In January I blogged about the importance of reading to lifelong learning and to growing as a leader. A frequent question is, “What are you reading now?”  I just finished Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In, an authentic voice with memorable stories to back up the points she makes (such as a career is more like a jungle gym than a ladder). Next up, I am going to relax with some science fiction, the book  Wool, which Keith Donohue of the Washington Post called “the real deal.” 

A lifelong habit of mine has been to read the Sunday edition of the New York Times, which includes the New York Times Book Review. On March 14 The New York Times published online an interview with Sheryl Sandberg in their “By the Book” feature with a shorter version in the March 17 paper edition (p.8). Which author from the past or today would Sandberg most like to meet -- J. K. Rowling.

Here are some of Sheryl Sandberg’s choices:

Best book in past year:   “Bossypants” by Tina Fey

Best business book in recent years:   “Now Discover Your Strengths” by Marcus Buckingham and Donald O. Clifton

Best book for business executives:   “Conscious Business: How to Build Value Through Values” by Fred Kofman

Best book on technology:   “The Lean Startup: How Today’s Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses” by Eric Rie

Most cherished book:  Books from college course on American poets

Book for all children to read:   “Free To Be You and Me” by Marlo Thomas

My “to read” list is now longer. 


Image of Sheryl Sandberg from:
http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3ASheryl_Sandberg_Moet_Hennessy_Financial_Times_Club_Dinner_2011.jpg by Financial Times (Flickr: Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook) [CC-BY-2.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons. 

Just finished reading Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In in which she shares her thoughts —and advice – on women – and men – in the workplace – and at home. It will become a required reading in one of my management courses. We will each see the “truth” in Sandberg’s book through our knowledge and experience.

My knowledge and experience: As a graduate student I specialized in social psychology, specifically individual differences. Kay Deaux and Alice Eagly educated me on gender issues. As a consultant and as a manager, I saw inequities in the workplace, in perceptions. As a psychological researcher, in 1989 (with J. Farrell) I conducted a meta-analysis of all published field and laboratory studies and found it made no difference to the bottom-line whether the leader was a woman or man (effect size .02 for those interested). As a management scholar, in 1999 I co-chaired (with Sharon Livesey) a symposium related to gender issues at a meeting of the Academy of Management. As a father and a father-in-law, I have taken great pride in my daughter and my daughter-in-law as they have navigated these issues. With this background, I found little new in Lean In – except a powerful and clear voice for continued change – for both women and men. And I applaud Sandberg for her well-documented use of academic studies. (Pick your favorite management book and look for the footnotes.)

In February of this year, I blogged about the lens of masculinity-femininity through which we see the world. That blog is here. The issues addressed by Sandberg begin with attitudes often developed early in life and reinforced throughout. As a professor of management, I see the socialization we provide in management higher education, in and out of the classroom, as an important step toward a more pluralistic workplace. Excerpts from my contribution to the 1999 symposium follow:

Worldwide men dominate positions of management. Across national cultures most men, and some women, perceive requisite characteristics for management as characteristics more common to men than women (Schein, 1994; Norris & Wylie, 1995). For decades both men and women in the United States saw the managerial role as masculine (Schein,1973,1975). . . Norris & Wylie (1995) confirmed that most women no longer sex type the management role, but men still do. According to Schein (1994), “male sex typing of the managerial job is strong, consistent and pervasive and appears to be a global phenomenon among males” (p. 50).

Thus far implications of the male gender culture of management and business have had no major impact on management or business thought. Hearn (1994) wrote: “While management, and particularly top management, remains dominated by men, this fact continues to avoid critical attention in most of the research on management . . . It is truly amazing how men’s domination of management has not become a serious concern in management theory and management thought.” (p.192, 195)

With Lean In Sheryl Sandberg sheds light on this concern – or lack thereof.

References:

Ballard, J. A.  (1999, August).  Men, gender culture, and management: Implications for management education and the classroom.  Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Academy of Management, Chicago, IL. (Co-chair, Symposium, The Gendered Classroom: Implications for Pluralistic Management Education.)

Ballard, J. A., & Farrell, J. A.  (1989, August).  Group performance and sex of the leader: A  meta-analysis.  Paper presented at the 97th annual convention of the American Psychological Association, New Orleans, LA.

Hearn, J.  (1994).  Changing men and changing management: Social change, social research and social action. In M. J. Davidson & R. J. Burke (Eds.), Women in management: Current research issues (192-209).  London: Paul Chapman.

Norris, J. M., & Wylie, A. M. (1995).  Gender stereotyping of the managerial role among students in Canada and the United States. Group & Organization Management, 20, 167-182.

Schein, V. E. (1994).  Managerial sex typing: A persistent and pervasive barrier to women’s opportunities.  In M.  J. Davidson & R. J. Burke (Eds.), Women in management: Current research issues (41-52).  London: Paul Chapman.

Schein, V. (1975).  Relationships between sex role stereotypes and requisite management characteristics among female managers.  Journal of Applied Psychology, 60, 340-344.

Schein, V. (1973). The relationship between sex role stereotypes and requisite management characteristics. Journal of Applied Psychology, 57, 95-100.

Image of Sandberg by Sit with Me.   http://www.flickr.com/photos/sitwithme/6483000639/sizes/n/in/photostream/
Permission: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/

In Lean In Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook, argues women should strive harder for success in the workplace, be more confident in office interactions, insist on equality in partnerships outside the workplace, “lean in”. She has created an organization to advance this cause. In 2010 she talked about the difficulty of women becoming leaders in a TED talk.

Sandberg’s manifesto has received mixed reviews. I have only read excerpts and reviews but I have added to my Kindle. Trait research decades ago found confidence a key factor in leadership, be it the confidence to lead a large organization or confidence to lead a small team. Developing confidence, being confident, regardless of gender, is important to being an effective leader.

