Barriers to Career Growth

Just by being Black, the level of latitude you're given for behaviour – especially behaviour deemed "bad" – is often completely different. The consequences are harsher and the scrutiny is sharper. Take disciplinary matters, for example. Black employees are often judged more harshly for the same behaviours as their white counterparts. A Black professional might be labelled “difficult”, “angry”, “intimidating”, or “unprofessional” for expressing frustration in a meeting, while a white colleague might be excused as “passionate” or “assertive”. You know the type of comments – “Elizabeth is just expressing how she feels,” or “Johnny was just a bit hot under the collar.” The disparity isn’t just anecdotal – it’s backed up by research into workplace racial bias. Then there’s career progression. Black employees are frequently held to higher standards to earn the same recognition. Feedback like, “You need to prove yourself more” or “be more of a team player” is often levelled at those who have already delivered exceptional results. Meanwhile, others are promoted based on potential or likeability rather than consistent performance. Not sure if this is (or has) happened in your workplace? 1) Look at patterns in employee relations cases – Are Black employees disproportionately disciplined or receiving harsher feedback compared to their peers in similar roles? 2) Examine promotion criteria – Are Black employees expected to overperform just to be considered for opportunities, while others get ahead based on vague ideas of potential or even subpar performance? How do performance and potential ratings for Black employees compare with others? 3) Observe how behaviours are labelled – Is there a difference in the language used to describe similar actions? Are words like “angry” or “unapproachable” disproportionately applied to Black colleagues? For Black women, how are their traits described compared to non-Black women? For Black men, what “advice” is given under the guise of mentorship to ensure they aren’t perceived as “intimidating” or “scary” – particularly when they express frustration or anger? To address this, the first step is noticing the patterns (or not dismissing or acting defensively when it’s pointed out), the second is to question and avoid making assumptions that it is an “unfounded accusation” and the third? Well, that’s up to you. You can either take action or ignore it. I say that only because too many organisations are still struggling to get past the first step 🤷🏾♀️ 📹 Sterling K. Brown

The fox served the heron on a flat platter. She couldn't eat. Not because she wasn't hungry. Not because she didn't try hard enough. Because the platter wasn't made for her beak. At a recent event, the brilliant Shraddha Jain (aiyyoShraddha) used this fable to explain something that I've been struggling to articulate for quite some time about women growing in the workforce. We debate whether women deserve a seat at the table. We rarely ask whether the table is built for them. Women don't enter the workforce on equal footing. They walk in with one hand already tied — childcare, elder care, home care. These aren't personal choices. They're structural loads. And then life stages hit. With devastating timing. Maternity arrives exactly when a woman is crossing the hardest threshold — from middle management to leadership. The moment she has finally earned the room, her body asks her to step out of it. Menopause arrives when she is on the cusp of moving from leader to executive. Years of experience, sharpest strategic mind, highest stakes — and her body is in flux again. These aren't coincidences. They're biology meeting a system that was never designed around her timeline. Shinjini Kumar, author of 𝘉𝘶𝘴𝘺 𝘞𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘯: 𝘉𝘶𝘪𝘭𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘊𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘦𝘳𝘤𝘦 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘊𝘶𝘭𝘵𝘶𝘳𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘔𝘪𝘥𝘥𝘭𝘦 𝘐𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘢, put it plainly: you're fine, as long as you're home when the child returns from school. As long as you can take leave when a parent needs care. The moment you can't — the question comes. 𝘒𝘺𝘢 𝘻𝘢𝘳𝘶𝘳𝘢𝘵 𝘩𝘢𝘪? And when women push through anyway? We don't give them the field. As Shraddha puts it, we post them for fielding 𝙟𝙖𝙝𝙖𝙣 𝙗𝙖𝙡𝙡 𝙖𝙖𝙩𝙞 𝙝𝙞 𝙣𝙖𝙝𝙞𝙣 𝙝𝙖𝙞. Administrative roles. Safe corners. Away from where decisions are made. So what's the answer? Not menstrual leave that quietly marks her as unreliable. Not menopausal sabbaticals framed as disability. Not policies that solve the optics while cementing the stigma. Infrastructure. For return. With equal footing. Flexible structures that don't freeze her career while she's away. Re-entry pathways that don't make her start over. Leadership pipelines that account for the fact that her most pivotal biological moments land at her most pivotal professional ones. Inclusion isn't an invitation. It's infrastructure. The reservation bill debate is loud right now. But even louder is the silence around what happens after women get the seat. #WomenInWorkforce #GenderEquity #WomenLeadership #InclusionAtWork #Menopause #Maternity #WorkplacePolicy #IndiaInc

