When Sheryl Sandberg told women to lean in, she sparked a wave of ambition, leadership books, and corporate empowerment conversations. For many women, the problem isn’t about leaning in at work. It’s about everything they have to do before they even get out the door.
Because before you can lean into your career, your voice, or your potential, you have to stop holding the metaphorical flush.
Let me explain.
Paul Akers, in his book 2 Second Lean, shares a story about a toilet that didn’t flush properly. Instead of fixing it, someone slapped a sign on it: “Hold flush for 3 seconds.” The problem wasn’t addressed, just managed. Quietly. Repeatedly. By everyone who followed.
That’s what invisible work often looks like. Not broken enough to cause a scene. Not visible enough to warrant praise. Just quietly absorbed by the same people, day after day.
Usually women.
Channel 4’s The Change is a brilliantly quirky feminist sitcom centered around Linda (Bridget Christie), who reaches 50 and decides to cash in years of domestic drudgery and rediscover herself. While menopause is a key theme, the show weaves in witchcraft, activism, climate change, veganism, and misogyny. All with sharp witted humour and a refreshing perspective on societal issues. So much so, it’s a rude awakening for the “red-pilled”, those indoctrinated into that believing women can’t be funny – see series 2!
Bridget Christie’s character, Tina, in the Channel 4 series, The Change, captures this brilliantly. Over 25 years, she keeps a journal of every second stolen from her in household chores. The total? 3.5million minutes of unpaid labour, logged in silence. A quiet accumulation of care and responsibility. An invisible weight that doesn’t show up on calendars or shared task lists, but shapes lives all the same. The show brings to life what Caroline Criado Perez talks about in Invisible Women.
And Cordelia Fine’s Patriarchy Inc is essential reading here. She dismantles, with humour, the idea that women are naturally more organised, more nurturing. More whatever society needs them to be to keep the wheels turning. These aren’t biological traits, they’re learned responses to systemic gaps. Responses that often go unacknowledged.
Women aren’t doing more because they love it.
They’re doing more because they’re constantly solving problems no one else sees, or chooses to see.
In The Change, the women try to tip the balance. They go on strike. But when the men wipe every surface with the same cloth, they take the chores back. Not because they want to. Because they know they’ll have to redo them anyway.
And that’s the trap.
Mel Robbins’ book Let Them reminds us we can’t control others. If someone’s always late, let them be late. Don’t waste your energy trying to change them.
But where does respect fit in?
That’s where Lean thinking comes in.
Lean isn’t just about efficiency. It’s about respect.
- Respect for the person after you.
- Respect for time.
- Respect for clarity over chaos.
In a Lean organisation, the toilet gets fixed. It doesn’t become someone else’s daily problem. Systems are improved, not patched. People are trained, not blamed. Everyone looks for a better way, because no one assumes someone else will just handle it.
This is where Ryan Tierney’s work stands out. He doesn’t just talk Lean, he lives it. He speaks often about creating systems that support the next person, ”Think of the next person”. Not just the one doing the work now. That mindset changes everything. It turns respect from a value into a practice.
Because when women aren’t holding the flush, when they aren’t stuck managing the workaround, what else might they be doing?
Maybe leaning in isn’t the goal.
Maybe it’s time to lean out, take a step back, look at what’s broken, and fix it.
Fix the flush.
And build a system where no one has to hold it again.
