individual agency with organisational change—although, as we will examine later, critics reasonably argue that the balance tilts too heavily towards the individual.
What Is LEAN IN Really About? (Personal Leadership Perth)
The superficial interpretation is:
Women need to become more confident and ambitious.
That is too simplistic.
The deeper argument is that career outcomes emerge from an interaction between:
Individual choices + Organisational systems + Social expectations + Family structures + Workplace culture
Sandberg focuses particularly strongly on individual choices.
She encourages women to recognise ways they may unintentionally restrict themselves.
Not applying for a promotion because they do not meet every criterion.
Underestimating their competence.
Avoiding negotiation.
Allowing anticipated future family responsibilities to influence current career decisions.
Remaining quiet when they should contribute.
Declining opportunities because they doubt their readiness.
But Sandberg also recognises that organisations and society contribute to these behaviours.
That creates an important leadership question:
Are people in your organisation genuinely choosing not to progress—or have you created an environment that makes progression unnecessarily difficult?
Those are very different problems.
The Leadership Ambition Gap (Leadership Development Perth)
One of Sandberg’s central concerns is the disparity between men and women occupying senior leadership positions.
She examines what became known as the leadership ambition gap.
This does not mean women inherently possess less ambition.
Rather, ambition develops within a social and organisational context.
People observe who gets promoted.
Who is heard.
Who receives opportunities.
Who is interrupted.
Who is rewarded for assertiveness.
Who receives flexibility.
Who carries disproportionate responsibilities outside work.
Who looks like the existing leadership team.
Over time, these signals can influence aspiration.
This has important implications for SME owners.
If every senior leader in your business has historically looked, behaved and progressed in essentially the same way, ask:
Are we selecting purely for capability—or unconsciously selecting for familiarity?
That question extends beyond gender.
It goes to the heart of leadership diversity.
Sit at the Table (Leadership Development Perth)
Perhaps the best-known story in LEAN IN concerns women literally and metaphorically sitting at the table.
Sandberg observed situations where women who clearly belonged in senior discussions positioned themselves away from the central decision-making table.
The physical behaviour represented something larger.
Do you regard yourself as entitled to contribute?
Do you speak when you have something valuable to say?
Do you wait for permission?
Do you underestimate your expertise?
Do you assume other people know more?
This is where the book becomes relevant to leadership development generally.
Every organisation contains capable people who remain quieter than their contribution warrants.
Meanwhile, confidence and competence are not always positively correlated.
The loudest person in the room is not necessarily the most knowledgeable.
Good leaders therefore have two responsibilities:
Encourage capable people to contribute.
And:
Ensure confident people do not monopolise contribution.
A high-performing leadership team needs both psychological safety and intellectual challenge.
Success and Likeability (Personal Leadership Perth)
One of the more uncomfortable issues Sandberg explores is the relationship between success and likeability.
Research discussed in the book suggested that successful men and women could sometimes be evaluated differently for similar behaviour.
Characteristics such as assertiveness, ambition and decisiveness may be interpreted positively in a male leader but less favourably when displayed by a woman.
This creates a leadership dilemma.
A woman may receive contradictory expectations:
Be confident—but not too confident.
Be ambitious—but don’t appear aggressive.
Be decisive—but remain likeable.
Lead—but don’t make others uncomfortable.
Whether every workplace exhibits these patterns equally is beside the point.
The important question for SME leaders is:
Do we evaluate behaviour consistently?
If one employee is described as:
“Decisive.”
while another displaying essentially identical behaviour is described as:
“Difficult.”
ask why.
Leadership requires challenging inconsistent standards, even when those inconsistencies are unconscious.
Don’t Leave Before You Leave (Leadership Development Perth)
This is one of Sandberg’s most practically useful concepts.
She describes women making career decisions based upon family responsibilities that have not yet materialised.
Someone may anticipate having children several years in the future and begin reducing career ambition today.
She may decline a promotion.
Avoid a challenging assignment.
Choose not to apply for a leadership position.
Step away from a development opportunity.
By the time family responsibilities actually arrive, she may already have reduced her career options considerably.
Sandberg’s advice is essentially:
Don’t leave before you leave.
For employers, however, there is another side.
Why do employees believe they must choose so early?
What signals is the workplace sending?
Does senior leadership appear compatible with family life?
Are flexible arrangements genuinely accepted?
