Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg Launches Lean In Initiative at Howard School of Business
Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s COO, spoke at Howard University’s School of Business Executive Leadership Series on October 15 where she announced her LeanIn.org campus initiative. LeanIn.org stems from Sandberg’s bestselling book, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead (2013), which looks closely at gender discrepancies in the workforce and encourages women to “lean in” on important decisions and discussions rather than “leaning out” and underestimating their abilities. The campus initiative will take LeanIn directly to college campuses worldwide in an effort to inspire the over 50% of college graduates who are women to become executives; currently, women make up just 14% of executives despite their greater than equal rate of college enrollment and graduation.
Sandberg spoke to an audience of Howard undergraduate and graduate business students, three-quarters of whom were women. Howard’s Business School is not only the site of her LeanIn campus initiative launch but also the only in-person stop Sandberg plans to make. Sandberg explained that she chose Howard because its graduates will face substantial challenges as they work to become business leaders, making leaning in even more important. As African-Americans, they have long faced discrimination and inequality in the workplace. The women in the audience will encounter that racial inequality with the added gender discrimination Sandberg details in her book.
Many Howard students saw Sandberg’s visit as an act of good faith. The Facebook executive and recent billionaire received criticism for not grappling with the issues of race and leadership in her book. During her presentation at Howard, Sandberg addressed leadership challenges African-American business leaders, both men and women, face along with specific strategies for how they can lean in, an approach which many Howard students appreciated.
