My little nerd heart anxiously awaits the McKinsey/LeanIn Women in the Workplace report each year.  It is single-handedly the best source on how professional women in America (the folks we are trying to support!) are doing.

Per their website, this year’s report includes surveys from over 15,000 women from 281 organizations that collectively employ 10 million people.  

Here are the insights that stand out the most to me:

• “Women today make up 29% of C-suite positions, compared with just 17 percent in 2015.” 

On a daily basis, it can easily feel like there are an overwhelming number of barriers still to contend with, but this single fact highlights our overarching success: We Are Making Progress.

• We are all aware of the glass ceiling, but the “broken rung” is a bigger issue

Per the data, women represent 34% of VPs and 29% of senior VPs/C-suite – that 5% gap is “the glass ceiling”.  However, women are 48% of entry level employees and only 39% of managers – McKinsey/LeanIn has dubbed that “the broken rung” and at a 9% difference, it is a larger barrier than the glass ceiling (see graphs below).

• AND the “broken rung” is getting worse than it has been in recent years

It’s very clear in the data that we have made significant progress since 2020, but that wave appears to be slowing – in fact, there are 7% fewer women getting that first promotion to manager this year versus last (see graphs below). 

What to do? 

• We started as a women’s leadership development resource focused on mid-level women.  Given this data, we’re now asking our clients to invite early career women to our skill-building sessions.

• If you are early in your career, don’t procrastinate on your own development.  The old way of thinking was that you had plenty of time – the glass ceiling was the main barrier to progression and it wouldn’t happen for another 10 years or so. THAT IS WRONG.  The main barrier, the broken rung, happens early in your career, so get strategic about how to advance NOW.  Specifically, spend time thinking about what you want your next promotion to be, then build a network and negotiate the resources to set you up for that promotion.

• If you are later in your career, help a few women who are early in theirs. You can do this 1:1 or, if you need to leverage your time more efficiently, consider batching requests and sitting down with ~3 women at a time for lunch. This means you can help 3x as many women in an hour AND they then can help each other when you aren’t available.

You can download the full report here.