For all the rah-rah around leaning in, I can’t help but think if a man wrote the book it would have received a stronger title – like Balls to the Wall or Crushing It or Up Your Compete Level. Leaning in reminds me of serving tea. “Oh excuse me, could you move your arm, I just need to lean in and set down your tea, cupcake, napkin…”
I’ve been chewing on the notion of leaning in for a while. Like many who have commented before me, it all depends on 1) your priorities and 2) your resources. Without knowing if a woman is really clear on these aspects, telling someone to lean in is apt to get you the middle finger vs. a hi-five.
And the reality is that priorities and resources shift all the time. Today, I want to stay home all the time and have my husband remain on paternity forever so we can maximize time with the baby. Tomorrow, I want to go to work and work insanely and have my husband stay on paternity forever. Come June, when paternity leave is over, my resources will look vastly different. The challenge with shifting resources brings up the dilemma of leaning into what? For how long?
Seth Godin wrote a great post a few weeks ago on “getting picked“. What resonated is that for all of our leaning in, we might never get picked. That sucks. Leaning in to what society says you should want, or a book, or an ideology, or a famous lady…and then not getting picked, rewarded, or acknowledged…well, isn’t that we’re doing now?
Instead of encouraging our young women to lean in, I wonder if we could do more to coach them being confident in their own mind, excited to explore their strengths, and being willing to the risks? Help them to identify their priorities and resources, not as boundaries, but as opportunities. And instil the value of agility and being open to change.
For me, this is less about leaning in and more about rooting down. Less external, more internal. If we do that, we’re accountable to ourselves, not to the person to whom we’ve just served a cupcake.