FUTURE TALENT November - January 2019/2020 | Page 79

PERSONAL TRAINING
Lean Out:
The Truth About Women, Power, and the
Workplace
P
RECENT
Marissa Orr, HarperCollins Leadership, 2019
L
ike Sheryl Sandberg, Marissa Orr
honed her thinking while
working at tech giants, but her
experience of being a single mother
at work has led her to exhort women
to “lean out” rather than “lean in”. For
Orr, the gender gap is not about
dysfunctional women who can’t (or
won’t) dial up their assertiveness and
behave more like men; rather, it’s a
function of a dysfunctional and
outdated system that prioritises
male-dominant strengths. Lean Out
charts Orr’s growing disenchantment
with Lean In, arguing that women will
continue to be disadvantaged at
work unless underlying structures
change and diversity programmes
accept that not everyone has the
same aspirations. Orr’s ‘leaning out’
also challenges the idea that female
stereotypes are to be avoided: “Is
there anything less feminist than
implying that men are the ‘norm’…
and that there’s something inherently
less valuable about…women?” Lean
Lean In:
Women, Work, and the Will to Lead
Out is candid and persuasive, looking
again at why more women don’t
make it to the top and arguing for
gender-gap solutions that motivate
women by listening to what they
have to say and acknowledging and
rewarding the traits and behaviours
that make them successful.
CLASSIC
Sheryl Sandberg, W H Allen, 2013
I
t’s hard to believe that Sheryl
S a n d b e rg ’ s Le a n I n wa s
published so recently. Since 2013,
debates around women at work have
exploded into the mainstream, giving
even the most unreconstructed
company leaders pause for thought.
As a result, Sandberg’s Lean In thesis
– that women need to show up and
grab career opportunities – now
seems out of step. Increasingly,
laying the responsibility for resolving
gender imbalance at work with
women seems at odds with a focus
on the barrier effects of wider
organis ational structures and
cultures; witness Marissa Orr’s
counter argument in Lean Out. But
this is to underplay the significance
of a book that was groundbreaking
at the time. Sandberg’s honesty and
her unflinching call to arms – coupled
with her profile – spawned the Lean
In community and marked a step
change in the way we frame the
g e nd e r d i ve r s i t y d e bate . By
encouraging women to play a part in
improving things for their own sake,
and for others, she set in train a
movement that unequivocally set out
the business benefits of gender
diversity and made many women
and men think, and act, differently.
November – January 2019 // 79