For years, the conversation around women in leadership focused on access. Why were fewer women reaching senior roles, and how could organizations remove the barriers in their way?
In 2025, the conversation has shifted. Women are still reaching senior leadership, but fewer of them want to keep climbing.
According to the Women in the Workplace 2025 report by McKinsey and Company and LeanIn.org, senior level women are experiencing the highest levels of burnout seen in the past five years. This exhaustion is not just affecting wellbeing. It is shaping ambition itself.
The question organizations must now confront is not whether women can lead, but whether leadership, as it currently exists, is something women want to pursue.
Burnout at the Top Is Changing How Leadership Is Viewed
The McKinsey and Lean In report paints a clear picture.
Around 60 percent of senior level women say they frequently feel burned out at work, compared with 50 percent of senior level men. Among women who are newer to leadership roles, the numbers are even more concerning. Seventy percent of senior women who have been with their companies for five years or less report frequent burnout, and 81 percent say they are worried about job security.
The report notes that women often face greater scrutiny when they enter leadership roles and feel increased pressure to prove themselves. For Black women in leadership, burnout and job insecurity are even higher.
When senior roles are consistently associated with stress, exhaustion, and instability, it changes how leadership is perceived by those still on the way up.
Women Are Not Less Ambitious. They Are More Realistic
One of the most striking findings in the 2025 report is this. For the first time in its eleven year history, women report lower interest in promotion than men.
The data shows that:
- 80 percent of women want to be promoted to the next level
- 86 percent of men say the same
This ambition gap appears at both ends of the pipeline. At entry level, 69 percent of women want to advance compared with 80 percent of men. At senior levels, 84 percent of women want to move up, compared with 92 percent of men.
Importantly, the report makes it clear that this is not a question of commitment. Women and men are equally engaged and invested in their work. What differs is women’s desire to keep climbing when the next rung appears steeper, lonelier, and more exhausting.
What Women See When They Look Up the Ladder
Senior women who say they do not want to advance point to what they observe around them.
The report found that 21 percent of senior women who do not want to move up say that leaders above them look burned out or unhappy. Only about half as many men say the same. Additionally, 11 percent of senior women say they do not see a realistic path forward, compared with just 3 percent of senior men.
Leadership, for many women, no longer looks like opportunity. It looks like sacrifice without sufficient support.
Support Makes the Difference
Perhaps the most important insight from the McKinsey and Lean In report is this.
The ambition gap disappears when women receive the same level of career support as men.
When women have access to sponsorship, advocacy, and meaningful stretch opportunities, their desire to advance matches that of their male peers. As Sheryl Sandberg, founder of LeanIn.org, explained, women are not opting out when the system works as it should. They are responding to barriers that make advancement feel unsustainable.
This reframes the issue entirely. The problem is not a lack of confidence or drive. It is a lack of consistent support.
Why the Ladder Feels Broken Even as Progress Continues
There has been real progress at the top. Women now hold 29 percent of C suite roles, up from 17 percent in 2015. But that progress is fragile.
At the management level, the pipeline continues to narrow. For every 100 men promoted to manager, only 81 women were promoted this year. At early career stages, women are less likely to receive stretch assignments and sponsorship, both of which are critical for long term advancement.
At the same time, many organizations are pulling back on the very programs that help women succeed. The report notes reductions in DEI resources, women focused development initiatives, sponsorship programs, and flexible work arrangements. These changes disproportionately affect women and reinforce the perception that leadership comes with increasing pressure and decreasing support.
Rebuilding Aspiration Requires Redesigning Leadership
Women are not stepping away from leadership because they lack ambition. They are stepping away because leadership often demands more than it gives back.
If organizations want women to aspire to senior roles again, they must rethink what leadership looks like in practice. That means making leadership sustainable, recognizing emotional and people management labor, providing continuous support, and addressing burnout as a leadership risk rather than a personal weakness.
Leadership should feel challenging, but it should also feel achievable and worthwhile.
A Closing Thought
The leadership ladder is not broken in the sense that women cannot climb it. Many already have.
What is broken is the experience waiting at the top.
Until leadership roles are designed in ways that allow people to lead without burning out, fewer women will choose to keep climbing. Not because they cannot, but because they have seen the cost and decided it is too high.
Fixing that reality is not just about gender equity. It is about building leadership systems that people actually want to be part of.
