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Why we have too few women leaders

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    So for any of us in this room today,
    let's start out by admitting we're lucky.
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    We don't live in the world
    our mothers lived in,
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    our grandmothers lived in,
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    where career choices
    for women were so limited.
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    And if you're in this room today,
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    most of us grew up in a world
    where we have basic civil rights,
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    and amazingly, we still live in a world
    where some women don't have them.
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    But all that aside,
    we still have a problem,
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    and it's a real problem.
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    And the problem is this:
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    Women are not making it
    to the top of any profession
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    anywhere in the world.
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    The numbers tell the story quite clearly.
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    190 heads of state --
    nine are women.
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    Of all the people
    in parliament in the world,
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    13 percent are women.
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    In the corporate sector, women at the top,
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    C-level jobs, board seats --
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    tops out at 15, 16 percent.
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    The numbers have not moved since 2002
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    and are going in the wrong direction.
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    And even in the non-profit world,
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    a world we sometimes think of
    as being led by more women,
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    women at the top: 20 percent.
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    We also have another problem,
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    which is that women face harder choices
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    between professional success
    and personal fulfillment.
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    A recent study in the U.S.
    showed that, of married senior managers,
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    two-thirds of the married men had children
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    and only one-third
    of the married women had children.
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    A couple of years ago, I was in New York,
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    and I was pitching a deal,
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    and I was in one of those fancy
    New York private equity offices
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    you can picture.
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    And I'm in the meeting --
    it's about a three-hour meeting --
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    and two hours in,
    there needs to be that bio break,
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    and everyone stands up,
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    and the partner running the meeting
    starts looking really embarrassed.
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    And I realized he doesn't know
    where the women's room is in his office.
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    So I start looking
    around for moving boxes,
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    figuring they just moved in,
    but I don't see any.
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    And so I said, "Did you just
    move into this office?"
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    And he said, "No,
    we've been here about a year."
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    And I said, "Are you telling me
    that I am the only woman
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    to have pitched a deal
    in this office in a year?"
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    And he looked at me, and he said,
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    "Yeah. Or maybe you're the only one
    who had to go to the bathroom."
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    (Laughter)
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    So the question is,
    how are we going to fix this?
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    How do we change these numbers at the top?
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    How do we make this different?
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    I want to start out by saying,
    I talk about this --
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    about keeping women in the workforce --
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    because I really think that's the answer.
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    In the high-income part of our workforce,
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    in the people who end up at the top --
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    Fortune 500 CEO jobs,
    or the equivalent in other industries --
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    the problem, I am convinced,
    is that women are dropping out.
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    Now people talk about this a lot,
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    and they talk about things
    like flextime and mentoring
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    and programs companies
    should have to train women.
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    I want to talk about none of that today,
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    even though that's all really important.
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    Today I want to focus
    on what we can do as individuals.
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    What are the messages
    we need to tell ourselves?
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    What are the messages we tell
    the women that work with and for us?
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    What are the messages
    we tell our daughters?
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    Now, at the outset,
    I want to be very clear
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    that this speech comes with no judgments.
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    I don't have the right answer.
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    I don't even have it for myself.
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    I left San Francisco,
    where I live, on Monday,
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    and I was getting on the plane
    for this conference.
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    And my daughter, who's three,
    when I dropped her off at preschool,
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    did that whole hugging-the-leg, crying,
    "Mommy, don't get on the plane" thing.
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    This is hard. I feel guilty sometimes.
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    I know no women,
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    whether they're at home
    or whether they're in the workforce,
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    who don't feel that sometimes.
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    So I'm not saying
    that staying in the workforce
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    is the right thing for everyone.
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    My talk today is about
    what the messages are
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    if you do want to stay in the workforce,
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    and I think there are three.
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    One, sit at the table.
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    Two, make your partner a real partner.
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    And three, don't leave before you leave.
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    Number one: sit at the table.
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    Just a couple weeks ago at Facebook,
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    we hosted a very senior
    government official,
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    and he came in to meet with senior execs
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    from around Silicon Valley.
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    And everyone kind of sat at the table.
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    He had these two women
    who were traveling with him
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    pretty senior in his department,
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    and I kind of said to them,
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    "Sit at the table.
    Come on, sit at the table,"
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    and they sat on the side of the room.
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    When I was in college, my senior year,
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    I took a course called
    European Intellectual History.
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    Don't you love that kind
    of thing from college?
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    I wish I could do that now.
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    And I took it with my roommate, Carrie,
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    who was then a brilliant
    literary student --
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    and went on to be a brilliant
    literary scholar --
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    and my brother -- smart guy,
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    but a water-polo-playing pre-med,
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    who was a sophomore.
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    The three of us take this class together.
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    And then Carrie reads all the books
    in the original Greek and Latin,
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    goes to all the lectures.
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    I read all the books in English
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    and go to most of the lectures.
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    My brother is kind of busy.
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    He reads one book of 12
    and goes to a couple of lectures,
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    marches himself up to our room
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    a couple days before the exam
    to get himself tutored.
