Still Leaning In – The Lessons They Don’t Teach You About Equality in Business
- Brainz Magazine
- Nov 12
- 4 min read
Updated: 6 days ago
She is a Career and Personal Development Coach with almost ten years of experience. Her expertise is in Job & workplace readiness, career planning, growth, and personal development. Her work focuses on helping individuals build their capacity for career progression, navigate job transitions with ease, and achieve personal effectiveness using results-oriented methods.
I recently picked up a book called Lean In by Sheryl Sandberg and started reading it yesterday as my 23rd book of the year. The goal was to read 35, but let’s just say I’m currently leaning into grace for being a little behind.
This morning, an email made me pause one of those “this can’t be a coincidence” moments, and I found myself checking when Lean In was actually written in 2010.
Fourteen years later, the message still hits the same. We are still behind. We are still explaining. We are still trying to prove that equality isn’t charity.
As a woman who has been buying, selling, managing, leading, failing, rising, and doing business since I was 16, I can tell you it’s a whole different ball game entirely. And not the fun type where you get orange slices and a medal at the end.
Sometimes, it’s the payment delays that sting when you’ve delivered work, kept your end of the deal, but suddenly there’s “a mix-up with accounts.” Other times, it’s contracts that magically become “informal agreements” when it’s your turn to get paid.
And let’s not forget the expressions. You know, the ones that suggest you must either have a bad marriage to be this ambitious or that your success is a product of your looks, as though beauty is a qualification on the invoice.
Then there’s the subtle disbelief:
“Wow, you run that?”
“Yes, I do.”
“With your own money?”
“Yes, and no, I didn’t have to sell my soul, just my time, effort, and a few tears.”
The irony is, sometimes the hardest blows don’t come from men but from fellow women who, instead of solidarity, bring subtle sabotage or misaligned expectations. I’ve learned painful but powerful lessons about contracts, clarity, and boundaries. Lessons that shouldn’t always require heartbreak to learn.
When I think about Lean In, I realise Sheryl and Nell weren’t just talking about leadership at the table, they were talking about the invisible tables too, the ones in meetings, negotiations, and internal monologues.
It’s not just about asking for a seat, it’s about having your voice valued once you sit down.
And yet, 14 years later, I still find myself navigating situations where I have to justify expertise I’ve already proven or negotiate fairness like it’s a favour. Is it ignorance, unconscious bias, or just laziness in unlearning old systems? Probably a mix of all three.
But sometimes, it’s just the quiet, exhausting dance of constantly proving you belong when you’ve built every single brick of the table yourself. Now let’s add another layer of skin colour.
I’ve always avoided playing that card, because I don’t believe identity should be a weapon or a wound. But let’s be honest, sometimes, it’s both.
I grew up in Belgium, in a small city called Retie, around 2003. I was one of the first Black kids there. I remember people staring at me like I was a walking exhibition, not out of cruelty, just curiosity mixed with ignorance. I felt like a whole museum.
Racism was the wallpaper, not loud, but present. And back then, I didn’t even see it as racism. I just assumed, “Well, they’re better than me, aren’t they?”
That’s the wild part, you internalise inequality so early, it starts to feel like normality. Like you need a rodeo countdown before you enter a room, “And in 3, 2, 1 she’s about to prove herself again!”
What hasn’t changed in gender equality, and what must
So here we are 15 years after Lean In, still leaning, still explaining, still negotiating. The stage may look fancier, but the script? Still pretty familiar.
Equality isn’t about pity, it’s about policy. It’s not about giving women a seat, it's about removing the walls that made the room so small in the first place.
And as for me? I’ll keep reading. I’ll keep learning. I’ll keep showing up sometimes tired, often amused, but always intentional. Because yes, I’ve been cheated out of contracts, ignored in rooms, and misread by faces that never asked the full story.
But I’ve also built something solid, a business, a voice, a conviction. And while we may still be leaning in, I’m here to say this loud and clear, "Some of us have been standing tall for years, and it’s time the world catches up."
Read more from Esther Aluko
Esther Aluko, Career & Personal Development Coach
She is a Career and Personal Development Coach with almost ten years of experience. Her expertise is in Job & workplace readiness, career planning, growth, and personal development. Her work focuses on helping individuals build their capacity for career progression, navigate job transitions with ease, and achieve personal effectiveness using results-oriented methods. Her speaking engagements span the United Kingdom, Belgium, West Africa, and Ireland with corporate organizations and higher education institutions.
