Men continue to have an advantage when it comes to management promotions. Also, when women reach leadership positions, they are more likely than men to have their authority questioned and have some of their work go unnoticed.
In the wake of the pandemic, they are also more likely than ever to leave their jobs because of job discontent.
This is supported by the 2022 Women in the Workplace report, a sizable annual survey of female employees and talent data across hundreds of participating firms, which was produced by McKinsey & Company in collaboration with LeanIn.Org.
The organizations questioned promoted only 87 women from entry-level to manager for every 100 men. Additionally, the data analysis revealed that men made up 60% of the managers.
The authors concluded that “a ‘broken rung’ at the first step up to manager is holding women back” for the ninth straight year. At the management level, men outweigh women at a large margin, and women will never catch up. Simply said, there aren’t enough senior women leaders.
The research states that the C-suite still has a male and white predominance. Only 1 in 20 women of color and only 1 in 4 C-suite executives are female.
The study’s authors found that “women, and especially women of color, are still underrepresented in corporate America.” This is true even though there have been small improvements in the number of women in senior leadership over the past eight years.
Women executives still encounter challenges.
The McKinsey/LeanIn.Org study found that although women are equally likely as men to seek out higher jobs, once they are in them, they frequently experience more microaggressions that undermine their authority and suggest that it will be challenging for them to advance.
37% of women leaders (managers or higher) had a teammate steal their idea, compared to 27% of men leaders. The attack on black women’s leaders is more severe. For instance, they were 1.5 times more likely than other women executives to have coworkers suggest they weren’t competent.
According to the survey, female leaders in general are also twice as likely to devote a significant amount of time and effort to promoting employee wellbeing and diversity, equity, and inclusion without receiving any compensation.
40% of female leaders said performance evaluations didn’t recognize their diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts.
Women are more willing to walk to obtain their goals.
The survey showed that women who are successful enough to hold leadership positions are willing to quit their jobs to get what they want more than anything else.
In comparison to 34% of male leaders, about half (49%) of female leaders stated flexibility is among their top three factors when deciding to join or leave a company.
And compared to their male counterparts, female executives were more than 1.5 times as likely to have quit a job in order to work for a company that was more dedicated to diversity, equity, and inclusion.
The study’s authors noted that “women leaders are leaving their organizations at the greatest rate ever, and the discrepancy between women and male executives quitting is the broadest it has ever been. “As a comparison, “[f]or every woman at the director level who is promoted to the next level, two women directors are opting to quit their company.” Also, the following finding may be especially important for businesses that want to put more women in leadership positions:
Nearly two-thirds of women under 30 who participated in the study said they would be more motivated to advance in their careers if they saw senior leaders modeling the work-life balance they themselves seek.
Companies that don’t take action may find it difficult to find and keep the next generation of female leaders, which has particularly worrying implications for businesses that already have a “broken rung” in their leadership pipeline.
The McKinsey/LeanIn.Org report is based on research, data from 333 organizations’ talent pipelines, and surveys of more than 40,000 employees from 55 firms. It also includes interviews with a small number of survey respondents. They represent more than 12 million workers in the US and Canada collectively.
