Lean In

hire me as CEO, but I joined Facebook as COO. At first, people questioned why I would take a “lower level” job working for a twenty-three-year-old. No one asks me that anymore.As I did when I joined Google, I prioritized potential for fast growth and the mission of the company above title.
    I have seen both men and women miss out on great opportunities by focusing too much on career levels. A friend of mine had been working as a lawyer for four years when she realized that instead of shooting for partner, she’d rather join a company in a sales or marketing role. One of her clients was willing to hire her in this new capacity but wanted her to start at the ground level. Since she could afford the temporary pay cut, I urged her to make the jump, but she decided against taking a job that put her “back four years.” I understood how painful it was for her to lose hard-earned ground. Still, my argument was that if she was going to work for the next thirty years, what difference does going “back” four years really make? If the other path made her happier and offered her a chance to learn new skills, that meant she was actually moving forward.
    In many cases, women need to be more open to taking risks in their careers. 2 When I left Google to join Facebook, as a percentage of my team, fewer women tried to follow me. As they had been all along, the men were more interested in new and, as we say in tech, higher beta opportunities—where the risks were great but the potential rewards even greater. Many of the women on my team eventually showed interest in joining Facebook, but not until a few years later, when the company was more established. The cost of stability is often diminished opportunities for growth.
    Of course, there are times in life when being risk averse is a good thing; adolescent and adult males drown in much greater numbers than adolescent and adult females. 3 But in business, being risk averse can result in stagnation. An analysis of senior corporate management appointments found that women are significantly more likely than men to continue to perform the same function even when they take on new duties. And when female managers move up, they are more likely to do so internally instead of switching to a different company. 4 At times,staying in the same functional area and in the same organization creates inertia and limits opportunity to expand. Seeking out diverse experiences is useful preparation for leadership.
    I understand the external pressures that force women to play it safe and stay put. Gender stereotypes can make it hard to move into positions traditionally held by men. Women are also more likely to accommodate a partner’s career than the other way around. 5 A job change that includes moving to another city may be a nonstarter for a woman in a relationship. The result is the unfortunate tautology that the tendency to stay put leads to staying put.
    Being risk averse in the workplace can also cause women to be more reluctant to take on challenging tasks. In my experience, more men look for stretch assignments and take on high-visibility projects, while more women hang back. Research suggests that this is particularly true for women in environments that emphasize individual performance or when women are working closely with men. 6
    One reason women avoid stretch assignments and new challenges is that they worry too much about whether they currently have the skills they need for a new role. This can become a self-fulfilling prophecy, since so many abilities are acquired on the job. An internal report at Hewlett-Packard revealed that women only apply for open jobs if they think they meet 100 percent of the criteria listed. Men apply if they think they meet 60 percent of the requirements. 7 This difference has a huge ripple effect. 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.”
    My first day at work at the World Bank, Larry Summers asked me to perform some calculations. I was at a loss on how to proceed, so I turned to Lant Pritchett for help. “Just put it into Lotus 1-2-3,” he advised. I told him that I didn’t know how to do that. “Wow,” he exclaimed. “I can’t believe you’ve gotten this far, or even how you can understand basic economics,without knowing how to use Lotus.” I went home convinced that I was going to get fired. The next day, Lant sat me down. My heart was pounding. But