That time Paul Ryan inadvertently taught us to Lean In

Full disclosure: as someone who has worked for three Democratic presidential candidates over the course of her career, I never thought I'd be blogging about lessons I'm learning from conservative impending Speaker of the House Paul Ryan. But given his deliberative tenor and--especially when compared to the cast of GOP presidential front runners--downright professional manner, he is someone I have been paying attention to, in the hopes that he can potentially restore some diplomacy to Congress, despite our conflicting viewpoints on myriad issues. 

One of those conflicting views is on the issue of paid family leave. As I quickly learned last week from a tidal wave of posts on Facebook, Linkedin and Twitter, in 2009, Ryan voted against the Federal Employees Paid Parental Leave Act, which would've allowed government workers to "substitute up to four weeks of available paid leave to take parental leave." To be clear, Ryan can't be blamed for the bill's failure, as it actually passed the House with some Republican support but died before reaching the Senate floor. But as Republican leadership ramped up a do-or-die campaign to woo Ryan to throw his hat into the ring for Speaker of the House, Ryan's voting record on family leave became "a thing." Because his first instinct in rejecting a job that would make him second in line to the presidency was that it would deprive him of valued time with his family. Thusly, my social media feeds exploded with equal part cries of "Paul Ryan is a hypocrite!" and "Here's why Paul Ryan isn't a hypocrite even though he sounds like one!" 

“This is a job where you are expected to be on the road about a hundred days a year. Our kids are 10, 12 and 13, and I’m not going to do that... I cannot and will not give up my family time." - Rep. Paul Ryan

Most career politicians wouldn't have to think twice about making whatever sacrifice was necessary to become one of the most powerful people in a government. The most popular shows on television right now have made political ladder climbing plot central: both Frank Underwood and numerous Hands of the King have killed to get what Paul Ryan is being handed on a silver platter (spoiler alert?). 

But what can we learn when we separate the politician from the professional? Set his voting record aside, and we see that Ryan is doing exactly what Sheryl Sandberg prescribed working parents should do: he is expertly negotiating to create equilibrium in his family life. 

I've read the negotiation chapter of "Lean In" more times than I read Shakespeare while completing my English major, and that's saying something. To paraphrase "Lean In," Sandberg cites evidence that women tend to be poorer negotiators than men when it comes to securing a new role, especially the compensation part of the equation. When Sandberg felt she had received a "pretty good" first offer for her landmark role as COO at Facebook, it was her husband and brother-in-law who convinced her that no man would accept a first offer and to "negotiate, negotiate, negotiate." For Paul Ryan, it's not the compensation that needs negotiating--the Speaker of the House receives a fixed salary of about $223,500. For Ryan, it's work/life balance. While I wish Ryan would put himself in his constituents' shoes when he votes against better family leave for all who work, in his own professional life, he is negotiating like a pro, and I can only hope it can pave the road for the rest of us. He is demanding flexibility from one of the highest profile jobs in America, and because there is no other candidate in the wings who has his appeal, he's probably going to get it. Speaker of the House isn't a 9-to-5 job, but somehow Ryan is winning the argument to make it one. If he can do that, than why can't female executives or teachers or minimum wage workers win, too? 

The challenge is, as Sandberg highlights throughout her book, women are perceived as softer and more nurturing, and therefore more likely to ask for things like work/life balance and less likely to counter a first offer with conditions. If Paul Ryan was a woman, would his remarks have harmed his chances? Anne-Marie Slaughter, the author of "Why Women Still Can't Have it All" and the yin to Sandberg's yang, said exactly what I was thinking: "If [former House Speaker] Nancy Pelosi [had] said that, it would be all over." Pelosi has five children, but was much older and in fact a grandmother when she was named Speaker, so the demands of parenting young and teenage children had passed. 

Paul Ryan isn't likely to become the darling of the family leave movement overnight. In fact, opposing funding family leave is directly in line with his fiscally conservative values, which is why I can't call him a hypocrite for his demands. But I celebrate the attention he is drawing to the desire that even powerful and successful professionals have for work/life balance, and I am hopeful that it will somehow empower more parents to make these sort of demands the norm across careers and industries.