While many business leaders celebrate the fact that female CEOs now control more than 10% of the Fortune 500 and JetBlue made headlines this year with the appointment of Joanna Geraghty as the first female CEO of a major US airline, I sit here with many others women leaders asking, “Is that it?!”
Sure, any progress is good, but at this pace of change we won’t see an equal number of men and women in CEO positions until the next century. Instead of patting ourselves on the back for paltry progress, we should ask ourselves why, after all this timeAre female leaders, especially CEOs, still fond of shark attacks – extremely rare, but widely reported in the media, distorting our perception to the point where it seems much more common?
It’s not because women can’t break the glass ceiling. It’s because they can’t get off the floor to begin with.
Lack of opportunities drives women away
For all the talk about gender equality and diversity, the reality is that most companies simply haven’t made it a priority – and the problem starts early. Women are often excluded from the high-potential talent pool early in their careers, meaning they don’t receive the skills development, leadership investment and mentorship they need to advance – and that their male counterparts take for granted . And this mentorship gap is only widening as women progress in their careers. At senior level, only 27% of women have had a formal mentor, compared to 38% of men. As a result, women are 1.5x more likely to leave a company to advance their careers because they simply aren’t getting the career development and leadership training they want and deserve.
That is a huge problem for their organizations, creating a significant competitive disadvantage. According to DDI’s 2023 Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion report, companies with a higher percentage of female leaders consistently outperform their peers, with the top 10% in financial performance having a leadership bench that is at least 23% female . But even that is still less than a quarter of companies. Imagine the impact if we achieved equality!
The vicious circle of investing without intention
Several years ago I met a young woman who worked for one of the Big Four consulting firms on a flight to China. The company had identified her as a high-potential talent and was on its way to meet other high-potential talent in the region. When I asked her if she knew the gender composition of the group she was meeting with, I was pleasantly surprised by her answer: the split was exactly 50/50. This level of diversity in high-potential talent pools is rare: even in top-performing organizations, women make up only 23% of high-potential pools on average.
It was clear that this was a conscious choice her organization had made regarding its future talent and leadership pipeline. And it’s one that needs to be made very early in women’s careers to prevent them from seeking other opportunities. Intentional investing means formalizing career paths, leadership development and mentorship for women. Critically, senior leaders must stop making assumptions about women’s lack of interest in advancement, their ability to devote the appropriate time to their role given any caregiver responsibilities, or the emotional tolerance of the women in their organizations.
The alternative – hiring externally to achieve DEI goals – is an ineffective solution. If companies don’t have the culture and programs in place to advance women, the newly hired women will quickly leave, just as so many women are now planning to do to advance. It’s a vicious circle. Why would you allow such promising talent, which already represents a major investment from your company, to walk out the door?
Overcoming burnout behind the glass cliff
Even once they are on the leadership journey, organizations risk facing a glass cliff if they receive less ongoing support for the transition. The average tenure of female CEOs at Fortune 500 companies is significantly shorter than that of men, and that’s largely because women find themselves in leadership roles when the odds are stacked against them. Positioned as ‘fixers’, they are often given the impossible task of getting a company in the grip of financial failure or organizational crisis back on track. What good is promoting women if they walk away within a year?
One reason so many women leave leadership is because they are burned out. More than 72% of female leaders under the age of 35 report feeling ‘used up’ every day. While remote and hybrid work has given women, especially those who are caregivers, much greater work-life balance and control over their schedules, it still poses a risk to their careers. Proximity bias, the “Zoom ceiling,” and the fear of exposing personal shortcomings have left many women feeling limited in their chances of advancement, fearing that any vulnerability will be perceived as weakness.
Countering these trends depends on managers building trust with their teams by showing empathy, revealing their own vulnerabilities, and creating opportunities for open, honest, revealing conversations about overall well-being. Women need to know not only that they too can be leaders and people, but also that they are part of a culture that prioritizes their personal and professional development and takes seriously the desire for mentorship and work-life balance. After all, “if she can’t see it, she can’t be it,” and women are more likely to disqualify themselves from leadership roles than from being a partner or caregiver. Organizations cannot let that happen.
While our progress toward gender equality on the leadership bench is promising, there is certainly much more work to be done. Since 2020, the number of leaders endorsing their company’s overall DEI efforts has decreased by 18%. Organizations can proactively improve by carefully examining their own leadership pipelines and becoming more intentional about preparing women and diverse talent for advancement, rather than their next career move.
Tacy M. Byham, Ph.D., is CEO of DDI.
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