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"In our new career column, editor-in-chief Cindi Leive talks to the COO of Facebook&amp;amp;mdash;who has new work advice she says all women need. Sandberg at Facebook headquarters with members of Girls Who Code, a nonprofit that teaches girls tech skills. &amp;quot;These jobs pay better, and companies increasingly seek leaders with tech experience,&amp;quot; she says. Just 12 months ago, Sheryl Sandberg was a Silicon Valley tech executive&amp;amp;mdash;a rising star who&amp;#x27;d begun her career in Washington, D.C., before skyrocketing to the top of Google and leapfrogging to Facebook as Mark Zuckerberg&amp;#x27;s right hand. Then came Lean In. Sandberg&amp;#x27;s blockbuster career manifesto&amp;amp;mdash;arguing that women hold themselves back from pursuing their careers but should instead &amp;quot;sit at the table,&amp;quot; literally and figuratively, alongside their male colleagues&amp;amp;mdash;sparked a raging global debate about work, women, and motherhood. Sandberg, 44, a mother of two, instantly became both a lightning rod for critics (one charged she was &amp;quot;blaming other women for not trying hard enough&amp;quot;) and a 360-degree life guru for millions of women worldwide, who went on to found thousands of Lean In Circles to help one another reach their own job goals. The column you&amp;#x27;re reading is a new one for Glamour, dedicated to career advice from women in all kinds of top jobs. Who better to start with than the woman who kicked off our current national conversation? When I met her at Facebook&amp;#x27;s headquarters, in Menlo Park, California, she was fresh off a plane from Washington, D.C., and highly focused, even though Mark Zuckerberg was chatting with colleagues (hoodie-less, if you&amp;#x27;re curious) just outside our glass-walled conference room. Here, some highlights from our conversation. CINDI LEIVE: Let&amp;#x27;s start with the book. Lean In has sold more than 1.5 million copies. There are over 12,000 Lean In Circles in 50 countries. The phrase lean in itself has become a meme! Did you expect this? SHERYL SANDBERG: I had no idea. I wrote the book hoping we would have a big conversation on gender&amp;amp;mdash;but what I&amp;#x27;ve been most excited about is that people have really started to change their lives. CL: So you&amp;#x27;re seeing young women&amp;#x27;s behavior shift? Are they sitting at the table? SS: Well, when I&amp;#x27;m in the room! [Laughs.] But yes...and the other thing that&amp;#x27;s changed is that everywhere I go, women tell me they&amp;#x27;re getting raises&amp;amp;mdash;and CEOs tell me I have cost them so much money. [Laughs.] CL: Well, that&amp;#x27;s a victory! Since Lean In came out, there have been a lot of high-profile appointments of women: Janet Yellen, the first female chair of the Federal Reserve; Mary Barra, the first female CEO of General Motors; Marjorie Scardino on the board of Twitter. Those are significant moments, aren&amp;#x27;t they? Sandberg at Facebook&amp;#x27;s IPO SS: We have to celebrate every positive moment.... But I want to say, &amp;quot;Thank you, but not enough. We want more. We want real equality.&amp;quot; Progress is still very slow. The numbers [of women leaders] are still really, really low. We just had two female heads of state elected. That brings the total to about 18. CL: That&amp;#x27;s a record, by the way. SS: But it&amp;#x27;s not a lot; there are slightly under 200 countries in the world! After the November 2012 elections [which saw the number of women in the Senate rise to 20], people were writing that women were taking over the Senate. Twenty seats out of 100 is not a takeover! There&amp;#x27;s been no progress in women&amp;#x27;s wages&amp;amp;mdash;particularly women of color&amp;amp;mdash;over the past 10 years. The average woman makes 77 cents compared with the average man; it&amp;#x27;s 64 cents for African Americans and 54 cents for Latinas. Those numbers have not moved since 2002. And people say things to me every day showing a lack of understanding of the situation. CL: What kinds of things? SS: &amp;quot;It&amp;#x27;s not an issue in my industry.&amp;quot; &amp;quot;It&amp;#x27;s better in my industry.&amp;quot; Actually, it&amp;#x27;s not that good in any industry! Or people say, &amp;quot;She&amp;#x27;s too aggressive&amp;quot; [about a woman employee, but not a man]. It happens all the time. Now, at least, people are seeing the problem. [Cisco CEO] John Chambers invited me to a senior-management meeting of his top 400 people. He stood there on the stage and said, &amp;quot;I thought we were doing this well, and we&amp;#x27;re not. Every single senior woman in this company, we called all of you too aggressive. We&amp;#x27;re sorry, and we&amp;#x27;re not going to do it anymore.