Facebook COO Comments On Female Leadership

Nancy Anderson
Posted by


The COO of Facebook, Sheryl Sandberg, recently made an interesting speech about the fact why only a very small number of females reach top leadership roles in their career fields. Sheryl Sandberg, herself, is in charge of business development, marketing, sales, communications, public policy and human resources at Facebook. Prior to this lucrative position, Sandberg managed the online operations and sales program at Google – and also worked as a chief economist for the US Treasury Department and the World Bank.

 

In the speech, Sandberg acknowledges that while women in North America are lucky in that they have more career choices and civil rights than women in other areas of the world, few women hold leadership positions in both the non-profit and for-profit sectors internationally.

 

In order to counteract these statistics, Sandberg offers some advice to women seeking leadership roles. For instance, she suggests for women to remain competitive for these types of roles, she suggests:

 

That women should stay in the workforce

  • While she acknowledges that this solution is not the best one for everyone, she believes that in order for women to make it the tops of their professions, they should stay in the workforce. As a mother herself, Sandberg realizes that this option can be tough at times, staying active in the workforce can offer tremendous personal and career advantages.

 

That women should sit at the table

  • Instead of sitting on the sidelines, she believes that women should sit at the table. After all, she concedes, no one gets a promotion by sitting on the side. She also acknowledges that women often underestimate their abilities more than their male counterparts and that men are more likely to reach for career opportunities more than women. Finally, she also notes that while success and likeability are positively correlated for males, success and likability are not positively correlated for women.

 

That women should make their partner their real partner

  • With respect to work at home, women on average still do twice the amount of housework and three times the amount of childcare than a male spouse. Thus, she notes that it is not surprising then that women are more likely to stay at home from their jobs if this situation is required. Additionally, Sandberg also noted that women and men who earn roughly the same salary and share equal responsibilities have a lower divorce rate.

 

Overall, Sandberg believes that while there are currently a limited number of women in positions of authority in the world at present, she believes that there are certain steps that women can take to encourage success in their chosen fields.

 

Larisa Redins is a full time writer and editor with degrees in both Arts and Biological Science. She writes about career issues for FinancialJobBank.com - and creates/edits resumes for a wide net of clients. She additionally writes about other topics for a variety of international websites and magazines. Please visit her other blogs at FinancialJobBankBlog.com and view job postings at FinancialJobBank.com.

Comment

Become a member to take advantage of more features, like commenting and voting.

Jobs to Watch