Do employees believe taking parental leave damages advancement?
Do managers judge commitment by hours visibly spent at work?
An SME cannot control every social factor affecting careers.
But it can control much of its own culture.
Careers Are a Jungle Gym, Not a Ladder (Business Growth Perth)
Sandberg challenges the traditional idea of a career ladder.
A ladder suggests one direction:
Up.
A jungle gym permits movement sideways, diagonally, downward temporarily and eventually upward through a different route.
This is particularly relevant in SMEs.
Smaller businesses frequently cannot provide traditional corporate career ladders.
There may be only one CEO.
One CFO.
One Operations Manager.
One Sales Manager.
If career progression means promotion alone, talented employees may conclude they need to leave.
Instead, SME leaders can create development through:
broader responsibilities,
new projects,
cross-functional experience,
customer exposure,
leadership assignments,
geographical moves,
secondments,
mentoring,
professional development,
profit responsibility.
The question should therefore change from:
“What job can we promote this person into?”
to:
“What experience does this person need next?”
That creates a much richer approach to talent development.
Mentors and Sponsors Matter (Business Coach Perth)
Sandberg discusses the importance of mentoring but also challenges the simplistic instruction:
“Get a mentor.”
Strong mentoring relationships often develop because someone demonstrates potential and another person becomes invested in helping them.
There is also an important distinction between mentoring and sponsorship.
A mentor advises you.
A sponsor advocates for you.
A mentor might say:
“You should apply for that role.”
A sponsor might tell the decision-maker:
“You should seriously consider her for that role.”
That difference is enormous.
SME owners should ask:
Who are we actively developing?
Who receives exposure?
Whose name comes up when opportunities arise?
Are managers sponsoring talent—or simply waiting for employees to demand advancement?
This connects directly with effective business coaching and mentoring, where development involves not simply giving answers but helping people build judgement, confidence and capability.
Seek and Speak Your Truth (Leadership Development Perth)
Sandberg encourages honest communication.
This sounds straightforward.
It rarely is.
Organisations frequently say:
“We encourage open communication.”
Employees hear:
“Be open—but understand that disagreeing with the wrong person may have consequences.”
Good leadership requires creating an environment where respectful disagreement is possible.
That means leaders must be able to hear:
“I think you’re wrong.”
“I don’t understand the strategy.”
“This target is unrealistic.”
“The customer is unhappy.”
“We made a mistake.”
“I need help.”
“I disagree with this decision.”
Without punishing the messenger.
The true test of psychological safety is not whether employees are comfortable agreeing with you.
It is whether they feel safe disagreeing with you intelligently.
Make Your Partner a Real Partner (Personal Leadership Perth)
One of Sandberg’s most discussed arguments concerns domestic responsibilities.
Career equality cannot be considered purely within the workplace if responsibility outside the workplace remains significantly unequal.
Household work.
Childcare.
School responsibilities.
Elder care.
Family administration.
Emotional labour.
These demands affect people’s capacity to participate professionally.
For SME leaders, this is not an invitation to intrude into employees’ private relationships.
It is a reminder that employees do not arrive at work detached from the rest of their lives.
Policies around flexibility, parental leave and working arrangements influence whether talented people can continue contributing during different stages of life.
This increasingly applies to men as well as women.
A workplace in which fathers feel unable to participate meaningfully in family responsibilities is not necessarily supporting equality either.
The Myth of Doing It All (Leadership Development Perth)
One of the damaging expectations surrounding successful professionals is the idea that they should be able to do everything exceptionally well simultaneously.
Perfect executive.
Perfect parent.
Perfect partner.
Perfect friend.
Perfectly healthy.
Perfect home.
Perfectly organised.
Always available.
It is unrealistic.
Leadership inevitably involves trade-offs.
The same is true for SME owners.
You cannot simultaneously maximise:
family time,
personal health,
social commitments,
community involvement,
travel,
learning,
and leisure
without eventually confronting constraints.
The objective is not perfect balance every day.
It is making conscious choices about priorities over time.
That requires self-awareness and the willingness to acknowledge that saying yes to one priority frequently means saying no to another.
Confidence, Competence and Self-Doubt (Leadership Development Perth)
One of the most enduring themes in LEAN IN is the relationship between confidence and competence.
Highly competent people can doubt themselves.
Less competent people can display extraordinary confidence.
