I was really hoping that Sheryl Sandberg would fade back into her day job at Facebook and that her book tour would finally end so I could quit hearing about “Lean In.” I realize that I cannot speak for women in the workplace but neither should Sandberg or someone like Reese Witherspoon, who is featured on leanin.org for overcoming her fear of public speaking so she could become the spokesperson for cosmetics giant Avon. Really? I’m not worried about the lack of opportunity or confidence for anyone – woman or man – with a Harvard B.A. and M.B.A. who has worked at World Bank, McKinsey, The Department of the Treasury, Google and Facebook. Other people seem to agree with me, including these two accomplished women: Sheryl Sandberg’s ‘Lean In’ campaign holds little for most women; or Sheryl Sandberg Lean’s into another controversy. 

Why “Lean in” anyway? I’m assuming they have a class at business school that teaches aggressive behavior. I’ve had bosses tell me to “lean in.” It was bad advice and it never worked. My impression is that the single biggest problem with business leaders – and our current crop of politicians – who have elite educations and make millions of dollars is not that they don’t lean in, it’s that they have lost touch with reality.  I suppose it’s kind of hard to keep it real when you reportedly cash in $90 million in Facebook stock right? In today’s corporate and political climate, it seems like compromise and collaboration should be valued and celebrated more than aggression. Do you think the government would have shut down last year if our political leaders were more collaborative? I’ve seen some interesting research from a corporation that was having problems with new leaders failing – both men and women. You know what the biggest problem was? They were too aggressive, they burned too many bridges, they failed to see people on their teams and in other departments as people and instead saw them as obstacles to profit and career advancement. 

Apparently Sandberg is really committed to being in the news because now she’s back with a few celebrities and the girls scouts trying to ban the word “bossy,” I thought she over did it before, but this may be an even worse idea and less helpful than leaning. Here’s a nice piece by a woman who is much smarter than me and has actually done research on this topic. Her name is Peggy Drexler, and is the author of “Our Fathers, Ourselves: Daughters, Fathers, and the Changing American Family” and “Raising Boys Without Men.” She is an assistant professor of psychology at Cornell University. One of her quotes is worth repeating here in case you don’t read her entire opinion piece published on CNN: 

“Let’s not forget: There is evidence that girls and women aren’t in fact being overlooked, or discouraged into meekness. Girls are outperforming boys in schools. More women than men are graduating college and going on to earn as much, if not more, than their male partners. Fortune’s latest ranking of America’s 500 largest corporations includes more female CEOs than ever.”

I want to comment specifically on the fact that girls are outperforming boys in schools – that is certainly true in K-12 public education. I used to work in public education and I learned that the much maligned “No Child Left Behind” law was actually going to report scores by gender as well as every other grouping but that scores for boys were much lower than girls and “they” thought it would distract from the focus on raising test scores. In addition, the facts are there about the new gender imbalance in colleges and universities across America as well. The fact is that boys are being left behind or at least at the back of the class according to this piece in the NY Times.

Finally, to quote Spiderman’s uncle, “with great power, comes great responsibility.” So, I ask this simple question, if Sandberg really wanted to put her considerable wealth and influence to work, how could she? I have ideas. Even if she just wanted to help women, which I would be fine with, I can think of several more valuable and worthwhile ways than teaching them to lean or banning the word bossy. Here are two easy ones for someone like Sandberg, first, if you insist on being aggressive, how about helping young girls who have difficulty with bullying and their self image? Second, probably the easiest one for an executive at a technology company – what about getting more girls interested in technology and engineering careers? Those problems are real. They could be solved or at least affected by wealth and influence right? I think Uncle Ben would be proud of that.