&amp;quot; From a CEO, that&amp;#x27;s amazing. CL: Wow. SS: [And recently] I was in Beijing, meeting the first Lean In Circle there.The 13 women in it were mostly what&amp;#x27;s known there as &amp;quot;leftover&amp;quot; women: over 27 and unmarried. They talked about making their own choices, pursuing careers. I started crying because it was my dream, seeing women like that talk about their empowerment. I&amp;#x27;ve been to Circles of military women in Minneapolis and of college women in D.C. One Circle told me every person there made a major change&amp;amp;mdash;their husbands help at home, or they got promoted. I&amp;#x27;m excited that more people, especially men, are understanding that equality is good for them.I don&amp;#x27;t want men to want equality for women because they&amp;#x27;re being nice to their colleagues and daughters. I want men to want it because it&amp;#x27;s better for their companies and their lives. CL: We actually did a survey last year of Glamour readers and found that about 20 percent fewer women today than in the seventies wanted their boss&amp;#x27;s job. SS: That&amp;#x27;s very in keeping with the research I&amp;#x27;ve seen. CL: Well, at Facebook, you&amp;#x27;re that woman younger women look at and draw conclusions about. What do you want them to know about having the big job and a family at the same time? Sandberg with Oprah SS: I want them to know it&amp;#x27;s possible. It&amp;#x27;s not easy, though it&amp;#x27;s certainly easier for me than for a lot of people. I guess I also want them to know it&amp;#x27;s fulfilling: I want them to have &amp;quot;and&amp;quot; language rather than &amp;quot;or&amp;quot; language: Men feel like they can be a professional and a father. For women it&amp;#x27;s &amp;quot;or.&amp;quot; That&amp;#x27;s offensive to me because 70 percent of mothers in this country work full-time. They have to! So this concept that it&amp;#x27;s not possible is crazy....[Even in Hollywood] I can&amp;#x27;t name a show or movie where the female lead character works and has kids and isn&amp;#x27;t frazzled. I can&amp;#x27;t think of any who work and are happy. CL: Most of the best female characters on TV right now are actually single, no kids. SS: Well, that&amp;#x27;s another issue&amp;amp;mdash;it&amp;#x27;s sending the message that you can&amp;#x27;t have [kids and a career]. NEXT: Sandberg Talks Negotiation and Parenting &amp;amp;#187; CL: Let&amp;#x27;s talk about negotiation. You think women leave money on the table. SS: Yes. Most women who have not gotten raises have also not asked. If women negotiated their first salary, they&amp;#x27;d earn up to an extra $500,000 by the time they were 60. CL: You tell women to start that negotiation by saying, &amp;quot;I know women don&amp;#x27;t always get paid as much as men.&amp;quot; But is that productive? SS: That&amp;#x27;s one option. Both men and women react negatively when women negotiate on their own behalf. Now, a man can just negotiate: &amp;quot;I have a better offer. That&amp;#x27;s not enough to make my family&amp;#x27;s ends meet.&amp;quot; No one feels bad about it. But when a woman does that, there&amp;#x27;s a backlash. How do you get out of the backlash? You have to make it not only about you. You can explain that negotiating skills are something you bring to the table&amp;amp;mdash;that&amp;#x27;s what I did with Mark [Zuckerberg]; I said, &amp;quot;You realize you&amp;#x27;re hiring me to run our deal teams, so you want me to be good at this.&amp;quot; Or you can ground it in an outside fact that is tied to the community&amp;amp;mdash;&amp;quot;I know women are paid less, and I&amp;#x27;m concerned about that.&amp;quot; Now women are grounding [requests for a raise] in the book! CL: As in, &amp;quot;Sheryl Sandberg told me to&amp;quot;? SS: People say, &amp;quot;I read Lean In, and I&amp;#x27;d like to negotiate.