Suppressed ambition in women

🏃♀️ Imagine a study on marathon performance that doesn't mention some runners are carrying 50-pound backpacks. That's the 2025 Women in the Workplace report from Mckinsey and LeanIn 60 pages on why women "want promotions less." Zero mentions of childcare, eldercare, or the invisible second shift. Their own data shows women and men are equally committed to their careers, over 90% on every measure. Young women under 30 has even more ambitious than young men. Latinas are the most ambitious group in the entire study. 🤔 So where does this "ambition gap" come from? Buried on page 10, in a small box, they note that women who decline promotion cite "personal obligations" at nearly double the rate of men. Then they move on. No follow-up. No analysis. No asking the obvious question: What are these "personal obligations"? 💔 I'll tell you what they are. 👉 They're the 2am feeding before your 8am presentation. 👉 The school pickup that can't be rescheduled. 👉 The elderly parent who needs a doctor's appointment during your board meeting. 👉 The mental load of remembering everyone's everything while being told you "lack ambition." The report measured ambition without measuring the invisible infrastructure women are running at home. 👉 Here's what the report should have asked: ⁉️ Do women with equal childcare support want promotions at the same rate as men? ⁉️ Do women with flexible work arrangements show the same career drive? ⁉️ Does the "ambition gap" exist in countries with subsidized childcare? (Spoiler: Research says no, no, and no.) Instead, they concluded women are less ambitious and moved on to solutions that don't address the actual problem. This isn't just a missed opportunity. It's a misdirection! ❌ Because when you diagnose "ambition gap" instead of "care gap," you get solutions like "women need more confidence" instead of "workplaces need to stop penalizing caregiving." You get women blamed for systemic failures. 📊 Here's what an honest report would say: ✅ Women aren't less ambitious. They're doing two jobs while being evaluated as if they're doing one. ✅ The workplace wasn't designed for people with caregiving responsibilities. It was designed for people with wives. ✅ Until we redesign the system, we'll keep "discovering" that women don't want what men want, when really, women just can't afford what men take for granted. That's exactly why we built "From Hidden Talent to Visible Leader", because the women I work with aren't lacking ambition. They're lacking a system that sees their full contribution. Next cohort starts end of Jan 2026. 👉 Join the waitlist: https://lnkd.in/gx7CpGGR 👊 Because women don't have an ambition problem. The workplace has a measurement problem, and it starts with reports that count everything except what actually matters.

Women are not losing ambition; they are losing patience with environments that punish it. The real story is not an ambition gap, but a support, fairness, and respect gap. One of the earliest pieces of career advice I received was: “To progress, you need to have ambition.” Over 24 years in the corporate world, that's been a double edged sword - I have been praised for being driven and, in the same breath, criticised for being “too ambitious.” I have also sat in talent reviews where women were quietly written off as “not ambitious enough". In 2022, during a leadership review, a male colleague even said out loud: “Women don’t progress because they don’t have ambition .” 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝗴𝗲𝘁𝘀 𝘄𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗴 The latest Lean In and McKinsey Women in the Workplace report highlights a growing ambition gap: fewer women than men say they want to be promoted. Yet the same data make something else crystal clear: women and men are equally committed to their careers, and when women receive the same sponsorship, support, and stretch opportunities as men, the ambition gap largely disappears. So the issue is not that women suddenly woke up less driven; it is that many are looking at the “next level” and seeing more burnout, less support, and fewer real chances to succeed. In that context, stepping back from the race is not a lack of ambition - it is a rational response to a system that feels rigged. 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝟮𝟬+ 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗽𝗼𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗲𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂 For roughly the first 15–20 years, many women respond to blocked opportunities with even more effort and ambition: working harder & overdelivering. When doors are repeatedly closed with vague feedback like “lack of executive presence,” or “too emotional,” frustration accumulates. After decades of having to prove yourself again and again, it is not ambition that runs out; it is the willingness to keep playing a game where the rules feel opaque and uneven. That is one of the reasons so many experienced women leave corporate roles or step off the traditional ladder mid-career. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗿 𝗮𝗱𝘃𝗶𝗰𝗲 The complete career advice is: protect your ambition by choosing workplaces where: Support systems, fair processes, and allyship actively enable women’s progression. Sponsorship, not just mentorship, is in place so that women are advocated for, not just advised. Policies, leadership behaviour, and culture reduce burnout. Because ambition without support does not magically create opportunity; it only creates exhaustion, cynicism, and burnout. What would your organisation need to change so that they would choose to stay and grow? #careeradvice ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I have learned a lot during my 2 decades in the corporate world, mostly the hard way. Every Sunday, I share some of my learnings and what has helped me climb the corporate ladder while staying true to my values

