Rethinking “Lean In”
The article that got me rethinking my views on “Lean In” and “Radical Candor” and the the need for me to read or maybe reread the books.
I’ve forgotten if I’ve read the books because there is such a cultural movement around the statements now. Thinking about writing this post has convinced me that once I publish my thoughts I need to read both books (again?) and then write an another analysis.
I got to thinking about Lean In and Radical Candor after reading this newsletter and this quote especially.
I love the idea of “leaning in all directions while always moving forward”. A critical need in life and work is to always try different approaches to build connections and make progress. Always leaning in won’t solve every problem in life and work.
Changing Views
For many years, I’ve been uncomfortable with Lean In and Radical Candor because they portray a world drastically different from my own working experience. Yes, I’ve seen many women and men Lean In and get ahead. I’ve also seen an equal number Lean In and destroy teams, bully people and generally be horrible people to work with. Lean In and Radical Candor seemed to weaponise the worst parts of aggression-dominated, workaholic “do whatever it takes to get ahead and be brutally honest” work culture and made them ideals to reach for.
While writing this post, I’ve realised my thinking has been wrong. I’ve been responding negatively to these approaches because of my own fear that people will respond to these books and use it as an excuse or a requirement to behave badly. Yet, I’ve been ignoring all the people who want to take more responsibility or be more frank yet keep quiet or hold back because they think “that is the culture” or the fear of being seen as too aggressive.
These books are important cultural statements. From the book reviews and comments, the books have encouraged many people who wanted to lean-in or be-candid to be exactly that. I no longer think that these books will make good people terrible. Terrible people don’t need books like this to be terrible and with or without the support of a book they will find a way. Though they may hold up the book as an example of the justification for their bad behaviour. With or without the book they will find a way to behave badly.
I’ll update this topic and post a book review / response once I finish rereading the books.