“At the current pace of progress, we are more than 100 years away from gender equality in the C-suite,” she wrote. “We reached the moon in eight years of concentrated effort — not eighty. Let’s bring that same urgency to this mission.”
The study, which surveyed almost 30,000 employees at various levels, revealed women are underrepresented in the workplace. It also found women at every level are less interested in becoming a top executive than men.
“Women see an uneven playing field — a workplace tilted against them,” wrote Ms. Sandberg.
And despite companies’ claims that gender diversity is a top-three or top-ten priority for their CEO, the study proves the message isn’t reaching employees. Only 37 percent of female employees and 49 percent of male employees believe gender diversity is a top priority for their CEO. In fact, just 44 percent of females and 33 percent of males indicated gender diversity is one of their own main priorities.
Ms. Sandberg summed up the findings in a single phrase: “When women get stuck, corporate America gets stuck.”
But she also poses a solution to the problem: The need to “[address] our culture’s discomfort with female leadership.”
Ms. Sandberg suggests three steps: measuring progress, maintaining transparency and training and increasing peer support in the workplace. To measure progress, companies should benchmark their growth on diversity goals. They should then implement training so employees can recognize and counteract gender biases. Finally, forming peer support groups like Lean In Circles, which meet regularly to help women follow their aspirations, is critical to a company’s success.
If companies take these steps, “We will achieve not just a stronger and more successful workplace, but also increased economic growth and benefits for all our workers and families,” said to Ms. Sandberg.
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