David Schardt - Sheryl Sandberg: From Bossy to Boss

Sheryl Sandberg

From Bossy to Boss

by

David Schardt

Copyright 2015 David Schardt

Smashwords Edition

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Table of Contents

Im proud to be a geek, Ive been a geek my entirelife, Sheryl Sandberg told a cheering crowd at the 20th SanFrancisco Bay Area Girl Geek Dinner in 2012.

And now shes a very successful geek, havinghelped Google and Facebook become two of the worlds largest, mostvaluable companies. And with Facebook, she helps run the largestnetwork of humans in the history of the world.

Sandberg has even become something none ofthe men around her have: a noun. Savvy companies covet having theirown Sheryl, a number two whos smart, competent, smooth,well-connected, with a steady hand to bring out the best inothers.

Sandberg has not forgotten that people calledher bossy as a child. There is a word for bossy for littlegirls in every language, she says. The word is not often used todescribe boys because its expected that they lead. But if alittle girl leads, she's bossy.

So the next time you see someone call alittle girl bossy, she urges, you walk right up to that personand you say, That little girl's not bossy. That little girl hasexecutive leadership skills."

She might become another Sheryl Sandberg.

Bossy girl

SherylSandberg was born in 1969 in Washington D.C. and grew up in NorthMiami Beach, Florida. Shes the oldest of three children of Joel,an eye doctor, and Adele Sandberg, a teacher who dropped out of aPhD program when she became pregnant.

I was the eldest of the neighborhoodchildren and allegedly spent my time organizing shows that I coulddirect and clubs that I could run, she recalled in her bookLean In.

Her two younger siblings David and Michelleattested to that in a humorous toast to Sheryl at her wedding in2004.

To the best of our knowledge, Sheryl neveractually played as a child, but really just organized otherchildrens play, they told the guests.

The two, they confessed, were Sherylsworthless, weak first employees. For more than ten years, Sheryltook us under her wing and whipped us into shape, they recounted.Their sister even taught them to follow her around shoutingRight! after her speeches.

The Sandberg parents set an example for theirchildren of service to people. Joel took the family on vacations tothe Caribbean where he did eye surgery for free in poorneighborhoods. Adele disguised chocolate bars to look like soapthat travelers to the Soviet Union could give dissidents to sell onthe black market.

My parents both had this very deepcommitment to do something for the world, Sheryl explained in adocumentary by makers.com. I grew up watching my mother worktirelessly on behalf of persecuted Jews in the Soviet Union. Herfather pitched in, too, helping to found the South FloridaConference on Soviet Jewry.

During the 1970s and most of the 1980s, theSoviet Union blocked many Jews from jobs they were qualified tohold. The nation also forbade them from observing their religion inpublic and discouraged them from moving to other countries,especially Israel. If they protested the restrictions, theserefuseniks could be arrested, sent to labor camps, or exiled toremote areas of the country.

(Among the last families to leave until theGorbachev era loosened the prohibitions in the late 1980s:mathematician Michael Brin, his wife Eugenia, a scientist, andtheir six-year-old son Sergey, the future cofounder of Google.)

The Sandberg family wrote appeals for therelease of Jewish prisoners, attended rallies, and providedtemporary housing in their home for those lucky enough to get out.My parents basically ran a non-profit out of our home, Sherylrecalled.

Sandberg attended her first rally for SovietJews as a one year old, according to a 1982 article in the MiamiHerald. At eight, she began writing to her twin, a Jewishgirl her own age trapped in the Soviet Union. It sometimes amazesme that I can go to synagogue and she cant, the Heraldquoted Sheryl, when she was an 8th grader in junior highschool.

Sheryls twin, Kira Volvovsky, was thedaughter of computer scientists who lost their jobs in 1974 whenthey tried to leave the Soviet Union. Kira later told Timemagazine that what she recollected most about Sheryls letters isshe had such pretty handwriting and the stationary was sobeautiful. I remember copying her handwriting because I wanted towrite like an American girl.

By 1987, when Sheryl started college, theSoviet Union finally allowed Jews to freely leave the country,partly in response to pressure from the Sandbergs and otherfamilies like them. Kira and her family didnt waste any time andquickly moved to Israel.

High school

Sheryl attended North Miami Senior Beach High School, a largepublic school where she served in student government.

Even though I grew up in a traditional home,my parents had the same expectations for me, my sister, and mybrother, Sheryl wrote in Lean In. All three of them wereencouraged to excel in school, do equal chores, and engage inextracurricular activities.

Her parents stressed athletics, too. Mybrother and sister joined sports teams, but I was the kid who gotpicked last in gym. So Sheryl became an aerobics instructor,outfitted in a silver leotard and leg warmers with a shinyheadband.

Aerobics taught her a valuable lesson thatshe says has served her well in life.

When I don't feel confident, one tactic I'velearned is that it sometimes helps to fake it, she says. JaneFonda set the standard, so aerobics meant smiling solidly for afull hour. The smile came naturally some days, but not on otherdays. Yet after an hour of forced smiling, I often feltcheerful.

Sandberg doesnt think her family householdwas particularly gender-neutral. But I was raised to think that Icould do anything. I was raised to think that I could go to a greatschool and could achieve anything I wanted to achieve, she toldmakers.com.

I was a really serious geek in high school,she now says proudly. But she didnt always feel that way. Fellowstudents called her the smartest girl in the class, a title shehated. Being smart is good in lots of ways, but it doesnt makeyou particularly popular or attractive to boys, shecomplained.

In fact, when her senior class voted hermost likely to succeed, Sheryl convinced a friend on the yearbookstaff to remove her name from the list so that no one would know.Most likely to succeed is not the girl who gets a date to theprom, she explained. And I was worried enough about that. I wasembarrassed.

Sheryl hung out with a group of six girlslike herself, Jewish, from comfortable families, all trying to dowell in school. In their senior year, they bought a full page intheir high school yearbook, featuring two photos of the group andrewritten lyrics to Through the Years, the Kenny Rogers song: