Women Leaders: How?

Many cool ideas that I am exposed to these days comes from things my friends share on Facebook.  The other day I clicked on a link to a TED talk by Sheryl Sandberg (who happens to be the COO of Facebook) in which she describes three things for women to consider in terms of how their actions can keep them from taking on leadership roles.

1. Sit at the table:  She talks about how women can marginalize themselves physically and metaphorically in the workplace.  I found myself thinking about this the other day when I walked into a meeting in which I was a surrounded by "high ups" in the school.  Was I taking someone's seat?  Should I move to the end of the table?  Women, as Sandberg shares, tend to underestimate their abilities and so they can tend to marginalize themselves.  No need, sit at the table, and sit up tall.

2. Make your partner your TRUE partner: In relationships where both partners work full-time women end up doing twice the house work and three times the child care that their male partners do.  She talked about the deleterious effect that tis can have on women's perception of their work, and the quality too.  Makes sense.  And it made me think about how lucky I am in my relationship  in which my husband took on being a stay at home dad for our daughter's first two years.

3. Don't leave before you leave: If you are a young woman thinking about someday having kids, don't let that hope cause you to lean back or not take on things that are exciting and challenging to you.  Men who might some day want to have kids won't lean back and disengage from opportunities.

Sandberg based her talk on the reality of disproportionately low numbers of women leaders in all fields despite the fact that women make up half of the population and more than half of current college students.  Sandberg is not suggesting that women are to blame for the dearth of female leaders, but I was energized by the fact that she presents the situation and then gives three actionable items that we can consider to effect change and model true equality for our daughters' generation.  And she gets the challenges, she has two little kids.  A mom, a leader, a thinker- awesome.