True or false? During the Covid-19 pandemic, women have become less ambitious than men are.

False. Very false.

But if you answered “true,” I can understand why. Perhaps you’ve seen news articles about the “lazy girl jobs” trend or women leaving the workforce.

Those headlines, however, tell only part of the story. The Women in the Workplace 2023 report, from McKinsey in partnership with LeanIn.org, fills in some gaps in the narrative. This report debunks myths about women at work, including the one that they lack ambition.

Because we’re a firm with a special passion for developing women leaders, the Women in the Workplace report is always required reading for us. We believe it should be for your organization as well. Over the next few weeks, we’ll take a closer look at the report’s findings, compare them with what we see firsthand through our work, and share recommendations on cultivating women leaders in your organization. And we’ll start with the myth of women’s declining ambitions.

8 Out of 10 Women Want Promotions

The pandemic was an enormous blow to women at work. More women than men lost their jobs, and women experienced more stress and burnout than men did. But the Women in the Workplace report found that women are actually more ambitious now than they were before the pandemic. In 2019, about 70% of women wanted to get promoted to the next level. Today, that figure is 81% — identical to the percentage of men who want to get promoted. Younger women and women of color are even more ambitious. Among women under thirty, 93% are aiming for a promotion, while 88% of women of color are.

The report also refutes the perception that women who work remotely or on a hybrid schedule are less ambitious. In fact, they’re a little more likely to want promotions than women who work fully on-site. Furthermore, across all types of work schedules (remote, hybrid, on-site), women are just as likely to want a promotion as men in comparable arrangements.

What We’re Hearing from Women

The Women in the Workplace report’s findings on ambition track closely with what we’ve observed firsthand. Our work frequently involves helping top organizations cultivate women leaders. (For some examples, check out our case studies on how companies are using our New Lens® app to invest in women’s development.) We’ve coached countless women and spoken at events for women (such as the D CEO Emerging Women Leadership Network Program). Beyond  Newbery Solutions, I’m also involved with nonprofits and other entities that focus on elevating women, including Texas Women’s Foundation, the Senator Jane Nelson Institute for Women's Leadership at Texas Woman’s University, the United Way Fund for Women and Children, and 50/50 Women on Boards. So I have a lot of conversations with women about what’s happening in their careers and in their workplaces.

And what I hear from them echoes what McKinsey and LeanIn.org found. Women care deeply about their work and are constantly looking for ways they can make a bigger impact. They’re excited about flexible schedules that help them manage their personal lives without shortchanging their careers. The McKinsey/Lean In statistics aren’t the only findings that demonstrate women’s ambition. Women are starting more businesses than they did before the pandemic. Women are also more likely to attend college and obtain their degrees than men are.

Build a Pipeline of Women Leaders

As we celebrate women’s growing ambitions, we must also look for ways to translate these ambitions into gains for women at the top levels of leadership. While we’ve made some progress in closing the C-suite gender gap, women still hold less than one-third of these roles

The problem, according to the Women in the Workplace report, is a broken leadership pipeline. Women are less likely to get that first promotion to manager than men are. (And the gap is even bigger for women of color.) With fewer women than men rising through the ranks, it only makes sense that fewer women reach the highest levels of leadership.

 This discrepancy ultimately hurts organizations. We see in the McKinsey/Lean In report that there are great numbers of ambitious women out there who are eager to lead. When these women don’t get promoted, their employers miss out on untold potential. 

So how can we make our workplaces more equitable and help women get the promotions they aspire to?

• Talk about the Women in the Workplace report with your team. This discussion can help surface any misconceptions about women and ambition that your employees may have.

• Make leadership development training accessible to more employees. Companies rarely have budgets to provide coaching to everyone who wants it. It’s more likely to be reserved for senior leaders. That leaves out vast numbers of high-potential employees who could benefit. This was one of our main motivations for creating New Lens.

• Implement employee resource groups (ERGs) for women and women of color. According to the McKinsey/Lean In report, 93% of companies with strong pipelines of women leaders had ERGs with content tailored for women. That’s compared with 83% for companies overall. For women of color, the difference is even more dramatic: 61% of companies with strong pipelines have targeted ERGs, compared with 44% of companies overall.

Increasing the ranks of women leaders is a big topic, and one we’ll continue to explore in upcoming articles. Got questions? Please share them with me on LinkedIn. You could help shape our future content. In the meantime, check out the full Women in the Workplace 2023 report and explore how New Lens® democratizes access to leadership development.