For many organisations, the real challenge when it comes to gender equity isn’t hiring more women — it’s keeping and progressing them.
Retention and progression are the real pressure points, so the focus should be on removing barriers that stop women advancing once they are already in the pipeline.
- Globally, women make up 41% of the workforce but just 28% of management roles
- And LinkedIn’s State of Women in Leadership report (March 2026) found that global leadership representation has grown by just 0.1 percentage points in the past year.
- In Australia specifically, a quarter of ASX 300 companies went backwards on women’s representation in 2025 — and women still hold just 10% of CEO roles.
So what’s going on?
First and foremost, it’s not a lack of ambition. Our annual What Women Want Survey of over 1,100 women found that 33% are actively seeking to level up their careers this year — and 12% are specifically targeting senior leadership.
The ambition is there. What isn’t there, for almost all women (95%), is a workplace without barriers. It’s also worth noting that these barriers are not experienced equally — for women facing additional structural barriers such as racism, ableism, caring responsibilities, or disability, the experience is compounded.
Here’s what the three most common barriers look like for women in leadership specifically:
1. Women aren’t being seen or sponsored into senior roles
The most commonly cited barrier — reported by 58% of respondents to our What Women Want Survey — is being judged or underestimated due to gender stereotypes. That includes being seen as less committed, less suited to certain roles, or feeling pressured to stay agreeable to avoid being labelled difficult.
Therefore, even when promotion processes appear fair and flexibility is in place, women can still stall if they aren’t being actively advocated for.
Here’s what women say they need in this space:
- 55% want access to high-visibility or stretch projects
- 54% want access to mentors or sponsorship programmes
- 52% want regular, constructive feedback from their manager
- 48% cite lack of mentors, sponsors, or role models as a barrier
These aren’t nice-to-haves. They’re the mechanisms through which women get seen, developed, and advocated into leadership. Without them, talented women get overlooked. This isn’t because they aren’t ready, but because no one is making the case for them.
💡What to do:
- Actively identify women in your pipeline for stretch projects
- Build formal sponsorship into your leadership development programme, not just mentoring. Clear sponsorship criteria and accountability for outcomes would help ensure this is not left to informal relationships or individual managers.
- Audit whether women and men are receiving feedback of equal quality and frequency. Consider auditing this by level and function as well, so you can see where the gaps are most pronounced
- Don’t leave it to chance or individual relationship — map informal access to senior leaders and address gaps structurally.
2. Promotion processes aren’t transparent or fair
Transparency should include both promotion criteria and pay progression, so people can see what good looks like and how reward decisions are made.
65% of What Women Want Survey respondents say they want their employer to provide clear promotion criteria they can understand and act on. And other data points in the research shows exactly why that matters:
- 59% cite lack of transparent information around pay and promotions as a barrier
- 56% report experiencing biased or unfair promotion decisions
- 46% say lack of clear progression pathways is holding them back
Research also consistently shows that women are held to a higher evidence bar than men for equivalent roles. So when promotion processes are opaque, that bias has nowhere to be checked. Structured promotion panels or calibration sessions can help reduce subjectivity and make those standards more consistent.
💡What to do:
- Audit your last 12 months of promotion decisions by gender, including pay outcomes at the point of promotion
- Publish advancement criteria at each level so they’re visible to everyone
- Require that promotion recommendations are supported by documented evidence
- Review outcomes annually and report findings to leadership
3. Flexible working disappears at exactly the wrong moment
Our What Women Want Survey found that improved flexibility is one of the most praised changes women have seen in workplaces over the past year. But the progress isn’t reaching every level.
While flexibility exists at junior levels, it quietly disappears as roles become more senior. And that timing matters enormously. That sends a signal that leadership has not been designed with different life stages and care responsibilities in mind. From the gendered expectation that women shoulder the majority of caring responsibilities, to the very real health challenges many face in midlife, flexibility is being withdrawn at precisely the moment women need it most.
As one respondent put it: “As women reach the age where we are likely to be skilled, confident, and experienced enough to take on these roles, we are also going through peri-menopause.”
The data reflects this acutely:
- 55% say a lack of flexible or part-time senior roles is limiting progression for carers and those needing non-traditional schedules
- 66% want career progression options designed for part-time or flexible workers (the second most requested career development action in our research)
When flexibility disappears at seniority, it doesn’t just make the role harder. It signals (whether intended or not) that leadership wasn’t designed for the life they’re living.
💡What to do:
- Audit whether flexible working is genuinely available at senior levels — and if it isn’t being offered or taken up, ask why. Is it policy, culture, or individual managers making the call?
- If uptake drops at senior levels, investigate why; speak to women who have reduced or dropped flexible arrangements on promotion, and treat their feedback as data
- Where full flexibility isn’t operationally possible, find what is: Compressed hours? Core hours? Hybrid? Role shares? Part-time senior roles and job-share arrangements can also be effective options where the work can be redesigned.
The fix is closer than you think
While leadership representation is dropping more widely, last year 86% of WORK180 Endorsed Employers retained or increased their proportion of women in management roles.
The employers making that kind of progress have one thing in common: they know exactly where women are disengaging, and they address it at the source. None of this requires a new programme, a significant budget, or a culture change initiative. It requires audit, transparency, and consistency — applied at the moments where women are most likely to disengage.
Success should be tracked over time by gender, level, and working pattern so leaders can see whether the changes are actually improving retention and progression. In most organisations, those moments are identifiable. They just haven’t been looked for yet.
