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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Talent development changed Maria Castañón Moats’ career: She’s now a successful line partner and a mother, thanks to PricewaterhouseCoopers’ discipline toward work/life and talent development for women.

She had only met PricewaterhouseCoopers Chairman and Senior Partner Bob Moritz a handful of times when he called. “With 2,400 partners, I didn’t even think he knew who I was,” she recalls.

PricewaterhouseCoopers is No. 1 in The 2012 DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity,  No. 1 in The DiversityInc Top 10 Companies for Women, No. 5 in The DiversityInc Top 5 Companies for Global Diversity, No. 6 in The DiversityInc Top 10 Companies for LGBT Employees, No. 8 in The DiversityInc Top 10 Companies for Asian Americans and No. 1 in The DiversityInc Top 10 Companies for Recruitment & Retention.

He did, indeed. Five minutes into the conversation, he told her he was looking for a new chief diversity officer, part of his direct leadership team, and was planning to interview three people—and he wanted her to be one of them.

“I was really surprised. I told him I was in my second year in the national office and had also recently adopted an infant … He said, ‘Why don’t you think about it and give me a call on Monday?’” she recalls. She did think about it and realized that as the leader of the firm’s diversity efforts she would be able to drive PwC’s strategy to be an even more inclusive place.

“I thought, ‘How can I, with my own story, not do this?’ And then I thought, ‘I’d really like to learn from Bob.’ I liked the way he interacted with me; he was so available,” she says. She took on the role officially in June.

For more on Moats’ career and personal experiences as a Latina and woman executive, read What Background Is Best for Chief Diversity Officers? For more on women in leadership and talent development for women employees, read When Will There Be More Women CEOs?

Her Own Story

Moats believes her life story can be an inspiration for others. Born in Mexico, she was the oldest of four children. Her parents, both of whom had only sixth-grade educations, moved to El Paso, Texas, when she was a young child. Her dad was a carpenter; her mom worked in factories sewing.

“My parents always emphasized that we were here in the United States with real opportunity. If we weren’t going to better ourselves, why did we come here?” she says.

Education was important to betterment, and Moats was a good student, one who was college material. “I wondered how we could pay for college, and my mom said, simply, ‘We are going to find a way,’” she recalls.

Moats attended the University of Texas at El Paso and gravitated toward math and science classes, assuming she’d be an engineer. But the College of Engineering was next to the College of Business, and she started to think about accounting.

“My dad said that you have to have accuracy and integrity in accounting—and he thought that was for me,” she recalls.

She went into business with a concentration in accounting and was recruited into a management-development program. The job was in Dallas, so for the first time, she left her close-knit family.

After a few years, she heard Coopers & Lybrand was looking for someone with mortgage-banking experience. She went to interview with a partner, a white man. It was lunchtime. He offered her half his sandwich and said: “I know how to audit; you know mortgage banking. We’re a team.” She felt welcomed and she joined the firm.

Ten years later, when Coopers & Lybrand had become PricewaterhouseCoopers, Moats became an audit partner. “The experiences I had within the firm were really positive. I had great mentors, most of whom happened to be white males,” she says.

Then life happened. Moats married and had a son, Quinton. When her beloved father became ill, she went to her boss and said she needed to resign to go back to El Paso and help her mother. “This would have been a point where I would have been another statistic,” she recalls.

Instead, PwC gave her a temporary assignment in the El Paso office.

Setting a Firmwide Strategy

“We need in essence to replicate the experience I had,” Moats says. “We need to make sure we have advocates who are aligned with our people. It’s all about relationships. I want us to think bigger and to help the firm develop its talent so we have an even more diverse leadership,” she says.

Her specific goals as chief diversity officer emphasize helping high-performing women, Blacks, Latinos, Asians, American Indians and LGBT professionals succeed, primarily through formal mentoring and talent development—specifically, sponsorship—and matching them with senior partners. “I want them to think about their personal brands, what they want to be known for, how they want to handle innovation,” she says.

