Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In launches leadership program

Ten years after publishing her book “Lean In: Women, Work and the Will to Lead,” Sheryl Sandberg will launch a girls leadership program Thursday through her foundation to respond to what she calls stubborn gender inequities.

“What we realized is that in order to really get to equality, equality in leadership everywhere, from our parliaments to our statehouses to our homes, we’re going to have to go younger,” Sandberg said in an interview with The Associated Press.

The girls leadership program, which includes a middle-school curriculum as well as resources for adults, starts with difficult conversations about the systems and biases that Sandberg said girls face.

“Who wants to say to a girl seven years before she enters the workforce, ‘One day you’re going to be in a meeting and some man is going to talk over you, voice something you just said and get credit for your ideas,’” Sandberg asked. “We don’t want to tell our daughters that.”

But speaking about those biases, she said, then allows for a conversation about how to counteract them.

“We’re going to start telling you the challenges, but then we’re also going to equip you and the people around you to change them,” Sandberg said.

Many nonprofits and schools run programs that encourage girls to lead, particularly teenagers, who research shows may retreat from high-profile roles or limit their ambitions in response to social pressures. However, researchers caution against making broad generalizations about the experiences of all girls and say that any national curriculum needs to be flexible to be relevant.

Lean In piloted the new curriculum with girls 11 to 15 years old, along with partners like the Girl Scouts of Northeast Texas, KIPP Public Charter Schools and the nonprofit Girls Inc. It also plans to provide resources to help adults challenge gender norms in their families, schools and communities. Lean In is a project of the Sandberg Goldberg Bernthal Family Foundation, the private foundation Sandberg started with her late husband, Dave Goldberg. Her second husband, Tom Bernthal, is a member of the board.

Sandberg has acknowledged criticism of her call for women to step up in their roles at work and to ask for additional help from partners at home. The goal of Lean In, she said, including its program for girls, is to secure a fair share of leadership roles for women in business, politics and families and to change ideas about what effective leadership is. Expanding the pool of potential leaders benefits everyone by drawing on the talents of the whole population, she said.

The first half of the 15 hour-long sessions will be freely available online for any caring adult to use, while the second half requires facilitators from partner organizations to participate in training sessions provided by Lean In. To extend its reach, Lean In will also tap the women already engaged with their networking and support circles, asking them to run sessions for teenagers in their communities.