Mind The Leadership Gap

I have spent the better part of fifteen years coaching senior leaders across various industries and cultures, and this truth keeps surfacing.

Far too many women underestimate the value of investing in their own leadership development.

Not because they lack ambition or capability but because they’ve been conditioned to wait for permission, budget approval, or “the right time” to take their next leap.

Meanwhile, many of the men they sit beside in boardrooms are not waiting. They’re not asking, nor are they hesitating. They’re levelling up constantly, widening the gap through coaching, networks, masterminds, executive programmes, and every professional advantage they can buy.

Let me caveat this by saying there is nuance to this imbalance. Some cultural and much very often shaped by the workplace you are in, but continue to walk with me, as I will get to that.

I believe strongly, women shouldn’t have to work twice as hard to be heard, seen, or promoted, but the reality is many still do, whether I believe strongly or not. In environments where bias, scrutiny, and expectation are already stacked against them, under-investing becomes a silent tax on their progression.

Here’s what I’ve observed over and over again

Women over-index on delivery and under-index on strategic visibility. Often occupied with keeping the machine running, they rarely give themselves or have others give them the space to step back and design their leadership trajectory with intention.

Too often, women are promoted on proof, while men are promoted on potential. So waiting to be “ready” delays their advancement, while others move ahead untested.

Too many women shoulder the emotional labour of teams, families, and life. That labour is admirable, but it often means the budget for development of time, money, and energy gets cut from their own lives first.

Ambition in men is celebrated while ambition in women is often policed. People who feel judged or are expected to fall into the stereotypes held by others. That tension leads too many to dim their light, shrink their aspirations, or keep their heads down.

The result?
Talented, formidable women get stuck on the treadmill of competence where they are excellent, reliable, admired, but not accelerating.

Whether that’s through coaching, workshops or more recently the leadership community I have developed, it has been harder to convince women in my network to invest in themselves. Without prejudice.

So what does investing in leadership actually mean?

Let’s be clear. It’s not about stacking up certificates, but rather it’s about building a power stack of strategic, relational, economic and narrative power.

Investment looks like:

• Executive coaching that sharpens decision-making and presence
• Communities where they aren’t the only woman in the room
• Strategic mentors and sponsors who open doors
• Programmes that teach influence, negotiation, and board-level thinking
• Owning power without imitating men
• Taking up space without apology
• And carving out time for deep reflection, not just delivery

It’s also about breaking the generational habit that not all, but way to many do, of putting others first.

When women invest in their leadership, it gives opportunities for industries to shift, organisations to improve, and teams to thrive. The ripple effect can be massive.

So, back to my caveat. Let me be clear, the onus is not only on women.

Mid to large organisations have been guilty for years of thinking representation and gender diversity is a hiring problem, not a development problem.

If organisations in the private or public sector want more women in senior roles, they need to:

• fund their development

• build intentional pipelines

• redesign stretch assignments

• stop penalising women for ambition

• allow them to be co-creators in their development plans

• and create environments where leadership is not synonymous with burnout

Leadership development shouldn’t be a rescue plan. It should be the default.

To the men, in power or not, who know of women who are holding back on investing in themselves. Create dialogue. Give them a nudge.

To the women who are reading this, please invest in your leadership like your career depends on it, because in many ways, it does. Don’t wait to be tapped. Don’t wait to be validated. Don’t wait for someone else to sign off on your growth.

Men who aren’t even half as talented as you aren’t waiting.
So neither should you.

And if when you do make that investment, you don’t just elevate your career, you elevate the culture around you, and you give permission for a generation around you and coming up behind you to invest in themselves too.