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    The three of us go to the exam
    together, and we sit down.
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    And we sit there for three hours --
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    and our little blue notebooks
    -- yes, I'm that old.
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    We walk out, we look at each other,
    and we say, "How did you do?"
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    And Carrie says, "Boy, I feel like
    I didn't really draw out the main point
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    on the Hegelian dialectic."
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    And I say, "God, I really
    wish I had really connected
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    John Locke's theory of property
    with the philosophers that follow."
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    And my brother says,
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    "I got the top grade in the class."
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    (Laughter)
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    "You got the top grade in the class?
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    You don't know anything."
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    (Laughter)
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    The problem with these stories
    is that they show what the data shows:
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    women systematically
    underestimate their own abilities.
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    If you test men and women,
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    and you ask them questions
    on totally objective criteria like GPAs,
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    men get it wrong slightly high,
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    and women get it wrong slightly low.
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    Women do not negotiate
    for themselves in the workforce.
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    A study in the last two years
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    of people entering
    the workforce out of college
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    showed that 57 percent
    of boys entering, or men, I guess,
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    are negotiating their first salary,
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    and only seven percent of women.
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    And most importantly,
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    men attribute their success to themselves,
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    and women attribute it
    to other external factors.
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    If you ask men why they did a good job,
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    they'll say, "I'm awesome.
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    Obviously. Why are you even asking?"
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    If you ask women why they did a good job,
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    what they'll say is someone helped them,
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    they got lucky, they worked really hard.
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    Why does this matter?
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    Boy, it matters a lot.
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    Because no one gets to the corner office
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    by sitting on the side, not at the table,
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    and no one gets the promotion
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    if they don't think
    they deserve their success,
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    or they don't even understand
    their own success.
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    I wish the answer were easy.
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    I wish I could go tell
    all the young women I work for,
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    these fabulous women,
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    "Believe in yourself
    and negotiate for yourself.
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    Own your own success."
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    I wish I could tell that to my daughter.
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    But it's not that simple.
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    Because what the data shows,
    above all else, is one thing,
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    which is that success and likeability
    are positively correlated for men
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    and negatively correlated for women.
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    And everyone's nodding,
    because we all know this to be true.
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    There's a really good study
    that shows this really well.
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    There's a famous Harvard
    Business School study
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    on a woman named Heidi Roizen.
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    And she's an operator
    in a company in Silicon Valley,
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    and she uses her contacts
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    to become a very successful
    venture capitalist.
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    In 2002 -- not so long ago --
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    a professor who was then
    at Columbia University
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    took that case
    and made it [Howard] Roizen.
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    And he gave the case out, both of them,
    to two groups of students.
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    He changed exactly one word:
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    "Heidi" to "Howard."
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    But that one word made
    a really big difference.
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    He then surveyed the students,
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    and the good news was the students,
    both men and women,
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    thought Heidi and Howard
    were equally competent,
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    and that's good.
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    The bad news was
    that everyone liked Howard.
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    He's a great guy.
    You want to work for him.
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    You want to spend the day
    fishing with him.
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    But Heidi? Not so sure.
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    She's a little out for herself.
    She's a little political.
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    You're not sure
    you'd want to work for her.
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    This is the complication.
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    We have to tell our daughters
    and our colleagues,
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    we have to tell ourselves
    to believe we got the A,
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    to reach for the promotion,
    to sit at the table,
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    and we have to do it in a world
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    where, for them, there are sacrifices
    they will make for that,
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    even though for their brothers,
    there are not.
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    The saddest thing about all of this
    is that it's really hard to remember this.
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    And I'm about to tell a story
    which is truly embarrassing for me,
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    but I think important.
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    I gave this talk at Facebook
    not so long ago
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    to about 100 employees,
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    and a couple hours later,
    there was a young woman who works there
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    sitting outside my little desk,
    and she wanted to talk to me.
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    I said, okay, and she sat down,
    and we talked.
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    And she said, "I learned something today.
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    I learned that I need to keep my hand up."
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    "What do you mean?"
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    She said, "You're giving this talk,
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    and you said you would take
    two more questions.
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    I had my hand up with many other people,
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    and you took two more questions.
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    I put my hand down, and I noticed
    all the women did the same,
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    and then you took more questions,
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    only from the men."
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    And I thought to myself,
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    "Wow, if it's me -- who cares
    about this, obviously --
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    giving this talk --
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    and during this talk, I can't even notice
    that the men's hands are still raised,
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    and the women's hands are still raised,
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    how good are we
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    as managers of our companies
    and our organizations
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    at seeing that the men
    are reaching for opportunities
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    more than women?"
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    We've got to get women
    to sit at the table.
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    (Cheers)
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    (Applause)
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    Message number two:
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    Make your partner a real partner.
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    I've become convinced that we've made
    more progress in the workforce
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    than we have in the home.
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    The data shows this very clearly.
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    If a woman and a man
    work full-time and have a child,
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    the woman does twice the amount
    of housework the man does,
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    and the woman does three times
    the amount of childcare the man does.
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    So she's got three jobs
    or two jobs, and he's got one.
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    Who do you think drops out
    when someone needs to be home more?
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    The causes of this are really complicated,
    and I don't have time to go into them.
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    And I don't think Sunday football-watching
    and general laziness is the cause.
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    I think the cause is more complicated.
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    I think, as a society,
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    we put more pressure
    on our boys to succeed
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    than we do on our girls.
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    I know men that stay home
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    and work in the home
    to support wives with careers,
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    and it's hard.
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    When I go to the Mommy-and-Me stuff
    and I see the father there,
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    I notice that the other mommies
    don't play with him.
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    And that's a problem,
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    because we have to make it
    as important a job,
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    because it's the hardest job
    in the world to work inside the home,
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    for people of both genders,
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    if we're going to even things out and let
    women stay in the workforce.
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    (Applause)
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    Studies show that households
    with equal earning
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    and equal responsibility
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    also have half the divorce rate.
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    And if that wasn't good enough motivation
    for everyone out there,
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    they also have more --
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    how shall I say this on this stage?
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    They know each other more
    in the biblical sense as well.
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    (Cheers)
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    Message number three:
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    Don't leave before you leave.
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    I think there's a really deep irony
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    to the fact that actions
    women are taking --
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    and I see this all the time --
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    with the objective
    of staying in the workforce
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    actually lead to their eventually leaving.
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    Here's what happens:
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    We're all busy. Everyone's busy.
    A woman's busy.
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    And she starts thinking
    about having a child,
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    and from the moment she starts
    thinking about having a child,
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    she starts thinking
    about making room for that child.
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    "How am I going to fit this
    into everything else I'm doing?"
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    And literally from that moment,
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    she doesn't raise her hand anymore,
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    she doesn't look for a promotion,
    she doesn't take on the new project,
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    she doesn't say, "Me. I want to do that."
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    She starts leaning back.
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    The problem is that --
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    let's say she got pregnant
    that day, that day --
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    nine months of pregnancy,
    three months of maternity leave,
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    six months to catch your breath --
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    Fast-forward two years,
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    more often -- and as I've seen it --
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    women start thinking
    about this way earlier --
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    when they get engaged, or married,
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    when they start thinking
    about having a child,
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    which can take a long time.
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    One woman came to see me about this.
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    She looked a little young.
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    And I said, "So are you and your husband
    thinking about having a baby?"
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    And she said, "Oh no, I'm not married."
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    She didn't even have a boyfriend.
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    (Laughter)
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    I said, "You're thinking about this
    just way too early."
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    But the point is that what happens
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    once you start
    kind of quietly leaning back?
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    Everyone who's been through this --
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    and I'm here to tell you,
    once you have a child at home,
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    your job better be really good to go back,
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    because it's hard to leave
    that kid at home.
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    Your job needs to be challenging.
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    It needs to be rewarding.
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    You need to feel like you're
    making a difference.
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    And if two years ago
    you didn't take a promotion
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    and some guy next to you did,
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    if three years ago you stopped
    looking for new opportunities,
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    you're going to be bored
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    because you should have kept
    your foot on the gas pedal.
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    Don't leave before you leave.
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    Stay in.
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    Keep your foot on the gas pedal,
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    until the very day you need to leave
    to take a break for a child --
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    and then make your decisions.
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    Don't make decisions too far in advance,
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    particularly ones you're not
    even conscious you're making.
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    My generation really, sadly,
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    is not going to change
    the numbers at the top.
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    They're just not moving.
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    We are not going to get
    to where 50 percent of the population --
  • 13:54 - 13:56
    in my generation, there will not
    be 50 percent of [women]
  • 13:56 - 13:58
    at the top of any industry.
  • 13:59 - 14:01
    But I'm hopeful that future
    generations can.
  • 14:02 - 14:07
    I think a world where half
    of our countries and our companies
  • 14:07 - 14:09
    were run by women,
    would be a better world.
  • 14:09 - 14:13
    It's not just because people would know
    where the women's bathrooms are,
  • 14:13 - 14:15
    even though that would be very helpful.
  • 14:16 - 14:17
    I think it would be a better world.
  • 14:18 - 14:20
    I have two children.
  • 14:20 - 14:22
    I have a five-year-old son
    and a two-year-old daughter.
  • 14:23 - 14:24
    I want my son to have a choice
  • 14:24 - 14:27
    to contribute fully
    in the workforce or at home,
  • 14:27 - 14:31
    and I want my daughter
    to have the choice to not just succeed,
  • 14:31 - 14:34
    but to be liked for her accomplishments.
  • 14:34 - 14:35
    Thank you.
  • 14:35 - 14:37
    (Applause)
Title:
Why we have too few women leaders
Speaker:
Sheryl Sandberg
Description:

Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg looks at why a smaller percentage of women than men reach the top of their professions -- and offers 3 powerful pieces of advice to women aiming for the C-suite.
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Video Language:
English
Team:
closed TED
Project:
TEDTalks
Duration:
14:37

English subtitles

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