As a line partner, she knows she has the respect of her partners. “I understand how the firm works. Client-service-facing individuals are always thinking of the clients, the regulators and the investors first,” she says.

Her partners, she says, see her first as a partner, second as a woman and third as a Latina. “I really represent America today,” she says.

For more on the benefits of having line partners serve as chief diversity officers, read Why Do P&L Guys Head Diversity at Deloitte, Lilly?

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A panel moderated by DiversityInc CEO Luke Visconti, explored the backgrounds and benefits of five chief diversity officers and was preceded by a talk from new PricewaterhouseCoopers Chief Diversity Officer Maria Castañón Moats. PricewaterhouseCoopers is No. 3 on The DiversityInc Top 50 Companies for Diversity list. “It’s a unique opportunity to get in front of our 2,400 partners,” says Moats of her new position” to talk about diversity as a critical business issue, respective to the line of service, geography and industry you are in.” 

Moats spoke of how the professional-services firm works to marry the role of CDO with that of revenue-generator. Moats recently took over from Niloufar Molavi. The position at PwC is a rotational role, where the firm’s line partners serve for two to three years at a time.

“I am not an expert,” she says, admitting that the rotational model only works because “I have a terrific team supporting me.” She acknowledges that her team’s knowledge of diversity and its insight into the continuity of business relationships is critical to her success. Read the full-length, 1,039-word What Background Is Best for Chief Diversity Officers? article at DiversityIncBestPractices.com to watch the exclusive videos of her presentation.

Putting Diversity in P&L Terms

“Diversity is hard to measure but having a hard-ended discussion with our leadership is something I have done and am not afraid to do,” says Shaun Hawkins, chief diversity officer at Eli Lilly (No. 39). Hawkins has an investment background and attributes those P&L roots to his success as chief diversity officer. “We really rely on employee engagement, so diversity and inclusion have to be there. We have to be able to translate what we are doing here to some sort of business in an appropriate way.

Hawkins discussed these issues along with three other diversity leaders—Linda Jimenez, chief diversity officer and vice president, diversity and inclusion, WellPoint (No. 36), who is an attorney; Steve Bucherati, chief diversity officer at The Coca-Cola Company (No. 12), who was previously with the Coca-Cola Foundation; and Andrea Snorton, manager of diversity and inclusion at Southern Company (one of DiversityInc’s 25 Noteworthy Companies and Top Company for Diversity-Management Progress), who has an HR background. Read the full-length, 1,039-word What Background Is Best for Chief Diversity Officers? article at DiversityIncBestPractices.com for more insights and the exclusive video of this interactive panel.

Making Friends with Legal

Jimenez says that her background as a lawyer has helped her in finding solutions and ultimately becoming a mediator for employees and managers’ qualms with diversity issues and goals. “It’s one of the things we like to do as a CDO. It’s about having everyone walk away with a win-win situation,” she says.

Understanding the Community

Chief Diversity Officers with experience in corporate community outreach know the value of these good relationships within and outside the company. Bucherati used to run the Coca-Cola Foundation, which enabled him to see the value in “connecting the dots” and working as a team, especially since CDO’s don’t manage every aspect of the business.

Linking Back to HR 

This is not to discredit those in traditional HR careers, as Andrea Snorton attests that her “background in HR has definitely been an asset, in terms of what our succession slates look like, determining which organizations we’re going to recruit from.” Knowledge of HR gave her the understanding of what the challenges were, allowing her to leverage her relationships and credibility within the organization.

Read the full-length, 1,039-word What Background Is Best for Chief Diversity Officers? article at DiversityIncBestPractices.com for more insight and the exclusive videos of these sessions.

Referenced Articles:
PwC Chairman Bob Moritz Makes Diversity Personal
Why Do P&L Guys Head Diversity at Deloitte, Lilly?
Retention Best Practices
Employee-Volunteer Programs
4 Ways to Overcome Global Diversity Challenges

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