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Why Women Are Suddenly Less Hungry for the Top Job – And It’s Not Because They’re “Leaning Out”
For the first time in 11 years of tracking, women in corporate America are less likely than men to say they want a promotion – and the gap is glaring at both the starting line and near the C-suite.
The just-released 2025 Women in the Workplace report from LeanIn.Org and McKinsey & Company surveyed 9,500 employees across 124 major U.S. and Canadian companies. The numbers are stark:
Overall, 80% of women want to be promoted vs. 86% of men
At entry level: only 69% of young women want the next rung, compared to 80% of young men
At senior manager/director level: 84% of women vs. 92% of men are gunning for the top job
This is a complete reversal from a decade ago, when women under 30 were routinely the most ambitious cohort in the room – often outpacing men of the same age.
So what changed?
It’s not motherhood, burnout alone, or some mass outbreak of contentment. The ambition gap completely disappears when women say they’re getting the same level of real support as their male peers: sponsorship, stretch assignments, and genuine shots at promotion. Where support is equal, ambition is equal – from first job to VP.
The biggest AI wins often come from companies you don’t hear about every day.
Case in point:
The database provider now embedded into the big three cloud platforms - with access to 90% of the market.
You’ll find the name and ticker of this newly-minted giant in our 10 Best AI Stocks to Own in 2026 report, along with:
The chip giant holding 80% of the AI data center market.
A plucky challenger with 28% revenue growth forecasts.
A multi-cloud operator with high-end analyst targets near $440.
But support is anything but equal right now.
The “broken rung” is worse than ever Only one in three new people-managers at the entry level are women. Just 31% of early-career women have a sponsor (someone actively advocating for their promotion) versus 45% of men. Employees with sponsors are twice as likely to get promoted. No sponsor, no confidence, no ambition.
The AI advantage is already going to men Young women are getting less encouragement and training from managers on how to use generative AI tools – exactly the skill that’s now fast-tracking early adopters into bigger roles. As Sheryl Sandberg warned in an interview Tuesday: “We are going to see disproportionate impacts, and that would be a real shame for our companies and bad for our economy.”
Flexibility stigma is hitting women hardest Entry-level women are far more likely to work remotely. When they do, their promotion rates stall, while men who work remotely get promoted at the same clip as those in the office. The message is loud and clear: be visible (in person) or be overlooked.
Senior women look up and see… misery Women at the director/VP level are significantly more likely than men to say the leaders above them look burned out and unhappy. When the path to the top looks like exhaustion without reward, opting out starts to feel rational.
Companies are quietly walking back women’s advancement programs Only 54% of companies now say women’s career advancement is a priority (down sharply), and just 48% say the same for women of color. Formal sponsorship programs, targeted leadership development, and even flexible-work policies that were expanded post-pandemic are being cut or de-emphasized.
The flattening of middle management makes everything worse. Managers now oversee more people with fewer resources, so they have less bandwidth to coach and sponsor. At the same time, the remaining middle-management jobs look brutal – long hours, impossible spans of control, and little glory. Who wants that promotion?
Rachel Thomas, CEO of LeanIn.Org, put it bluntly: “Women should always be able to choose the path that makes sense for them. But I don’t want it to be because companies are not doing what they should be to support women – particularly early-career women.”
The data delivers a clear warning: when companies stop investing in women’s advancement, women stop investing their ambition in those companies. And in a world where AI mastery and leadership pipelines will decide who wins the next decade, writing off half the talent pool isn’t just unfair – it’s corporate self-sabotage.
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