As chairman and senior partner of PwC, I have closely followed the debate about Sheryl Sandberg’s new book Lean In. Sandberg has brought renewed attention to the critical challenge of diversifying corporate leadership. While Sandberg focuses on inspiring women to embrace ambition, I believe business leaders have a responsibility to lean in as well. At PwC we’re “leaning in” because we recognize that women and minorities cannot solve the leadership gap by themselves.

There are many concrete steps CEOs, in particular, can take. The first is to create accountability for diversity. At PwC, our Chief Diversity Officer is a line partner who reports directly to me and is a member of my leadership team. The role is a rotation, rather than a destination, and we use it to develop high-potential partners. Our Chief Diversity Officers contribute to a strategic business issue outside of their traditional practice and gain visibility. Although this structure might not work for all organizations, at PwC it serves to elevate the function and drive change.

The second step is to create an inclusive culture. Here, programs matter. While the ultimate goal of any diversity initiative is cultural change, formal programs send a powerful signal. For example, Full Circle is a PwC program that allows parents to “off-ramp” from their careers, stay connected while they are gone, maintain their technical credentials, and then return to the firm. Formalizing this option gives people permission to pursue non-linear career paths. Mentor Moms is a PwC effort to match women returning from maternity leave with experienced mothers who are successfully juggling family and careers. Our Women’s Networking Circles provide a forum to discuss career advancement, and our members are using Lean In’s educational videos to enrich that conversation.

Diversity initiatives also set expectations. We’ve asked all 2,700 PwC partners to sponsor three diverse professionals. Partners are expected to identify these individuals in their development plans and discuss the actions taken on their behalf during the end-of-year evaluation. We believe sponsorship is critical to advancement, and these relationships often develop informally. Breaking the cycle of people sponsoring those who are similar to themselves requires intentional effort.

The third step is to create awareness that people sometimes make unconscious assumptions. Sandberg’s book catalogs unconscious biases people still may hold about women leaders. We have a responsibility as an organization to address those stereotypes. PwC hosts interactive sessions for our leaders about how to identify potential “blind spots” and better understand how they influence decision making. As leaders, we must challenge our blind spots.

Finally, we need to create environments where people have the flexibility to lean forward or back at different points. Career paths have to be less rigid, in order to accommodate the diversity of today’s workforce.

While we still have progress to make, these efforts have yielded results. Over the last decade the number of women partners in our US firm has increased considerably, and five members of our 15-person leadership team are women.

I hope more of our women are inspired by the dialogue Sandberg has generated to lean in and aim even higher in their careers. My work is to make sure PwC leans in to meet those ambitions with opportunities, flexibility, and sponsorship. Then together we can close the leadership gap.

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The Atlantic only got half the story. It’s not about “housework”; if we’re talking about top management, at a certain point, a couple has to decide which person is going to stay home. You cannot have two people with high-flying careers in a relationship unless they don’t have children. If you have children or want a family, one spouse/partner must stay home.

Relatively few people nationwide achieve the career trajectory needed to get into top management. At most high-flying companies, they usually have Ivy League pedigrees and life experiences that are highly unusual (compared to the average American), like Sheryl Sandberg has. Even among that group, many don’t achieve Sandberg-like trajectories, and the problem is that you don’t really know if your career is going to take off until your early 30s. By then, you’ve made several make-or-break career decisions.

The way most companies are run now, the moves you have to make are made with the assumption that one spouse is subordinate—because to get on that trajectory, you have to work 60–90 hours a week when you’re in your 20s. The right moves require frequent geographic relocations. They require that you have no responsibility for elder care. They require that you put in your private time politicking: going to the right events, socializing with the right people, etc. In other words, for people making more than a good upper-middle-income living (more than $500,000), the requirements of time and travel make it impossible for both spouses to be employed. For example, I know a senior woman executive who makes a seven-figure income. There’s NO WAY she can say no to a last-minute client meeting, and there’s no way she can get more than partial flex time. Her househusband has two advanced degrees, but he’s unusual—in the wealthy neighborhoods across the country there are far more middle-aged women with advanced degrees who stay at home than there are men.

The problem as I see it is that the women usually opt out of the corporate rat race because the expectation is that they won’t be treated fairly. And the data agree—they won’t.

