Lean Out summary

Guess what percentage of CEOs of Fortune 500 companies were women in 1978? Yep, zero percent. And what about in 2018? The percentage has crawled up to a measly 4.8 percent. Why are there still so few female CEOs?

We hear plenty of possible reasons for this lack of top-level female leadership – structural inequality, corporate misogyny, skewed work-life balance, and so on. Sure, they’re all valid explanations. But there’s another one that rarely gets airtime: What if the majority of women don’t want to be CEOs in the first place?

If you’re a woman in the workplace, you’re almost certainly familiar with the glass ceiling theory. This theory suggests there’s an invisible barrier that prevents even qualified and experienced women from rising to the top of the corporate ladder. 

Ask a feminist why that barrier exists, and she’ll probably tell you it’s because of sexism. A corporate feminist will likely give you a different answer: women haven’t cracked that ceiling to smithereens because they lack the confidence to do so.

Let’s take a page out of corporate feminism’s book and indulge in a bit of gender stereotyping.

Outside the workplace, men are in crisis. They’re emotionally repressed and unskilled at forming and maintaining meaningful relationships. Meanwhile, women have a talent for developing rewarding relationships. Because – don’t forget – all women are empathic and nurturing. 

In 2017 in the United States, women earned 57 percent of undergraduate degrees, 59 percent of master's degrees, and 53.5 percent of doctoral degrees. It's fair to say, women dominate academia.

Why don’t women dominate corporate America, too?

The average employee spends 90,000 hours of her life at work. What is she working for, exactly?

The simple answer – of course – is money.

Years ago, Denmark had an organ donor problem. Only 4.5 people in every 100 stated on their driver’s license that they agreed to be an organ donor. Thanks to one simple change, that number rose to 74 in 100. How did Denmark bring about this dramatic shift? 

The answer didn’t come from changing people’s behavior or persuading them that organ donation was the right thing to do. The authorities just looked at the license registration form and made an alteration. Instead of ticking a box to become an organ donor, Danes were asked to tick a box if they did not want to become an organ donor. What changed was the way the question was asked. 

All across the globe, from India to Indianapolis, companies are holding Lean In-style seminars for their female employees. They’re hosting workshops that teach women how to be more assertive, they’re encouraging their female staff to learn power poses, and they’re telling them not to use exclamation points in emails if they want to get promoted. Essentially, they’re expending a lot of time and money teaching women to mimic alpha males.

But what if firms didn’t ask women to conform to stereotypically male behaviors to get ahead? Instead, what if they asked how they could support all their employees to maximize their potential?