Lean In Circle: Helping Aspiring Female Entrepreneurs Become the Boss
In spring of 2014, Lean In released a start studded promotional campaign, called Ban Bossy, with the likes of Beyoncé, Condoleezza Rice, and Jane Lynch. The purpose of this campaign was to raise awareness about how labeling girls at a young age affects their ability to lead in the future. This video has more than 2.5 million views on Youtube.
Apart from the successes of various Lean In Campaigns such as #BanBossy, the wide spread popularity of the Lean In phenomenon can been seen through the sheer number of Lean In Circles that have formed around the world. Lean In Circles are communities of women who meet to support each other in the process of leaning in. There are 122 Lean In Circles in London alone. Women can join a particular circle based on shared interests or other commonalities like age or geographic proximity. For example, there are Lean In Circles that focus on consulting, healthcare, or technology. The biggest Lean In Circle Group in London is the Circle for Women in Startups created by Dimple Lalwani who is the founder of Social Belly.
“We organized our first Lean In Circle meeting with about 8 members and now we are the biggest Circle in the UK with more than 240,” explains Lalwani. “We made the meetings more structured since we have experienced such rapid growth. I send the members an invitation three or four weeks before a meeting and a topic guide for what we are going to be talking about.” The Lean In Circles website provides education and exploration guides which help the facilitator run each meeting. This group meets monthly and the topic of the July meeting was framing fears in order to develop strategies for overcoming them. Each member shares an action update based on what she has set out to accomplish after the previous meeting and set a new goal for next month.
The commonality that brings these women together is their shared dream to be the boss. Verbalizing goals at these meetings is a way of keeping each other accountable in the face of uncertainty and fears. “One of our members has been coming since the first meeting. We have seen her go from having multiple ideas, to narrowing down to an idea, to researching her idea, and eventually quitting her job to work on it full time”. Lalwani goes on to explain that this process is not uncommon, “the support that we provide for each other is really intense.” Sheryl Sandberg is even actively involved in the progress of these Circles around the world. “You would think that because she is the COO at Facebook, she doesn’t have time for this. But no, she knew about all our members,” says Lalwani after meeting Sandberg in London. Each Lean In Circle meeting ends with open networking which further helps members to develop both personal and professional relationships.