Someone asked Sheryl Sandberg about a new trend: Women are “𝘭𝘦𝘢𝘯𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘰𝘶𝘵” Fewer are raising their hands for the next promotion, fewer are stepping into bigger roles. Most leaders will look at this and ask: “𝘏𝘰𝘸 𝘥𝘰 𝘸𝘦 𝘧𝘪𝘹 𝘢𝘮𝘣𝘪𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯?” That’s the wrong question. Because people don’t opt out of growth, they opt out of what growth costs them. I see this more and more in leadership conversations. Not disengagement, not lack of drive...something else. Highly capable women looking at the next step and thinking: “𝘊𝘢𝘯 𝘐 𝘥𝘰 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴… 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩𝘰𝘶𝘵 𝘭𝘰𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘦𝘭𝘴𝘦 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘮𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘮𝘦?” More visibility, more pressure, more expectations. But not always: - more support - more flexibility - more room to stay whole ...So they make a rational decision. They don’t lean out of ambition, they lean out of trade-offs that no longer make sense. And here’s the uncomfortable part: Most organizations are still designed around a model of success that assumes: ↳ unlimited availability ↳ constant upward drive ↳ and very little margin for real life So when women step back, we call it a pipeline problem. But it is actually a design problem. You can’t ask people to lean in… if the system they’re leaning into hasn’t evolved. And the leaders who will understand this shift fastest won’t ask: “𝘏𝘰𝘸 𝘥𝘰 𝘸𝘦 𝘨𝘦𝘵 𝘸𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘯 𝘵𝘰 𝘸𝘢𝘯𝘵 𝘮𝘰𝘳𝘦?” They’ll ask: “𝘞𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘦 𝘢𝘴𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘮 𝘵𝘰 𝘤𝘢𝘳𝘳𝘺… 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺’𝘳𝘦 𝘯𝘰 𝘭𝘰𝘯𝘨𝘦𝘳 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘰?” Because ambition hasn’t disappeared. It’s becoming more selective. 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐧𝐞𝐰 𝐫𝐞𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐲: People are not just choosing roles. They’re choosing the lives that come with them. And leadership today is not about creating opportunities. It’s about creating conditions people are willing to step into. Maybe women aren’t leaning out... Maybe they’re seeing more clearly what they’re being asked to lean into. ♻️ If this resonates, pass it to someone thinking seriously about leadership in today’s reality. ➕ Follow Sandrine Perrier for reflections on leadership, judgment, and human complexity at work.

Just 29% of women in the C-suite say they aspire to the CEO role. For men, it’s 49%. That gap isn’t about ambition. It’s about environment. Too many women look at the CEO role and see: - Unsustainable pressure - A narrow definition of leadership - A personal cost they’re not willing to pay And they’re not wrong to question it. When leadership is modelled as constant availability, aggression over judgement, and burnout as a badge of honour, opting out can feel like self-preservation, not a lack of drive. But here’s the problem: When fewer women aspire to the top job, the system reinforces itself. Less representation. Fewer role models. The same leadership norms, repeated. So how do we change the conversation? → First, we need to broaden what leadership looks like. There is more than one way to be an effective CEO… and we should celebrate different styles, not punish them. → Second, we need visible pathways. Women need to see leaders who are building power and sustainable lives, not choosing one at the expense of the other. → Third, this isn’t a women-only issue. Male allies matter. Boards matter. Investors matter. If we want different outcomes, we need different signals about what success looks like. Aspiration doesn’t disappear in a vacuum. It’s shaped by what people believe is possible and worth it. If we want more women to aim for the CEO role, we need to make it a role they actually want to step into. 📷 - the always brilliant The Female Quotient

McKinsey & Company and Lean In just released their 11th annual Women in the Workplace report. And this year’s findings should stop leaders in their tracks: corporate America is failing women. The gains we’ve celebrated over the past decade are at risk, and we should be shocked, appalled, and galvanized to act. ➡️ Only 50% of companies are prioritizing women’s career advancement in 2025. ➡️ The number is even lower for women of color. ➡️ Two in ten companies place little or no priority on advancing women at all, rising to three in ten for women of color. I’ve felt this firsthand. Speaking inquiries and advisory are down. In early 2025, clients paused all programs that advance women, often saying: “We don’t want to stop this, but can we pause everything for now?” But I’ll be honest, I didn’t expect the numbers to fall this low. Why does this matter? Because once companies take their foot off the gas, progress stalls. Opportunities vanish long before women ever reach senior leadership. We were still trying to reach parity at the tippy top, still trying to fix broken systems, and now half of companies are stepping away entirely. So what happens next? You’ll see more women opt out of traditional pathways. Not because they can’t handle the pressure, but because they are naming the truth: the system wasn’t built for them, and many organizations aren’t even trying to fix it anymore. Maybe they will wait for a slightly better job market but you are going to see more women exit. And now the ambition data: for the first time in 11 years of this study, women are less likely than men to want a promotion. ✅ At entry level, 69% of women say they want a promotion compared to 80% of men.  ✅ At senior levels, 84% of women vs. 92% of men. But here’s the most important finding from the report: when women receive the same sponsorship and manager support as men, this ambition gap disappears. The issue was never women's ambition. It’s access, advocacy, and structural support. It shows what companies do, the actions they take, matter. This echoes what I’ve been studying in my work on the Corporate Heroine and the Corporate Fairytale. We raised a generation of women leaders on the belief that if they checked every box, over-delivered, and powered through obstacles, the system would rise to meet them. But the system never promised that. It demanded flawless performance without providing the scaffolding to grow. It offered a fairytale without the architecture to make that fairytale real. This year’s data confirms what women have been saying quietly: they aren’t pulling away from leadership. They are questioning whether the cost of leading inside outdated systems is worth it. If organizations want progress, 2026 must be a year of renewed commitment. Sponsorship. Advocacy. Flexibility. These are not perks. They are the foundation that makes advancement possible. The roadmap is clear. The question now is whether leaders will follow it.

