Sheryl Sandberg: Facebook business chief leans out of spotlight in scandal; Guardian, March 29, 2018

Sheryl Sandberg, Guardian; Sheryl Sandberg: Facebook business chief leans out of spotlight in scandal

"As the public bayed “Where’s Mark?”, his right-hand woman, Sheryl Sandberg, has avoided much of the scrutiny, despite the fact that she is the architect of Facebook’s data-centric advertising business and a highly skilled communicator.

As the social network faces its biggest reputation crisis yet, critics are asking if the author of Lean In, a book about leadership in business, is choosing to lean out of the limelight.

“It’s truly remarkable that Sandberg hasn’t come under greater public scrutiny for this crisis, since she is widely perceived to be the ‘adult’ who was hired to manage these kinds of political situations in a savvy way for the company,” said Kara Alaimo, assistant professor of public relations at Hofstra University.

Roger McNamee, a venture capitalist who said he encouraged Mark Zuckerberg to hire Sandberg, and who helped poach her from Google about a decade ago, pointed out the executive had long been “applauded for Facebook’s extraordinary growth and profitability”. “Now that the dark side of that success has been exposed, she needs to do a better job of accepting responsibility for the consequences of the choices she makes,” he said."

Sheryl Sandberg Admits Leaning In Is Harder Than She Originally Thought; Slate, 5/9/16

Elissa Strauss, Slate; Sheryl Sandberg Admits Leaning In Is Harder Than She Originally Thought:

"In honor of Mother’s Day, Sheryl Sandberg wrote a long post on Facebook that is part expression of support for single parents and part mea culpa for previously failing to recognize how difficult it is to raise children on one’s own.

“Before, I did not quite get it. I did not really get how hard it is to succeed at work when you are overwhelmed at home,” Sandberg writes.

The Facebook COO goes on to enumerate the emotional obstacles of raising children without her husband, who died last year, and prudently acknowledges how “extremely fortunate I am not to face the financial burdens so many single mothers and widows face.”...

The post also demonstrates Sandberg's fitness as a leader for women, something that was frequently challenged when Lean In, the book and the movement, first emerged. Many questioned whether a wealthy, white Harvard grad, dripping in privilege and pep—or a “Power Point Pied Piper in Prada ankle boots” as Maureen Dowd put it—had any business presenting herself as a voice for women. But Sandberg’s Mother’s Day note shows that she is, in fact, well-qualified, and not nearly as myopic as many presumed. The most striking aspect of her post is the way it reveals a willingness to publicly evolve, and a prioritization of the integrity of her ideas over their consistency. Sandberg gets it. She’s living her life in the shades of gray that make leaning in much more complicated, and she wants to talk about it. Now that she’s renewed our confidence in her as a leader, let’s hope she keeps her vow."

Women Don't Need to "Lean In" More; Powerful Men Need to Reach Out; Harvard Business Review, 1/28/13

Avivah Wittenberg-Cox, Harvard Business Review; Women Don't Need to "Lean In" More; Powerful Men Need to Reach Out: "Sandberg does not serve other women well by pretending that companies are a meritocracy that just requires individual effort. She herself was sponsored and propelled, like almost every successful woman I have ever met, by a powerful man, in her case Larry Summers...In the meantime, the most gender balanced companies on the planet are mostly led by men, who thankfully seem to believe more in reaching out to women than Sandberg does. This is what smart women really need. Companies and leaders who believe in them and give them a seat at the table, even if they don't bang on it."

She’s (Rarely) the Boss; New York Times, 1/26/13

Nicholas Kristof, New York Times; She’s (Rarely) the Boss: "In America, only 17 percent of American Fortune 500 board seats are held by women, a mere 3 percent of board chairs are women — and women are barely represented in President Obama’s cabinet... So what gives? A provocative answer comes from Sheryl Sandberg, the chief operating officer of Facebook, who has written a smart book due out in March that attributes the gender gap, in part, to chauvinism and corporate obstacles — but also, in part, to women who don’t aggressively pursue opportunities... [W]e need more women in leadership positions for another reason: considerable evidence suggests that more diverse groups reach better decisions. Corporations should promote women not just out of fairness, but also because it helps them perform better. Lehman Brothers might still be around today if it were Lehman Brothers & Sisters."