I lead, hire, mentor, and raise leaders. And yet, in boardrooms from Lagos to London, I still watch the same pattern: women are praised as “promising,” then quietly parked before the real decisions get made. I’ve learned that talent isn’t the bottleneck—systems are. Policies, institutions, and culture either multiply our momentum or mute it.
The global numbers confirm what many of us have felt. After two decades of tracking, women now hold 33.5% of senior management roles worldwide—an all-time high, but still a slow climb from 19.4% in 2004. At today’s pace, parity in senior management wouldn’t land until the 2050s. Progress is real; speed is not.
Zoom out further and the picture sharpens. The World Economic Forum’s 2024 Global Gender Gap shows the world only 68.8% closed on gender parity overall. That’s marginal improvement year on year but we are 123 years from gender parity. In my own backyard, the gap is stark: women occupy 4.2% of Nigeria’s National Assembly seats—20 women out of 469. Representation matters because policy follows presence; without women at the table, issues that unlock women’s leadership rarely make it onto the agenda.
Inside companies, the pipeline thins where it should flow. McKinsey and LeanIn’s 10-year analysis of U.S. corporate data (mirrored in many markets) still finds the “broken rung”: for every 100 men promoted to manager, fewer women make that first step up—bending the entire pyramid above it. By 2024, entry-level women reached 48%, yet women account for only 39% of manager roles and 34% of VP roles.
Culture compounds it. Senior men are far more likely to believe women are “already well represented” in leadership- 79% of senior men vs. 55% of senior women- a perception gap that blunts urgency and budgets. The women I coach don’t need more motivation; they need fewer invisible obstacles disguised as “neutral” norms.
And we can name some of those norms. The care economy is still coded female. The ILO reports a global five-month gender gap in paid parental leave and hundreds of millions of women pushed out of the labor force or into part-time roles by unpaid care. In households with infants, women spend hours more per day on unpaid work than men. Policies that treat caregiving as a “women’s issue” guarantee a leadership gap a decade later.
Boards are a useful case study in how design beats intention. Countries that implemented gender board quotas didn’t solve every problem—but they did solve representation on boards. Norway’s quota, for instance, moved women’s board seats from ~9% to 40% within a few years. A broader meta-analysis across markets finds quotas reliably increase female representation; the mixed evidence on firm value tells us quotas must be paired with robust talent pipelines and operational inclusion, not used as a silver bullet.
Even at the very top, when women break through, they’re often pushed to the edge—appointed to precarious roles during crises (the “glass cliff”) and then penalized for volatility they didn’t create. A global turnover review highlights that women CEOs are more likely to be forced out and tend to have shorter tenures—less about performance, more about bias and weaker sponsorship scaffolding.
So what actually moves the needle? Three intersections: policy design, institutional will, and cultural practice.
1) Policy that normalizes shared care, not “mother’s leave.”
Make paid parental leave equitable and mandatory for both parents, with “use-it-or-lose-it” components for fathers. This single change shifts norms at home and reduces the motherhood penalty at work. The Nordic experience shows that shared leave isn’t merely “nice”-it’s catalytic for retention and advancement.
2) Institutional scaffolding where the pipeline breaks.
Tie leadership bonuses to measurable progress on first-level promotions (the broken rung), not just C-suite optics. Publish promotion rates by gender annually. No illusions, just math. The McKinsey trend line-48% entry vs. 39% managers-will not correct without leaders directly accountable for that first step.
3) Cultural practice that funds sponsorship, not performative mentoring.
Mentorship is advice; sponsorship is access. Budget real dollars for high-potential women to get professional and leadership exposure, lead enterprise projects, and board-facing work. Perception gaps among senior men show why this can’t be voluntary; structure beats bias.
For governments-especially in countries with low political representation, set time-bound targets for women in elective and appointed roles, invest in candidate pipelines, and enforce transparency in party primaries. Nigeria’s 3.9% in the lower chamber is not a talent deficit; it’s a design deficit. When women enter policy rooms, laws that unlock women’s economic participation-credit access, childcare incentives, equal pay transparency—move faster.
For companies, adopt a portfolio approach: evidence-based targets (not vague aspirations), parental leave equity, flexible work without career penalties, published promotion data, and a formal sponsorship market. Add board-level responsibility for gender outcomes so this isn’t a “nice to have” living in HR-it’s a core business lever reviewed quarterly.
And for culture, our everyday behavior – we can make small, compounding choices: stop equating “leadership presence” with a single personality style. Audit who speaks and who is interrupted. Rotate high-visibility assignments. Stop scheduling key meetings at times that systematically exclude primary caregivers. Culture is what we repeatedly do, not what we post on International Women’s Day.
I’ve seen what happens when the system shifts: women don’t trickle up; they surge. Teams gain resilience. Products serve broader markets. Organizations get the long-term thinking that comes from leaders who have juggled complexity on and off the clock.
So here is my call, as a leader, mother, builder, and coach: Let’s stop asking women to fix themselves and start fixing the systems around them. The data already told us where the pain points are. The policy playbook exists. The institutional levers are clear. What’s left is will.
Because when policy meets will-and will reshapes culture-women don’t just lead. We transform.
About the Author
Dr. Ishioma Elora Onah is a Visibility & Monetization Executive Coach, Ghostwriter, and Founder of Brand Story School. With two decades of experience in banking and wealth management, she now helps women leaders, coaches, and founders grow influence through story-driven content—while advocating for women’s leadership, financial empowerment, and impact-driven visibility.
