The Express Awards for Women Entrepreneurs, initiated by Financial Express and FICCI-FLO, aims to award women who have not only shown the courage to take up leadership positions but have braved numerous challenges to reach the top and set examples for future entrepreneurs. The keynote interview set the tone for the awards.
It has been eight years since you wrote Lean In. If you were to write it all over again, how much of its central thesis would you change?
I wrote Lean In in 2015 as a tech exec and put a lot of my story into it. So it read too much about women like me, White women from California in tech. Now I would have put so many stories in. The good news is that my foundation, Lean In, did that. On the website, there are hundreds of stories of women from all countries, races, backgrounds, ages and industries. We started Lean In in circles. Our goal was to have a thousand women. Today we have over 58,000 circles all over the world, including those thriving in India.
The pandemic has been a setback for women at the workplace. Your own survey shows that 25 per cent of the women are now considering leaving work due to burnout.
Covid is a health crisis, an economic crisis and a gender equality crisis. Before Covid, women all over the world were working in double shifts. When working women came home, they did the majority of the housework and childcare. Then Covid happened. Now we’re at double-double shift. Which is elderly parents to take care of, illness, kids home from school, kids who have to quarantine because they get an exposure.
My foundation was the first one to survey how women were going to drop out from the workforce. Women’s workforce participation in the US is reaching low levels in decades. Women are still not getting close to their share of leadership roles. It’s 5-7 per cent of the top CEO roles in top countries like the US. This has not changed and Covid is not helping.
I don’t think the trend is very different in India. Can you just remind all of us about the importance of insisting on diversity and having women well-represented in organisations?
We have said for a long time that we should have diversity because it’s the right thing to do. But the message I will take to businesses is it’s also the smart thing to do. Teams that are more diverse perform better. It’s not just in the company’s interest but in your individual interest to hire, promote and have a diverse management team.
All statistics tend to show that there have never been as many women in colleges in India as there are today and there are certain subjects where there are more women than men. What advice would you give these women when they step out and see a glass ceiling?
Did anyone ever ask you that you shouldn’t become a journalist because you might want kids? Of course not. You’re a man. You know how many people have asked me this question? When men enter the workforce, we tell them to go for it. When women enter the workforce, we say ‘you can’t have it all.’ Because ‘what have it all’ means is a job and a family. But most women actually have to work, take up jobs and families. So, telling women they can’t do something they are going to have to do anyway is cruel and leads to the situation we are in.
When I ask women to ‘Lean In’, they should go into the workforce striving for the top. Don’t go in holding back because you know what’s going to happen? Suppose you are competing with some guy. Fast forward to 10 years when you have a family, you are working for him, he is higher paid, he is making the decisions. If he is working for you instead, you can afford childcare and stay in the workforce; you just give yourself options. So, to every young woman out there, “you can have it all.” Go for it and then give yourself more flexibility.
One question from my wife’s book club was about privilege. She said, “I can ‘Lean In’ and go to the workplace because I have the privilege of being able to hire some other woman who doesn’t have that privilege to take care of my child.” How would you respond to that?
A lot of women hold back and they wind up working the same hours for less pay, less responsibility, less impact and less flexibility. I ask aspirants, do you want to be CEO? All of them will say yes, most women will say no. As a CEO, I have probably more flexibility than I had when I was a junior. As you get more senior, you get paid more, have more control, and can create more impact. So the idea you don’t want to go for it in order to have flexibility is a wrong idea.
Is there a glass-ceiling that Silicon Valley has which is tough to break?
There is a glass-ceiling but the thing that my foundation, Lean In, is really focussed on is even before we get to that glass ceiling, there is a broken wrong and it is that first promotion to manager. Men are promoted and hired based on their potential, women have to prove it. Women fall out during the first promotion to manager. Why? Because you cannot prove to your manager until you do it.
One thing you have learnt from women in India.
I have heard so many stories, I will just share one. There is a network leader with LinkedIn in Bengaluru who, during Covid, started an initiative to bring women back to the workforce by reaching out to their husbands and family members. Almost all the women who left the workplace in her circle are now back in. That is inspiring.
Full interview on http://www.financialexpress.com