Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg has emerged as a leading voice for gender equality since she delivered, in late 2010, a provocative TEDWomen address on why a smaller percentage of women than men reach the top.

In this interview—available here as both a video and an edited transcript—with McKinsey's Joanna Barsh, Sandberg (an alumnus of McKinsey, the US Treasury Department, and Google) expands on issues from her new book, "Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead" (Knopf, March 2013), and explains why women need to "lean in" to gain confidence, develop skills, and become more comfortable as leaders—herself included.

Find the full transcript of this interview as well as links to McKinsey's wealth of research on the topic of executive women on the McKinsey Quarterly site: http://bit.ly/McKLeanIn