It’s no wonder senior-level women feel pressured to work more than senior-level men they’re facing harsher judgment overall. Imagine what it’s like for women in leadership when the stakes are as high as they are now, with leaders writing the playbook as they go. Senior-level women are often the only woman in the room at work, and “Only” women are more likely to have their judgment questioned and need to provide more evidence of their competence. Research shows that women are often held to higher performance standards and blamed more for failures. That’s a very different conversation to the one you have with a mother homeschooling with children.” This emotional labor can be draining and often goes unnoticed and unrewarded.Įven in the best of times, being a woman leader comes with extra challenges. Some people’s parents or grandparents died of COVID or got sick.

As one senior vice president at a private equity firm told us, “I’m dealing with multiple people in crisis at the same time. Some have been asked by the men they work with to step in to check in on employees and lead difficult internal conversations. At Lean In, we’re hearing stories from executive women who say that the emotional labor needed to get employees through this crisis is disproportionately falling to them. They report feeling more stressed, more exhausted, and more burned out than the men who are their peers. And mothers are three times more likely than fathers to be handling all of their family’s housework and childcare.īut senior-level women without children are struggling, too. Among senior leaders with partners, 63% of women have partners who work full-time, compared to just 35% of men. Many men at their level have spouses who handle childcare and housekeeping, but most senior-level women don’t have that kind of support. Executive women likely have better access to childcare than other workers, but their responsibilities have still skyrocketed at home. Lack of access to childcare is a key factor driving millions of women from the broader U.S. So why are so many thinking about leaving? Senior-level women-executives at the level of vice president and up-have dedicated a great deal to their careers over their lifetimes, working to earn promotions and run teams, often in workplaces that are structurally biased against women. That number holds steady even for the country’s senior-most women leaders. workforce lost 865,000 women-and that might be just the tip of the iceberg.Īccording to the 2020 Women in the Workplace report by LeanIn.Org and McKinsey & Company, one in four women in corporate America are now considering downshifting their jobs or leaving the workforce.

Sheryl sandberg women