Here is a brief excerpt from an article by the National Public Radio staff in which they discuss Sheryl Sanberg and her bestseller, Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead, published by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group (March 11, 2013). To read the complete article, check out other resources, and learn more about NPR, please click here.

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Of all the posters plastered around Facebook’s Silicon Valley headquarters — “Move Fast and Break Things,” “Done Is Better Than Perfect” and “Fail Harder” — Chief Operating Officer Sheryl Sandberg has a favorite: “What Would You Do If You Weren’t Afraid?”

“[It’s] something that I think is really important and I think very motivating,” Sandberg tells NPR’s Renee Montagne. “… I wrote in my book, what I would do if I wasn’t afraid is, I would speak out more on behalf of women.”

That book — Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead — is something of a feminist call to arms. In it, Sandberg, a 43-year-old former Google executive with two Harvard degrees, is calling on other women, as she puts it, to “lean in” and embrace success. And it has struck a chord. In the weeks leading up to the book’s publication on Monday, Sandberg, who has not been known to court controversy in the past, has been the subject of critical op-eds and cranky commentaries.

Sandberg is no stranger to success. Back in 2011, she was named Forbes Magazine‘s fifth most powerful woman in the world (after No. 1 German Chancellor Angela Merkel, No. 2 Hillary Clinton, No. 3 President of Brazil Dilma Rousseff and No. 4 CEO of PepsiCo Indira Nooyi).

“I thought it was absurd,” says Sandberg. “My mother even called to say, ‘Well, dear, I do think you’re very powerful, but I’m not sure you’re more powerful than Michelle Obama,’ and I’m thinking, ‘Of course I’m not more powerful than Michelle Obama!’ ” (Obama was No. 8, having dropped from the No. 1 spot in 2010.)

“I was really embarrassed,” Sandberg says. “People would congratulate me in the halls at Facebook, and I would literally tell them why it was silly. People would post it on Facebook, and I would call them and ask them to, you know, ‘Can you take that off? I really don’t feel comfortable.’

“My assistant pulled me into my conference room and closed the door. And she said, ‘You’re handling this really badly. Stop telling everyone who says congratulations how silly that list is, because you look insecure. You’re showing everyone how uncomfortable you are with your own power, and that’s not good, so just start saying thank you.’ ”

Two lines of argument run through Lean In. One of them has to do with how society has changed through multiple generations of feminism. The other has to do with the way society views women — and how that affects the way women view themselves.

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To read the complete article, please click here.