Organisations that equate confidence with leadership potential therefore risk making poor decisions.
Consider two candidates.
Candidate A says:
“I’ve done most of this before. I’m confident I can handle it.”
Candidate B says:
“I haven’t done every component of the role, but I believe I can learn.”
Which one has greater potential?
You cannot know from those statements.
Leadership selection needs evidence.
Track record.
Judgement.
Learning ability.
Integrity.
Capability.
Values.
Potential.
Confidence matters.
But confidence should never become a proxy for competence.
Why SME Leaders Should Care About Gender Equality (Business Advisor Perth)
There is a temptation to treat gender equality as primarily a social or compliance issue.
For SME owners, it is also a talent and performance issue.
Your business competes for capable people.
If organisational practices unintentionally make it more difficult for a substantial proportion of the talent pool to succeed, you are restricting your own options.
Think commercially.
You want:
the best leaders,
the strongest ideas,
the deepest talent pool,
better decisions,
high employee retention,
different perspectives,
strong succession candidates.
Why would you unnecessarily reduce the pool from which those people can emerge?
This is where an experienced Business Advisor Perth or independent board perspective can be useful in challenging long-standing assumptions about organisational structure, leadership and succession.
Talent Is Too Valuable to Waste (Business Improvement Perth)
For SMEs, talent constraints can be severe.
Large corporations can maintain graduate programs, succession pools and extensive specialist teams.
An SME may depend heavily on a relatively small number of high-performing people.
Losing one exceptional employee can matter enormously.
That makes avoidable talent loss expensive.
Consider the real cost:
recruitment,
onboarding,
training,
lost knowledge,
customer disruption,
reduced productivity,
management time,
cultural impact.
A flexible working arrangement that retains an exceptional employee may therefore make considerably more economic sense than insisting on rigid practices simply because:
“That’s how we’ve always done it.”
Good business performance improvement should therefore examine people practices alongside financial and operational performance.
The Role of Workplace Culture (Leadership Development Perth)
Culture determines whether the principles Sandberg advocates can actually operate.
A policy may say:
Flexible work is supported.
Culture may say:
People who work flexibly aren’t serious about their careers.
A policy may say:
We encourage people to speak up.
Culture may say:
Don’t challenge the owner.
A policy may say:
Promotion is merit-based.
Culture may say:
People like us get promoted.
This is why organisational culture is revealed less by written policies than by what actually happens.
Who gets rewarded?
Who gets promoted?
Who gets forgiven?
Who gets heard?
Who receives opportunities?
Who is expected to compromise?
Who can challenge the CEO?
Those behaviours reveal the real culture.
Flexible Work Without Creating a Two-Tier Workforce (Leadership Development Perth)
Flexible work has become considerably more prominent since LEAN IN was published.
But flexibility creates its own leadership challenges.
Poorly designed flexibility can create two classes of employees:
those physically visible to leadership,
and those less visible.
If opportunities disproportionately flow to the first group, flexibility can inadvertently damage careers.
SME leaders therefore need to manage performance based increasingly on:
outcomes, contribution, accountability and results
rather than merely physical presence.
Not every role can be flexible in the same way.
A truck driver cannot drive remotely.
A warehouse employee cannot load goods from home.
A technician may need to attend customer sites.
Fairness therefore does not necessarily mean identical arrangements.
It means creating reasonable and equitable arrangements appropriate to the work.
What LEAN IN Gets Right (Leadership Development Perth)
Several ideas remain particularly valuable.
First, people can unintentionally underestimate themselves.
Second, organisations should ensure capable people genuinely have opportunities to contribute.
Third, mentors and sponsors can materially influence careers.
Fourth, family responsibilities and workplace structures cannot be considered entirely separately.
Fifth, leadership teams should question whether they evaluate identical behaviour differently depending upon who demonstrates it.
Sixth, career development does not have to follow a straight line.
And seventh, organisations lose when talented people withdraw unnecessarily from leadership pathways.
These ideas remain highly relevant.
Where LEAN IN Deserves Criticism (Business Advisor Perth)
A credible review must also acknowledge the book’s limitations.
The most significant criticism is that LEAN IN can appear to place excessive responsibility on individual women.
Speak more confidently.
Negotiate harder.
Take the opportunity.
Sit at the table.
Choose a supportive partner.
Don’t leave prematurely.
All may be useful advice.
But individual behaviour cannot eliminate structural problems.
An employee cannot personally fix:
discriminatory promotion systems,
inadequate childcare,
poor parental leave,
harassment,
inflexible working structures,
unequal pay,
biased recruitment,
toxic leadership.
There is also the issue of perspective.
Sandberg wrote from an extraordinarily privileged professional and financial position. Some of the choices available to a senior Silicon Valley executive are simply unavailable to a single parent, lower-paid employee, casual worker or small-business employee with limited flexibility.
That does not make Sandberg’s experience irrelevant.
It means it should not be treated as universal.
Individual Agency Versus Structural Barriers (Leadership Development Perth)
This is perhaps the most useful way to reinterpret LEAN IN today.
We do not need to choose between:
Individuals have agency.
and:
Organisations create barriers.
Both can be true.
Individuals should develop confidence.
Organisations should remove unnecessary barriers.
Individuals should negotiate.
Leaders should ensure remuneration systems are fair.
Individuals should seek opportunities.
Organisations should distribute opportunities intelligently.
Individuals should speak.
Leaders should create environments in which speaking is safe.
The strongest contemporary interpretation of Sandberg’s argument may therefore be:
Encourage people to lean in—and build organisations worth leaning into.
That places responsibility where it belongs.
On both sides.
Leadership Lessons That Apply to Everyone (Leadership Development Perth)
Although LEAN IN focuses principally on women, several lessons are universal.
Don’t automatically disqualify yourself.
Ask for opportunities.
Develop your voice.
Seek feedback.
Build relationships.
Find mentors.
Become a mentor.
Sponsor talented people.
Negotiate thoughtfully.
Accept that careers are rarely linear.
Choose partners and colleagues who support your ambitions.
Recognise that confidence and competence are different.
Don’t allow perfectionism to prevent action.
And understand that leadership development requires participation.
Nobody can build your career entirely for you.
A Practical LEAN IN Framework for SME Leaders (Leadership Development Perth)
The book’s lessons can be translated into a simple six-part organisational framework.
L — LISTEN
Whose voices are being heard—and whose are missing?
E — EVALUATE
Are performance, promotion and remuneration decisions based on consistent criteria?
A — ADVANCE
Are capable people actively receiving development opportunities?
N — NORMALISE
Have flexibility, parental responsibilities and different career paths become genuinely accepted?
I — INCLUDE
Do people feel able to contribute, disagree and participate in decisions?
N — NURTURE
Are leaders mentoring, sponsoring and developing the next generation?
This creates:
Listen → Evaluate → Advance → Normalise → Include → Nurture
It moves LEAN IN from an individual instruction to an organisational leadership discipline.
Practical Recommendations for SME Owners & Leaders (Leadership Development Perth)
Consider reviewing your organisation against the following questions:
- Who sits on your leadership team, and why?
- Who could potentially join it within the next three years?
- Are capable women represented in your succession pipeline?
- Do promotion criteria reward results or visibility?
- Are identical leadership behaviours evaluated consistently?
- Who receives your organisation’s most valuable development opportunities?
- Are managers actively sponsoring high-potential employees?
- Do flexible workers receive equal access to advancement?
- Can employees disagree with senior leaders safely?
- Are parental responsibilities treated as a normal part of working life?
- Are you losing talented people for reasons you could reasonably address?
- Are confidence and charisma being mistaken for leadership potential?
- Are your recruitment practices accessing the widest credible talent pool?
- Does your workplace culture genuinely match your stated values?
- What would your female employees say about career opportunity if management were not in the room?
That final question may be particularly revealing.
Key Takeaways (Leadership Development Perth)
LEAN IN provides several valuable lessons for SME owners and leaders.
Capable people sometimes underestimate themselves.
Confidence should not be confused with competence.
People need opportunities as well as encouragement.
Mentoring matters, but sponsorship can be even more powerful.
Careers do not need to follow a conventional ladder.
Family responsibilities and workplace structures interact.
Flexible work needs to be designed so it does not inadvertently restrict career progression.
Workplace culture is revealed by behaviour, not policy statements.
Gender equality is not merely a social issue—it is also a talent, leadership and business-performance issue.
Individual agency matters, but individuals cannot personally overcome every structural barrier.
And perhaps the most useful contemporary extension of Sandberg’s message is:
Don’t merely tell talented people to lean in. Build a business they genuinely want to lean into.
