So if Sheryl Sandberg isn't a role model for working women in the private sector, then who is?

[Anonymous]

Meg Whitman

I would have said Carly Fiorina, but to be fair, her dad was Dean of Duke Law School and Deputy AG, so she didn't roll up her sleeves from nothing.

Ginny Rometty

Indra Nooyi

[Anonymous]

I've worked with a few but they aren't famous.

[Anonymous]

I think it's more effective to use someone you actually know or have things in common with as a role model. It's not like my husband is looking up to and trying to emulate Bill Gates or Warren Buffett. He's looking at the leaders within his firm that he respects. I don't see why it should be any different for women.

[Anonymous]

Megyn Kelly?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it's more effective to use someone you actually know or have things in common with as a role model. It's not like my husband is looking up to and trying to emulate Bill Gates or Warren Buffett. He's looking at the leaders within his firm that he respects. I don't see why it should be any different for women.

It isn't, or it shouldn't be, unless you really want examples of WOMEN in your organizations in leadership roles who inspire you. There is a dearth in nearly every field, and that is the challenge many of these posts discuss.

[Anonymous]

How about the countless women who balance all that they need to do. Who work their asses off and end up as GS-15s, supervisors, VPs., accounting/law/finance partners. How about the career school teachers who despite the low pay and lack of prestige somehow manage to live a fulfilling life and participate in their own families. How about just everyday people who are not rockstars but nonetheless find themselves at the top of their personal and professional heap. It doesn't matter if its the highest peak out there. How about them as role models?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sheryl Sandberg has done squat to improve workplace culture to make it easier for both men and women to balance having lives and having jobs. But, I guess, she did get some people talking who wouldn't otherwise.

I posted this in another thread, but if you'd like to have a rich lady who knows all the right people to look up to, you should also read Anne Marie Slaughter's book for an alternative perspective. Ginni Rometty, CEO of IBM, is also pretty impressive and an actual engineer. There are several other fairly impressive business leaders on the 50 Forbes Women list.

I mean, I guess I don't dislike her except for the accolades people pour on her make me feel ill. OTOH, part of the problem is that there are so few perspectives from female C-level executives, she probably gets more scrutiny and criticism for the parts she misses than she deserves.

Love Ann Marie Slaughter's writing on work life balance, it really resonated with me. But she was not using it as a platform for her "brand," so not as talked about.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How about the countless women who balance all that they need to do. Who work their asses off and end up as GS-15s, supervisors, VPs., accounting/law/finance partners. How about the career school teachers who despite the low pay and lack of prestige somehow manage to live a fulfilling life and participate in their own families. How about just everyday people who are not rockstars but nonetheless find themselves at the top of their personal and professional heap. It doesn't matter if its the highest peak out there. How about them as role models?

+1

I have no desire to manage people and am much happier as an independent contributor. My definition of a role model is not a CEO, CFO, etc. There are many "everyday people" who nicely balance professional and personal lives. I see them as role models.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:How about the countless women who balance all that they need to do. Who work their asses off and end up as GS-15s, supervisors, VPs., accounting/law/finance partners. How about the career school teachers who despite the low pay and lack of prestige somehow manage to live a fulfilling life and participate in their own families. How about just everyday people who are not rockstars but nonetheless find themselves at the top of their personal and professional heap. It doesn't matter if its the highest peak out there. How about them as role models?

Well said indeed.

I personally was quite disturbed when I saw Sandberg's countless media appearances and interviews promoting her new book in the past week or so - it made me wonder at what point in the last two years (even less!) she went "gee, I can get a book deal out of this".
She might be a wonderful person and her new book might indeed be helpful to many of her readers but somehow this culture of endless self-promotion in some ...err... "role models" just rubs me the wrong way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about the countless women who balance all that they need to do. Who work their asses off and end up as GS-15s, supervisors, VPs., accounting/law/finance partners. How about the career school teachers who despite the low pay and lack of prestige somehow manage to live a fulfilling life and participate in their own families. How about just everyday people who are not rockstars but nonetheless find themselves at the top of their personal and professional heap. It doesn't matter if its the highest peak out there. How about them as role models?

Well said indeed.

I personally was quite disturbed when I saw Sandberg's countless media appearances and interviews promoting her new book in the past week or so - it made me wonder at what point in the last two years (even less!) she went "gee, I can get a book deal out of this".
She might be a wonderful person and her new book might indeed be helpful to many of her readers but somehow this culture of endless self-promotion in some ...err... "role models" just rubs me the wrong way.

Can you imagine writing the same critique of a man who wrote a book about workplace culture and leadership?

I can't. Sandberg is one person who wrote about her experiences. Thousands of men have done the same thing, some more successfully, some less. But you don't see their character endlessly attacked, do you? You can take it or leave it, but her advice clearly resonates with millions of people (including this single mom who earns five figures).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about the countless women who balance all that they need to do. Who work their asses off and end up as GS-15s, supervisors, VPs., accounting/law/finance partners. How about the career school teachers who despite the low pay and lack of prestige somehow manage to live a fulfilling life and participate in their own families. How about just everyday people who are not rockstars but nonetheless find themselves at the top of their personal and professional heap. It doesn't matter if its the highest peak out there. How about them as role models?

Well said indeed.