&amp;quot; I never thought to suggest it! CL: I want to talk about some of the criticism of the book. There seemed to be two camps of critics: first, the patently ridiculous, like one columnist calling you &amp;quot;women&amp;#x27;s worst enemy,&amp;quot; which I suppose would make you worse than the Taliban. SS: I knew there would be people who did not agree with me. This is personal stuff; I&amp;#x27;m talking about who we are as parents, as mothers, as fathers. CL: But then there were more sane arguments that Lean In was only half the picture, that no amount of women leaning in helps if there are structural policies in place, like you don&amp;#x27;t get a paid maternity leave. Is that reasonable? SS: I completely agree with that. In the intro to my book, I write that there&amp;#x27;s a chicken and an egg. I wanted to focus more on one part of it, but one begets the other. Companies that have more women in senior roles have better work-life policies. Of course we should have paid maternity leave. CL: What about better child care? SS: [Nods.] It&amp;#x27;s a huge issue. Now, I&amp;#x27;d like some of these issues to be parent issues, not just women&amp;#x27;s issues. CL: I like that you actually make a point of telling women on your team,&amp;quot;If you&amp;#x27;re thinking of starting a family one day, I&amp;#x27;m here to help.&amp;quot; How do people react? Is anyone like, &amp;quot;Boss, stop talking about my uterus&amp;quot;? SS: Certainly people will misinterpret what I say, but I&amp;#x27;m very careful. My brother&amp;#x27;s a pediatric neurosurgeon, and he said to a woman he was interviewing, &amp;quot;You may want to have kids one day. If so, that&amp;#x27;s none of my business, but I also watched my sisters and wife struggle through this. So my door&amp;#x27;s open. And I will not give the good surgeries to some guy [just] because you&amp;#x27;re pregnant.&amp;quot; That&amp;#x27;s how people should do it. CL: Have you had that conversation with men on your team too? SS: Probably not as much as I should. I don&amp;#x27;t see men holding themselves back as much because of this, but you&amp;#x27;re making a good point. CL: Let&amp;#x27;s talk about men in general. You say that women have to make their partners equal partners. How can, say, a 25-year-old woman tell if the guy she&amp;#x27;s dating will help out? Is it as simple as asking? SS: Ask! There&amp;#x27;s a lot that needs to be fixed in dating for men and women in our country&amp;amp;mdash;there&amp;#x27;s a lot of pressure on women to do things they may not want to do. And if you start out unequal, you are not going to end up with equality. I&amp;#x27;m not suggesting you discuss diaper duty on a first date. But if it&amp;#x27;s serious, and you want a career, talk about it. CL: What mistakes by young women still make you cringe? SS: The &amp;quot;Don&amp;#x27;t leave before you leave&amp;quot; stuff is alive and well. [In Lean In, Sandberg wrote that women often start curbing their professional ambitions years before they have children, out of fear that a demanding job will make work-life balance difficult.] CL: But a lot of women just don&amp;#x27;t want a frenetic schedule. What does it mean for them to lean in? SS: I&amp;#x27;ve never argued for anyone to lean in all the time, or even that you have to be in the workplace. I am arguing loudly and unapologetically that six years before you have a child, leaning back is stupid. As you get more senior, you get more control of your schedule. I leave work at 5:30 P.M. There are no meetings with me at 6:00 P.M. I&amp;#x27;m gone. CL: In the book you wrote about how when you were named to Forbes&amp;#x27; World&amp;#x27;s 100 Most Powerful Women list in 2011, you were embarrassed. Last year you were on the cover of Fortune&amp;#x27;s 50 Most Powerful Women issue. Are you more comfortable with the &amp;quot;most powerful&amp;quot; label now? SS: No,I didn&amp;#x27;t cooperate with that article. I begged them not to do that. CL: Why? I mean, you are powerful. SS: For all the reasons I wrote about in the book! I&amp;#x27;m not writing about things other women do. I&amp;#x27;m writing for other women to have more self-confidence because I need it myself! And if more women were in power, I would...feel more comfortable. CL: What about money? Much of the criticism of Lean In mentioned your wealth, the implication being that even though you&amp;#x27;re self-made, you&amp;#x27;re not qualified to give career advice [&amp;quot;She&amp;#x27;s a billionaire,&amp;quot; wrote one reporter dismissively]. I can&amp;#x27;t imagine somebody saying that of Warren Buffett or Bill Gates. SS: [Nods and extends both arms in a &amp;quot;Yep, there you have it&amp;quot; gesture.] CL: What&amp;#x27;s next in your career? There are many companies where you could be CEO. You&amp;#x27;ve chosen to be here. Why? SS: I really love what we do. I think Facebook does something really important. CL: People ask if you&amp;#x27;ll run for office. SS: I&amp;#x27;m doing all the leaning I can! CL: Well, they say that women have to be asked seven times before they run. SS: