Lean In: Sheryl Sandberg's how-to guide for the modern career woman

Lean In is full of gems on how a woman can navigate the minefield of work.

Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead

Sheryl Sandberg

W?H Allen

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A lot of the sniping about Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In is understandable.

After all, the 43-year-old Facebook chief operating officer and married mother of two sums it up succinctly on page 50: “It’s easy to dislike senior women because there are so few. If women held 50 per cent of the top jobs, it would just not be possible to dislike that many people.”

Read Lean In for what it is: a how-to for any working woman in the developed world. Sandberg is full of gems on how to navigate all stages of a career, manage being a working mother – if that is your choice – and what to do with demonstrated and inevitable gender biases.

Sure, Sandberg is rich, has a great partner, can afford a lot of help and famously leaves the office at 5.30pm every night. She has also worked doggedly since her teen years and shrewdly spurned safer offers for risky positions at a young Google and then a young Facebook.

You don’t have to respect her – or even like her. But if you don’t, maybe you should be asking yourself why.