I personally was quite disturbed when I saw Sandberg's countless media appearances and interviews promoting her new book in the past week or so - it made me wonder at what point in the last two years (even less!) she went "gee, I can get a book deal out of this".
She might be a wonderful person and her new book might indeed be helpful to many of her readers but somehow this culture of endless self-promotion in some ...err... "role models" just rubs me the wrong way.

Can you imagine writing the same critique of a man who wrote a book about workplace culture and leadership?

I can't. Sandberg is one person who wrote about her experiences. Thousands of men have done the same thing, some more successfully, some less. But you don't see their character endlessly attacked, do you? You can take it or leave it, but her advice clearly resonates with millions of people (including this single mom who earns five figures).

I do think she gets unfair criticism simply because there is a dearth of other voices like hers. But I think a valid criticism is that she does not give credit to the women who've come before her and risked their careers, often, to create the types of opportunities she's had.

To use another high profile example, Trump absolutely does get criticism for writing books that suggest he's a self-made man without giving adequate credit to the benefits he started off with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about the countless women who balance all that they need to do. Who work their asses off and end up as GS-15s, supervisors, VPs., accounting/law/finance partners. How about the career school teachers who despite the low pay and lack of prestige somehow manage to live a fulfilling life and participate in their own families. How about just everyday people who are not rockstars but nonetheless find themselves at the top of their personal and professional heap. It doesn't matter if its the highest peak out there. How about them as role models?

Well said indeed.

I personally was quite disturbed when I saw Sandberg's countless media appearances and interviews promoting her new book in the past week or so - it made me wonder at what point in the last two years (even less!) she went "gee, I can get a book deal out of this".
She might be a wonderful person and her new book might indeed be helpful to many of her readers but somehow this culture of endless self-promotion in some ...err... "role models" just rubs me the wrong way.

Can you imagine writing the same critique of a man who wrote a book about workplace culture and leadership?

I can't. Sandberg is one person who wrote about her experiences. Thousands of men have done the same thing, some more successfully, some less. But you don't see their character endlessly attacked, do you? You can take it or leave it, but her advice clearly resonates with millions of people (including this single mom who earns five figures).

I do think she gets unfair criticism simply because there is a dearth of other voices like hers. But I think a valid criticism is that she does not give credit to the women who've come before her and risked their careers, often, to create the types of opportunities she's had.

To use another high profile example, Trump absolutely does get criticism for writing books that suggest he's a self-made man without giving adequate credit to the benefits he started off with.

To me she is like the Gwyneth Paltrow of the tech industry. Totally out of touch with the struggles of normal women ("I can do it, why can't you?" - meanwhile she has zillions of dollars and a boatload of help) and she seems very insincere in every interview I've ever seen her take part in. Maybe it's just the way the media is "spinning" her, but she really seems like an opportunist.

[Anonymous]

Of course she's an opportunist! That's how you get to the top...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How about the countless women who balance all that they need to do. Who work their asses off and end up as GS-15s, supervisors, VPs., accounting/law/finance partners. How about the career school teachers who despite the low pay and lack of prestige somehow manage to live a fulfilling life and participate in their own families. How about just everyday people who are not rockstars but nonetheless find themselves at the top of their personal and professional heap. It doesn't matter if its the highest peak out there. How about them as role models?

Well said indeed.

I personally was quite disturbed when I saw Sandberg's countless media appearances and interviews promoting her new book in the past week or so - it made me wonder at what point in the last two years (even less!) she went "gee, I can get a book deal out of this".
She might be a wonderful person and her new book might indeed be helpful to many of her readers but somehow this culture of endless self-promotion in some ...err... "role models" just rubs me the wrong way.

Can you imagine writing the same critique of a man who wrote a book about workplace culture and leadership?

I can't. Sandberg is one person who wrote about her experiences. Thousands of men have done the same thing, some more successfully, some less. But you don't see their character endlessly attacked, do you? You can take it or leave it, but her advice clearly resonates with millions of people (including this single mom who earns five figures).

PP you are replying to - to be clear I'm not talking about her "Lean In" book but the one she is busy promoting now - and yes, I absolutely would write the same thing about any guy who viewed his personal tragedy as another opportunity to sell more books.
Her motivations are actually quite amazing to me - if I had a billion+ dollars and was in a similar situation the absolute last thing on my mind would be writing and promoting yet another book.
But I guess that is why I do not have a billion dollars in the first place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
To me she is like the Gwyneth Paltrow of the tech industry. Totally out of touch with the struggles of normal women ("I can do it, why can't you?" - meanwhile she has zillions of dollars and a boatload of help) and she seems very insincere in every interview I've ever seen her take part in. Maybe it's just the way the media is "spinning" her, but she really seems like an opportunist.

I think she's both an opportunist and sincere in her desire to help other women. But her ego has caused her to do this in a ham-handed way by sharing her personal experience rather than doing more practical things like actually implementing better workplace policies at Facebook. I mean, she has an unprecedented platform to experiment with ways to improve work-life balance for everyone in ways that aren't devastating to a company's bottom line. Instead, she's like Marissa Mayer building a nursery next to her office while simultaneously getting rid of telecommuting at Yahoo! The difference is that Mayer isn't promoting herself as a champion of women on the workplace.

Sandberg is contributing to the conversation, but it bothers me the way she's trying to dominate it. Maybe it shouldn't, since why should she be any less self-interested than the next person. But I guess what bothers me more is the people who refuse to realize these limitations to what she does/has done.