That’s why it’s extremely important for men AND women to pick the right company to work for. They’re not all the same. I’m sorry, but I couldn’t recommend that any woman work for Facebook because the only woman who has reached top management has a résumé that is in the top .0001 percent of America. Sheryl Sandberg isn’t just exceptional, she’s SUPER exceptional. Sure, some of the men around her are super exceptional, but not all of them have nearly her pedigree. Fifty percent of the people Sheryl’s age with SUPER-exceptional résumés aren’t women (many have dropped out of the fast track for the reasons noted above); however, I’d estimate that 30 percent of that group are women. This should tell you that if the women at Facebook were just exceptional, they’d have no chance.

Women—and men—should pick companies that have the competency to develop the careers of both genders. I’ll take a Novartis Pharmaceuticals Corporation, where 50 percent of the people reporting to André Wyss are women. I’ll take a PricewaterhouseCoopers, where I’ve heard Bob Moritz talk about the personal responsibility his top management has been assigned to take for the careers of the women reporting to them. I’ll pick a Sodexo, where senior executives talk like real human beings and are passionate about (and busy) doing the right thing.

I’d avoid companies where the CEO speaks paternally or has odd, out-of-date anecdotes, especially avoiding those that talk about “picking a woman” as if that were something remarkable. (Given that women have been earning more bachelor’s degrees than men since 1982, how remarkable can it be?) I’d look very closely at that web page that shows the company’s senior executives and board. All men? All white men? Since most companies look that way, you don’t want to make a final decision based on that evidence, but ask good questions during your interview process. Unless there are demonstrable management initiatives (executive diversity council, structured mentoring, high-profile resource groups) to change the status quo, don’t count on a good career if you’re not one of them, because they picked a lot of just-exceptional men over their more-exceptional women counterparts many times to get to where they are today.

Don’t let Sandberg convince you that the problem is with women: No matter how much you “Lean In” and how much your spouse/partner does the housework, your career doesn’t stand much of a chance if you work for a company that chooses to run itself in a way that discards most of half the available talent pool.

Luke Visconti’s Ask the White Guy column is a top draw on DiversityInc.com. Visconti, the founder and CEO of DiversityInc, is a nationally recognized leader in diversity management. In his popular column, readers who ask Visconti tough questions about race/culture, religion, gender, sexual orientation, disability and age can expect smart, direct and disarmingly frank answers.

The post Ask the White Guy: It’s Not About Housework, It’s About Picking the Right Company appeared first on DiversityInc.

“We’ve ceased making progress at the top in any industry anywhere in the world,” Sandberg writes. “In the United States, women have had 14 percent of the top corporate jobs and 17 percent of the board seats for 10 years. Ten years of no progress,” despite the fact that women now earn more bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees than men.

Sandberg’s advice to women? Don’t get a mentor if you want to excel—you need to excel first, then you’ll get a mentor. It’s a philosophy that has sparked a significant debate, especially since her viewpoint relieves many organizations of the responsibility of promoting equality in the workplace and advocating cultural-competence education, writes Barbara Frankel, Senior Vice President and Executive Editor, DiversityInc.

As a woman who has fought for three decades in the workplace for a place at the table … I agree with Sandberg that too many women give up too easily as the challenges of family and work become overwhelming. But her simplistic solution of urging women to take control of themselves and join “Lean In Circles” to bolster each other ignores the reality that most workplace inequities aren’t caused by the victims, but by the institutions and those in power who benefit from continuity.”

Read the rest of Frankel’s reaction to Lean In in this column.

Read these reviews and reactions from other top news outlets—then share your thoughts with us in the comments below:

Sheryl Sandberg Inspired and Offended on 60 Minutes [with video]
Sandberg says she’s not blaming women, but there are a lot more factors to success that women can—and should—control.

SHERYL SANDBERG: Women Need to Get More Comfortable With Power
This overview of Sandberg’s book breaks it down into seven lessons, including “women should not ask for mentors” and “having it all is a myth.”

‘This Week’ Roundtable on Sheryl Sandberg
Do men outnumber women when it comes to ambition for leadership? Panelists discuss controversy surrounding Sandberg’s Lean In.

Lean In, Read On: 21 Perspectives on Sheryl Sandberg’s Book
Sandberg is a “PowerPoint Pied Piper in Prada ankle books,” wrote Maureen Dowd, New York Times columnist and Pulitzer Prize recipient.

10 Things Sheryl Sandberg Gets Exactly Right In Lean In
Despite criticism, you can’t ignore that Sandberg hits the nail on the head: Men still rule the world.

Gen-Y Responds to Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In
What do 20-something’s think about Sandberg’s book? Here are some first-hand responses on Lean In.

