Facebook’s Sheryl Sandberg puts work life balance in perspective. The former executive at Google and current Facebook COO has a much different philosophy concerning her career and family. Sheryl Sandberg has publicly thrown a wrench in our thinking by declaring that she leaves work everyday at 5:30 pm to be home in time for dinner with her children. You read correctly – 5:30! How many of us have worked under the belief that we have to sacrifice our children and families to have a great career? We have accepted that there is a trade off, one that we don’t particularly like, but Sheryl Sandberg recently admitted in a video for Makers.com that she is a firm believer of creating good work life balance:
“I walk out of this office every day at 5:30 so I’m home for dinner with my kids at 6:00, and interestingly, I’ve been doing that since I had kids. I did that when I was at Google, I did that here, and I would say it’s not until the last year, two years, that I’m brave enough to talk about it publicly. Now I certainly wouldn’t lie, but I wasn’t running around giving speeches on it. I was showing everyone I worked for that, I worked just as hard. I was getting up earlier to make sure they saw my emails at 5:30, staying up later to make sure they saw my emails late. But now I’m much more confident in where I am and so I’m able to say, “Hey! I am leaving work at 5:30″, and I say it very publicly, both internally and externally.”
Sheryl’s statements along with her conviction to align balance in her life really should make us think. For so long, we have thought that we have to have one or the other. Why can’t we have both and not feel guilty? Life is what we create it to be. Do you agree with Sheryl Sandberg’s work/life balance philosophy?