Here’s what I learned from researching why there are so few senior women.. In the late 1990s, I undertook a major research project examining why a prominent tech organisation had minimal women in senior leadership. 💡 The conclusion challenged assumptions: the company wasn't discriminating. Instead, their entire operational culture - policies, promotion processes, unwritten norms - favoured a single archetype. The 'work hard, play hard' employee for whom work was life. This model suited some individuals. But it excluded many capable people and, critically, didn't optimise performance or business outcomes. And this is the case in countless organisations today. The recommendations then focused on structural interventions: flexible working arrangements, equitable parental leave, transparent promotion criteria. Various organisations implemented some of these changes. Twenty-five years later, the evidence suggests limited impact. Women CEOs declined from 28% to 19% between 2023 and 2024 (Grant Thornton International Business Report, 2024). Progress has reversed. Through three decades of resilience research, organisational consulting, and executive coaching, I've observed a consistent pattern: ❗Accomplished women leaders are declining senior positions. Not from inability or lack of ambition, but through informed choice about unsustainable cultural demands and behavioural norms. ❌ They're declining cultures that require suppressing their humanity, carrying disproportionate caring responsibilities, conforming to narrow leadership templates, prioritising short-term metrics over sustainable success, and excluding emotional intelligence from professional competence. The business case for change is robust. Research demonstrates that gender-diverse executive teams consistently outperform homogeneous ones across multiple performance indicators. But we can't achieve that diversity by simply setting targets while continuing to reward the same narrow set of behaviours. We must fundamentally alter what we recruit for and reward, and the psychological safety to be human. Hustle culture doesn't optimise performance - it degrades it. Exhausted brains make worse decisions. Burnout isn't a badge of honour; it's a design flaw. ✅ We need work cultures built for how humans actually thrive. Where empathy and emotional intelligence are assets, not liabilities. Where having a life outside work isn't seen as lack of commitment. Where multiple leadership styles are valued. This isn't gender opposition - it's about recognising that balanced leadership perspectives create healthier organisational ecosystems. For everyone. If we aspire to organisations that genuinely thrive and contribute positively to broader society, we need culture redesign based on human sustainability, not inherited industrial models. ⁉️ The question isn't why women decline these opportunities. It's why our leadership cultures make that the sensible response.

Lean In's report shows women are less likely to want promotion. 80% vs 86%. They call it an "ambition gap." Y'all, I love Lean In's work. Their data always helps me serve our clients at Perfeqta better. But this framing? We need to talk about it. Because the same report shows something powerful: When women get equal sponsorship and advocacy, this "gap" completely disappears. So it was never about ambition. It was about advocacy. I see this daily with the brilliant women we work with. They're not lacking drive. They're lacking cultures who champion them. Leaders who open doors. Systems that see their potential without requiring twice the proof. What gives me hope? Companies are starting to get it. The ones creating formal sponsorship programs. Making advocacy a measured leadership competency. Building systems where talent gets seen, not overlooked. And listen, when organizations fix the advocacy gap? Women don't just match men's ambition for advancement - they exceed it. Because we've always wanted it. We just needed someone to believe we deserved it. To every leader reading this: Your advocacy changes careers. That entry-level woman on your team? She needs you to see her potential and say it out loud. In rooms where decisions get made. What's one way your organization is closing the advocacy gap? I'd love to hear what's working. #WomenInLeadership #companyculture #inclusion #belonging #SponsorshipMatters

Women don't have an ambition problem. Work has a design problem. And like any badly designed system, the cost shows up first in the people forced to operate at its edges. The latest Lean In report calls it an "ambition gap" - for the first time in a decade, fewer women than men say they want senior roles or promotions. But here's what's actually happening: In the US alone this year, hundreds of thousands of women have left the workforce while men have been net entrants. Mothers with young kids? Their labour participation has dropped several percentage points in just months. And Black women are facing unemployment rates significantly higher than everyone else. The specifics vary by country, but the pattern is familiar across the UK, Europe, and beyond: when pressure rises, flexibility shrinks, and care systems fail, women absorb the shock - or walk out. Because when a system consistently extracts more than it gives back, leaving isn't a lack of ambition - it's sound judgement. The industrial model of work - rigid 9-to-5s, presenteeism, strict return-to-office mandates, leadership norms designed by and for men without caregiving responsibilities - is getting the reckoning it deserves. And these aren't inevitable. They're design choices. Choices about time, authority, visibility, and ownership. Leaders keep reproducing them because they've never questioned the architecture underneath. Think about the barriers women are actually facing: impossible trade-offs between caregiving and career. Stubborn stereotypes about who "looks like" a leader. And a much harder time raising capital for their own ventures. Add fragile childcare infrastructure and a return-to-office wave, and you get what we're seeing now. Women are done paying for broken systems with their health, their families, and their sanity. And honestly? Many aren't opting out of meaningful work at all. They're choosing different containers for it - building independent businesses, portfolio careers, solopreneur models that give them agency over their time, income, and energy. Not because they lack ambition, but because they refuse to outsource their wellbeing to systems that won't change. So the question for leaders in 2026 isn't "How do we get women to lean back in?" It's "What are we actually willing to redesign - so ambitious women don't have to choose between a career and a life?" The economic case is clear: companies with more women in leadership perform better. Closing workforce participation gaps could add percentage points to GDP. The human case is clearer: people shouldn't have to sacrifice their humanity to succeed at work. 💬 What do you think - does this really feel like an ambition gap? Or does it feel like a rational refusal to operate inside a system that hasn't evolved? And as a leader: what are you willing to redesign - roles, rhythms, measures of performance, ways of working - so ambition doesn't come at the cost of a life?