But I agree with those who counter organizations should be more proactive in creating and supporting leader development for women. Historically men (mostly Caucasians) have dominated our organizations and continue to do so. A disproportionate percentage of women drop out of corporate America as they near the top level.  The predominance of men in leadership positions perpetuates male cultures where masculine norms (and roles) are pervasive --and sometimes decisive. When a woman rises near the top, the question may become, is she one of the boys? The "boys" have the rules they play by, the games they play, the subjects they talk about. Will the woman fit into the group? Business is conducted on the golf course, in the locker room, on hunting trips. And then there is the comfort factor, will we be comfortable with this woman around? Will we be comfortable with her on our executive retreat in the Caribbean?

Compounding this is the fact that as you go higher in organizations, norms or group pressures tend to become stronger. And they extend beyond the workday. Those who lead our organizations are available 24/7. There are social engagements, dinners, parties, plus the work that must get done, the decisions that must be made. You will entertain, you will be at these functions, you will see that our main client has a great time. When you are "on" all the time, disconnects between thought and deed are more likely to be revealed. Your actions must fit the group norms or you will not remain part of the group.

In spite of this male culture, some women break the glass ceiling. The long term answer to the predominance of masculine norms is more women in our organizations, women in positions of leadership. Perhaps more “leaning in” could make the difference. Sheryl Sandberg thinks so. 

Image of Sandberg by Dan Farber from http://www.flickr.com/photos/farber/2533555758/
Used with permission http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/deed.en

More from the files of the Dr. Juran "An Immigrant's Gift" Archival Project, research and dissemination of information from the interviews conducted about Joseph Juran for the PBS Special, An Immigrant's Gift.

The Australian Organisation for Quality Inc annually presents The J. M. Juran Award to recognize people “who have contributed in an outstanding way to the application of effective quality management in Australia.”  Dr. Juran first came to Australia in the early 1950’s

In this interview with Australian Brian Scott conducted in May of 1992 in New York City, Scott talks about how Dr. Juran came to Australia.

BRIAN SCOTT: . . . When Dr. Juran first came to Australia -- I 
think it was in 1953 -- and he was brought out to Australia 
by my father, who was then the chief executive of 
the consulting firm he'd founded some 15 years before (W. D. Scott & Company, Proprietary, Limited). And he was one of, I think, 15 or 16 distinguished 
American lecturers, leaders in the management area, who Dad 
and his associates brought to Australia to run special seminars 
and conferences and training groups --and through and to about the mid-1960's. Because, at 
that stage, Australia didn't have a business school.  It didn't 
have anything that was remotely like a business school. And Dad was one who was very keen to try and bring some of the 
best of the overseas know-how into the Australian business 
community.

And, in that context, he was fairly earlier, set upon 
seeking out Dr. Joe Juran. And he brought Dr. Juran to 
Australia in the early 1950's, for a series of seminars in 
Sydney and in Melbourne, the two major cities of Australia. I remember meeting him then. He looked very American with his crew-cut and with his bow tie. They 
were always symbols of the Americans when we were growing up. And I met him, of course, at the family dinner 
table. That's my early recollection as a teenager at the 
university.

There are interesting reminiscences that I can mention in that regard. One of them is that, much later, I suppose in the late '60's or early '70's -- by which time Dr. Juran had come out again for the company. Dad one day said to me, just in a reflective mood, he said: "You know, of all the people who we brought out to Australia, I think Joe Juran was the best, from our standpoint. " What he meant by "from our standpoint" was really in bringing a practical management message to the Australian business community, bringing a management awareness.

Although it's a much, much smaller country, and the comparison is, obviously, a very limited one -- what Dr. Juran did when he first came out and ran those quality seminars in 1953, was to bring for the first time to Australia a recognition of this central role of quality in the management movement. And Australia had grown up as an affluent country, but a country, as we used to say, very much “riding on the sheep's back”. We were an agricultural country. A country, just after the war, of seven maybe eight million people. And one which had its prime heritage on agriculture and, increasingly, on mineral wealth. And our industry had been very limited before the war. We had imported very many things, and paid for them through the receipts of the agricultural exports. And now, it was in that first decade after the war, the war itself and then the first decade afterwards, that Australian industry started to develop -- that we started to get an infrastructure to industry.

And, therefore you had a lot of what you in America would call very small business. And it was first generation business that was growing. But what it lacked for in size and perhaps in sophistication was made up for by the enthusiasm and, if you like, patriotic dedication in the years after the war that we were going to turn this into a sophisticated nation, and we recognized that we couldn't just continue to ride on the sheep's back.
 
Now it was into that context that Dr. Juran coming out, a number of leading organizations sending people to a conference on quality management, quality control, that was really quite a novel idea. And the feedback from those conferences was very favorable indeed. Once again, I recall what my father had said about how practical and how instructive the feedback, the sheets on feedback were about these particular programs. Now, by and large, the whole series of the 15 or 16 Americans who came out were well received. But the Australian is an independent animal at times, and sometimes they say: "Well, you know, he was all right, but he didn't tell us anything new." Or maybe, you know: "He was good and the philosophy is interesting, but what about the practical. " It was that kind of atmosphere, and Dr. Juran met the practical test -- that was the situation.

One can say that what Dr. Juran brought to Australia through that series of seminars was an opening of a door. And I think that we can all be pleased that -- may I say -- my father made a wise selection of who would be an excellent communicator in this area, and that we were able to persuade Dr. Juran to come, and that, indeed, that seminar was filled. Because I know, coming to my generation later on, that there would be people -- often in senior management positions -- who would recall having been a member of the training program which Dr. Juran had conducted way back when.


Image from http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AFlag_of_Australia.svg
By Ian Fieggen (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons