For women working in coaching and athletics administration, none of what Sandberg writes about is particularly new.  But the questions she poses are well worth thinking about. Consider these few drawn from the discussion guide.

 

1.  How does fear affect the decisions you make about your own future?  For women in sport, the issue of fear is an interesting one to consider.  The physical confrontations and challenges that are routinely conquered in the course of athletic lives serve as lessons in how to overcome, how to “lean in” as Sandberg says.  At the same time, women in sport are ambivalent about their own power, checking it against cultural standards and norms.  Evidence to this effect comes in physical terms, the research that shows female athletes may consciously scale back their training so as to avoid the appearance of being too big, too powerful and the conformity to femininity standards that place a high priority on appearance.  According to Sandberg, “Fear is at the root of so many barriers that women face.  What is your greatest fear?  What would you do if you weren’t afraid?”

 

2.  Are you open to taking career risks?  For women working in sport settings, the issue of career risk is complicated.  On one hand, the male dominated nature of the business elevates the level of risk for women.  As researcher Cindra Kamphoff reports, women in coaching, whether they remain in or leave the profession, often have to strike a “bargain with patriarchy”, engaging in ongoing negotiations around gender in order to be successful.   It is in this space of negotiation where Sandberg suggests that women “lean in” rather than step away.  For those who have been negotiating those gender boundaries for a long time, the concept is counter-intuitive but does warrant consideration from the standpoint of how women may, due to their own expectations, actually sabotage themselves.   For example, while the coaching profession is gender segregated (less than 50% of head coaches of women’s teams are women and less than two percent of head coaches of men’s teams are women) and male dominated (women comprise approximately 20% of the coaching workforce overall), women rarely if ever apply for positions coaching men’s teams where salaries are higher, publicity is greater, and support is more abundant.  As a result, women remain marginalized in the coaching ranks.  In effect, “we leave before we leave” according to Sandberg.  While women often labor under career decisions, tentative to apply for positions if they do not satisfy all job requirements, men as a general rule do not suffer such concerns.  They are more likely to apply for positions if they meet some of the requirements.  Sandberg observes, “At a certain point, it’s your ability to learn quickly and contribute quickly that matters.  Women need to shift from thinking ‘I’m not ready to do that’ to thinking ‘I want to do that – and I’ll learn by doing it.”  Women coaches are often thought of as risking a great deal just to be in the profession.  Sandberg might argue that women have yet to risk enough.

 

3. How much do you separate your personal life from your career life?  Much of the research on the coaching lives of women has centered around work-life conflict, as if work and life were somehow oppositional concepts.  Recent research from Jarrod Schenewark and Marlene Dixon  reframes the balancing act women and men coaches face in meeting the multiple demands of career and family by suggesting that work and family do not necessarily have to be mutually exclusive and, when combined in the right way, may contribute to overall satisfaction.
 

Sandberg’s vision of “a truly equal world” where “women ran half our countries and companies and men ran half our homes” is an interesting one to contemplate and aspire to.   Her motivation is stirred by a sense that women’s progress once prompted by the Women’s Movement has been stalled.  She writes:

We can reignite the revolution by internalizing the revolution.  The shift to a more equal world will happen person by person.  We move closer to true equality with each woman who leans in.

Imagine what the coaching world would be like if women leaned in all at once and together.