I&amp;#x27;ve been asked more than seven times, so it hasn&amp;#x27;t happened yet. CL: As you&amp;#x27;ve said before, nobody really does it all. What&amp;#x27;s one thing you&amp;#x27;re not doing now? SS: Oh my God. So many things. I do everything badly. I do everything less well than I&amp;#x27;d like to do it&amp;amp;mdash; CL: You need to give yourself a break! SS: &amp;amp;mdash;and I miss stuff. Things with my kids. Other mothers volunteer more in class. But it&amp;#x27;s working out. So far, so good. CL: Decades from now, what do you want to be remembered for? SS: I think all of us want the same things. We want to be good to the people around us and for our lives to have meaning. For me that means making the world a little bit easier for women. Someone told me they went to their child&amp;#x27;s first-grade parent-teacher conference, and the teacher said, &amp;quot;Last year I would have called your daughter bossy. But I read this book, and I&amp;#x27;m going to say she has leadership skills.&amp;quot; That&amp;#x27;s what I want. I want that little girl not to be discouraged, at age six, from leading, but encouraged. And if I can play a role in doing that, that&amp;#x27;s awesome. SECRETS OF THE OFFICE MASTERSandberg&amp;#x27;s top tricks for keeping it all together: Q: WHAT TIME DO YOU GO TO BED AND WAKE UP?Sandberg sitting at the table with President Obama A: &amp;quot;I sleep from 10:30 or 11:00 P.M. until 5:30 or 6:00 A.M. I try to get seven hours of sleep every night.&amp;quot; Q: GIVE US YOUR TOP LIFE-ORGANIZING STRATEGY.A: &amp;quot;I always have a notebook. I&amp;#x27;m such a geek. People think I&amp;#x27;m crazy&amp;amp;mdash;I&amp;#x27;m the only one [at Facebook] with a notebook!&amp;quot; Q: HOW DO YOU CONTROL EMAIL OVERLOAD?A: &amp;quot;My motto is &amp;#x27;Done is better than perfect.&amp;#x27; I try to do it quickly. I think people really appreciate fast answers.&amp;quot; Q: BEST EVERYDAY WORK ADVICE?A: &amp;quot;Have someone who praises you publicly. It&amp;#x27;s hard for women to praise themselves, but I can say, &amp;#x27;What Andrea did is amazing!&amp;#x27;&amp;quot; Q: WHAT ARE YOUR RULES FOR MAKING YOUR HOME LIFE SANE?A: &amp;quot;We don&amp;#x27;t have phones at meals. And my husband and I try not to travel at the same time.&amp;quot; Lots of women tried Sheryl Sandberg&amp;#x27;s advice. Here&amp;#x27;s the real deal from four of them! .bio {width:352px; float: left; font-size:13px; line-height:18px; padding-bottom:10px;} .bio img {padding:0 10px 0 0; float:left;} .bio .pin-it-button{ display: none; } &amp;quot;I asked my husband for help.&amp;quot;TIRED of taking on all the &amp;quot;kid work&amp;quot; at home on top of her job, Coles read Lean In. &amp;quot;The point about husbands&amp;#x27; roles got my attention,&amp;quot; she says, &amp;quot;so I asked my husband to do some laundry and pack the lunches. He was happy to help, and my work has flourished as a result.&amp;quot;&amp;amp;mdash;Natalie R. Coles, 35, Columbus, Ohio; area development director, United Negro College Fund &amp;quot;I landed a new job&amp;amp;mdash;pregnant.&amp;quot;&amp;amp;#8220;GOLDFUSS was pregnant when her dream job opened up. &amp;quot;Everyone said, &amp;#x27;It&amp;#x27;s a shame you&amp;#x27;re having a baby!&amp;#x27; &amp;quot; says Goldfuss, who&amp;#x27;d read Lean In and realized she was rejecting a job she didn&amp;#x27;t even have. &amp;quot;So at eight months pregnant, I interviewed&amp;amp;mdash;and got the offer!&amp;quot;&amp;amp;mdash;Christina Goldfuss, 37, Washington, D.C.; deputy director, National Park Service&amp;amp;#8221; &amp;quot;It was too much for me.&amp;quot;ATKINS leaned in by taking a management job as she was considering starting a family. But &amp;quot;I had to travel 75 percent of the time, which would be hard while pregnant,&amp;quot; she says. In the end she took a pay cut for a calmer position. &amp;quot;I still want to advance, but I need to weigh my options.&amp;quot;&amp;amp;mdash;Anne Atkins, 33, Grand Rapids, Michigan; project manager, engineering, Dematic &amp;quot;I got the raise I asked for.&amp;quot;FEARFUL about asking for a raise that fairly compensated her, Motais de Narbonne &amp;quot;studied how Sandberg approached&amp;quot; negotiations in the book, she says. &amp;quot;I talked calmly, explained my value, and a couple weeks later, I got a 15 percent bump in pay!&amp;quot; &amp;amp;mdash;Jessica Motais de Narbonne, 29, Seattle; community manager, BlackBerry "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.glamour.com/inspired/2014/02/sheryl-sandberg-lean-in-work-advice>