Sheryl Sandberg: On a Mission to Elevate Women
Is Sandberg too rich, too successful to lead a women’s movement? The Facebook COO won’t back down despite criticism.

Facebook’s Sandberg Says Women’s Revolution Has Stalled
CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell interviews Sandberg.

60 Minutes: Sandberg on Mentoring
Sandberg details the insecurities she still has about her success and about the mentors she had along the way.

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Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg’s book Lean In comes out today, and it has been lighting up social media and Sunday talk shows with its concept that women have to “try harder” and not rely on their employers or their mentors to look out for them.

As a woman who has fought for three decades in the workplace for a seat at the table—and who now sees my 28-year-old daughter and several young women I mentor facing similar struggles—I agree with Sandberg that too many women give up too easily as the challenges of family and work become overwhelming. But Sandberg’s simplistic solution of urging women to take control of themselves and join “Lean In Circles” to bolster each other ignores the reality that most workplace inequities aren’t caused by the victims, but by the institutions and those in power who benefit from continuity.

In other words, we shouldn’t let corporate America off the hook for the lack of women in senior management.

Consider this: Women account for just 4.2 percent of Fortune 500 CEOs; at DiversityInc Top 50 companies, which are significantly more progressive for race and ethnicity, women do only slightly better: 6 percent of CEOs. Women account for 20 percent of the top level at Fortune 500 companies (CEO and direct reports) and 24 percent at DiversityInc Top 50 companies.

So as someone who came of age in the 1970s, when full equality seemed imminent (to those who read Ms. Magazine religiously, as I did), I have to wonder: What happened?

Corporate Hubris

I understand Sandberg’s points on not being passive about leadership and on women making their own success. But the message sent by corporate America has been ambiguous, to say the least. On the one hand, many companies have been singing their own praises for their “flexible” workplaces and how great they are for women—while still having very different promotion tracks for those who can’t travel globally for weeks at a time, who may not want to be connected 24/7, or who have more inclusive styles of leadership.

I cannot tell you the number of women—including several I know who are in their 20s—who use the word “compromise” when describing their life choices. I did it myself in my 20s, choosing to be a big fish in a little pond (a local newspaper) instead of pursuing my dream of working for a major newspaper. You know the story: husband, kids, aging parents, house, dog, cat, etc. We can “have it all,” but with a price—our dreams, our sanity and often our health.

Unlike Sandberg, I don’t fault the women who continue to make these choices. I fault a society that doesn’t offer reasonable childcare (from a financial and an emotional perspective) and I fault corporate America, including many of those companies that bill themselves as leaders for women.

A Real Example

The few companies that are trying to really level the playing field for women understand that they aren’t there yet. I moderated a panel last week on women branding themselves and having more “executive presence.” One of the speakers was Maria Castañón Moats, the Chief Diversity Officer of PricewaterhouseCoopers. PwC is No. 1 on the 2012 DiversityInc Top 50 list, and for good reason—this is a company that continually challenges itself on how inclusive it actually is and never, ever rests on its laurels.

Maria talked about how PwC is working diligently to get its senior partners, still mostly white men, to connect more with younger women in the organization and how multifaceted and ongoing their organizational efforts are. This is a company that literally helps women (and men) plan their families every step of the way. Their numbers of women in management show a remarkable story of progress, one we rarely see in other companies. I’m not speaking loosely here; we have almost 900 companies participating in the DiversityInc Top 50 this year and the progress for women into the senior levels is pretty slow across the board.

But most companies don’t have the self-awareness of PwC. Instead, they put their names out there with big media splashes and then refuse to really address the systemic and inherent sexism in their organizations.

Sandberg’s Lean In project has “launch partners” including American Express, Google, Sony and Johnson & Johnson, according to The New York Times. Not sure exactly what that support involves beyond money, but I’d like to see those companies publicly disclose exactly how they are helping women move up and stay up—including hard numbers.

There’s a lot of criticism of Sandberg because she’s wealthy, works in Silicon Valley, has a supportive husband and lots of help. I’m not faulting her for her success or for her desires to share her ideas with other women. But if we let companies just buy their way to being “good for women,” things are never going to really get “good for women.”

My daughter’s getting married later this year and talks about having kids in a couple of years. She’s bright, she’s beautiful and she would be a major asset anywhere she goes.  But if the responsibility of doing it all falls entirely on her shoulders, she’ll probably follow in the footsteps of generations before her and compromise. And then we’ll be looking at 20 percent women in the top level of Fortune 500 companies for a long time.

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