Frequently Asked Questions About LEAN IN (Leadership Development Perth)
What is LEAN IN by Sheryl Sandberg about?
LEAN IN examines women, work, leadership, ambition and the personal, organisational and social factors affecting women’s progression into senior leadership.
What does “lean in” mean?
It broadly means actively participating in opportunities rather than automatically holding yourself back—speaking up, seeking responsibility, negotiating, contributing and pursuing leadership.
Is LEAN IN only relevant to women?
No. Although women and leadership are its principal focus, many lessons concerning confidence, mentoring, career development, communication and workplace culture apply broadly.
What does “sit at the table” mean?
It is both literal and metaphorical. Sandberg encourages capable people to recognise that they belong in important discussions and should contribute rather than positioning themselves on the margins.
What does “don’t leave before you leave” mean?
It refers to making career-limiting decisions in anticipation of future family responsibilities before those circumstances actually arise.
What does Sandberg mean when she says careers are a jungle gym?
Career development does not always occur through consecutive promotions. Sideways moves, different assignments and varied experiences can create valuable pathways to leadership.
What is the difference between a mentor and a sponsor?
A mentor provides advice and guidance. A sponsor actively advocates for someone’s advancement and opportunities.
What are the major criticisms of LEAN IN?
Critics argue that it can overemphasise individual behaviour while insufficiently addressing structural inequality, and that some advice reflects Sandberg’s unusually privileged circumstances.
Is LEAN IN still relevant today?
Many of its themes remain highly relevant, although changes in workplace flexibility, gender expectations and contemporary thinking about structural barriers mean parts deserve reinterpretation.
What can SME owners learn from LEAN IN?
They can examine whether their businesses identify and develop talent fairly, create genuine advancement opportunities, support flexibility, encourage different voices and avoid confusing confidence with competence.
Why does gender diversity matter to SMEs?
Because unnecessarily restricting the leadership talent pool can weaken recruitment, retention, succession and decision-making.
Does flexible work improve gender equality?
It can, but only if employees using flexible arrangements retain genuine access to development, visibility, responsibility and promotion.
What is the biggest leadership lesson from LEAN IN?
Leadership opportunity depends on both individual participation and organisational conditions. People need to step forward, but leaders must create environments in which talented people can genuinely succeed.
Is LEAN IN worth reading for SME owners and leaders?
Yes, particularly when read critically. Its strongest value lies in prompting leaders to examine confidence, opportunity, workplace culture, talent development and the assumptions influencing who progresses.
Conclusion: Don’t Just Ask Women to Lean In—Ask Whether Your Organisation Lets Talent Rise (Leadership Development Perth)
LEAN IN became influential because it articulated experiences many professional women recognised.
It also became controversial because the problem it sought to address was more complicated than individual confidence and ambition.
Both things can be true.
Sandberg was right to encourage women not to underestimate themselves.
But organisations also need to examine why talented people sometimes believe they do not belong at the table in the first place.
That distinction is enormously important for SME owners.
The objective should not be to promote somebody simply because they are a woman.
Nor should the objective be diversity for appearance’s sake.
The objective should be to create an organisation in which talent can rise without irrelevant barriers preventing it from doing so.
That requires more than policies.
It requires leadership.
Look around your leadership table.
Then look one level below it.
And another.
Who are your future leaders?
Who has potential that has not yet been fully recognised?
Who receives encouragement?
Who receives sponsorship?
Who is quietly assuming they are not ready?
Who is leaving because the organisation cannot accommodate an important stage of their life?
Who speaks?
Who gets interrupted?
Who receives the difficult assignments that create future leaders?
Who gets forgiven for making mistakes?
Who gets promoted?
And perhaps most importantly:
What assumptions are influencing those outcomes without anyone consciously deciding that they should?
The enduring value of LEAN IN is not that it provides all the answers.
It doesn’t.
Its value is that it encourages difficult questions about ambition, confidence, opportunity and leadership.
For SME owners and leaders, I would extend Sandberg’s famous invitation one step further:
Encourage talented people to lean in.
Give them a genuine seat at the table.
Judge them on capability and contribution.
Develop them.
Sponsor them.
Listen to them.
And build an organisation in which the best people—women and men—have a genuine opportunity to become the leaders they are capable of becoming.**