We keep pretending men rise faster at work because they’re more ambitious. The data doesn’t support that. What it does support is something we are deeply uncomfortable naming: Men are not more ambitious than women. Men are more supported than women. Men’s careers are often enabled by wives who: - Carry the bulk of childcare and eldercare - Manage the household and mental load - Support men’s wellbeing, focus, and stability - Absorb the unpaid labor that makes uninterrupted paid work possible That invisible support system is rarely acknowledged in leadership research, promotion models, or “women in the workplace” reports. Meanwhile, women are: - Doing the majority of unpaid care - Contributing critical income to their households - Supporting partners, children, parents, and extended family - And being evaluated at work as if none of this exists Then we label the outcome an “ambition gap.” That framing is not just wrong, it’s dishonest. What we’re actually seeing is a support gap and a care gap. Women are not opting out of ambition. Women are opting out of systems that require them to do paid work and unpaid care simultaneously, while men are allowed to specialize. And this matters beyond gender politics. Because men are struggling too, declining labor participation, loneliness, mental health crises, and the answer is not pretending men have “figured it out.” The answer is redesigning work and care so no one’s success depends on someone else’s unpaid labor. Until we are willing to name the role of wives, care, and invisible labor in shaping “ambition,” we will keep misdiagnosing the problem, and blaming women for structural failures.

I finally cracked the code on why women's ambition doesn't translate to advancement. It's not about wanting it less. A McKinsey report shows 70% of women are just as ambitious as men. We want the promotions, the leadership roles, the top jobs. So why are we still only 29% of C-suites? And why will it take 48 years for women of colour to reach parity? Here's what I've been testing with my coaching clients. I call it the Ambition Equation: Ambition = Drive × (Support ÷ Guilt) Let me break this down. → Drive: Women have it. Full stop. The data proves it. Your lived experience proves it. → Support: This is where it gets tricky. Less than half of women report getting their manager's help to advance. For women of color? Even less. No sponsors. No mentors. No one opening doors. → Guilt: The silent killer of ambition. Guilt about leaving at 5 p.m. Guilt about missing bedtime. Guilt about wanting more when you already have “so much.” Guilt about taking up space. Trying to do it all, instead of accepting that we can’t do it all at once. There are seasons, and each one demands fierce prioritisation and self-acceptance. Here's the thing: When guilt is high and support is low, even the strongest drive gets crushed. I see it every day. Brilliant women doing mental gymnastics to justify why they deserve that promotion. Meanwhile, their male peers are already negotiating their packages. The math is simple but brutal. You can have all the drive in the world, but divide minimal support by maximum guilt? Your ambition flatlines. So what actually works? Start with the guilt. It's the only variable you fully control. Every time you catch yourself apologising for your ambition, stop. Replace "Sorry, but I think I deserve..." with "Based on my results..." Then audit your support system. If your manager isn't helping you advance, find someone who will. Build your bench. Get tactical about sponsorship. It took me 20 years to figure out that the system wasn't built for our ambition. It was built to contain it. But when you understand the equation, you can start solving for a different outcome. What’s throwing your equation off right now? Low support, high guilt, or something else entirely?