A thing I've noticed about ambition in women over forty. It doesn't disappear. It changes shape. And the shape it changes into is one most workplaces are not built to recognise. The story we keep telling about senior women is that they "step back" or "lean out" once they hit a certain age or stage of life. The data gets read as a confidence drop, or a caregiving squeeze, or a quiet form of giving up. None of those reads are quite right. What I actually see, in the women I talk to, is something else. The ambition gets sharper, not smaller. It gets more specific about what it wants and much less interested in proving anything to anyone. The ladder stops being the point. The work being good becomes the point. The people they work with becomes the point. The thing they are building becomes the point. This is not a softer ambition. It is a more dangerous one, commercially speaking. Because it is not buyable with a title bump or a flattering bit of recognition. It cannot be appeased by a stretch project or a seat at a slightly better table. The currency has changed. The companies that figure this out keep their best women into their fifties and sixties. The companies that don't lose them, usually to themselves. Founding their own thing. Going portfolio. Going quiet on purpose. Here is the bit nobody at exec level wants to hear. The women who go quiet are not retreating. They are reallocating. They have looked at the system, run the maths, and decided their energy is worth more elsewhere. That is not disengagement. That is judgement. The same judgement, by the way, that got them senior in the first place. So when you hear a woman in her forties or fifties talking about wanting "something different," do not file it under midlife crisis. File it under: she has finally got the data to make a clean decision, and she is making it. The interesting question isn't why women change shape mid-career. It's why we keep designing companies that can't hold them when they do.

I've watched countless leaders stall their growth for one simple reason: The need to be the smartest person in the room. Here's what years in leadership development has taught me: The fastest learners are rarely the smartest. They're the most humble. When I mentor executives, I notice a pattern among those who accelerate their development: • They ask "basic" questions others are afraid to ask • They embrace being beginners in new domains • They make mistakes openly, then extract lessons • They surround themselves with people who challenge them • They listen more than they speak The most dangerous moment in your career isn't failure. It's the day you decide you know enough. I've seen brilliant minds plateau because their ego created a ceiling their skills couldn't break through. Curiosity builds neural pathways. Ego calcifies them. The most transformative leaders I've worked with maintain a "day one" mindset even decades into their careers. They approach each challenge with fresh eyes and zero assumptions. What are you currently learning that makes you uncomfortable? Where are you allowing yourself to be a student again? The learning edge is where growth happens.

Women aren’t weak or slow — we’ve just been carrying too much, for too long. A few months ago, I was coaching a brilliant young woman in her early leadership journey. Sharp, strategic, self-aware — and still, she couldn’t shake off the feeling that she was “falling behind.” Why? Because her male colleagues seemed to move faster, take more risks, and rise more easily. But here’s what she forgot: She was not only leading at work. She was also managing a household, caring for aging parents, navigating microaggressions, proving her worth in every room, and still being told to “lean in.” This isn’t about excuses. It’s about context. Women aren’t behind because they’re incapable. They’re behind because they’re overburdened — with unpaid labor, emotional caregiving, cultural expectations, and invisible pressures that rarely get acknowledged. So the next time you think a woman is “not ambitious enough,” pause. Look again. She might just be tired of doing it all. Let’s stop measuring potential through a lens that was never built for women in the first place.

When Moms First was starting out, a lot of people asked me: Why moms? Why not all parents? This is why: https://lnkd.in/eh3gqwPm ------ "This month, the U.S. Census Bureau published a bombshell finding: The gender wage gap just got wider for the first time in two decades ‒ with women now earning just 83 cents to a man’s dollar. That’s maddening. But, for moms at least, it’s hardly surprising. It’s next to impossible to balance work and family in this country ‒ and as this new data shows, women are taking the hit. As the cost of child care continues to soar, women will just keep falling further behind. On paper, there’s no reason to believe that women should be earning less than men. Girls are more likely to graduate from high school and more likely to hold a bachelor’s degree. More women than men go to law school and medical school, and women’s enrollment in MBA programs has reached record highs. In fact, women do earn nearly as much as men ‒ at least early in their careers. On average, women in their late 20s and early 30s are much closer to parity, taking home at least 90 cents on the dollar compared with the guys sitting next to them at graduation or new hire orientation. Then, when women hit their mid-30s, something changes. The pay gap gets wider. It’s no coincidence that that’s precisely when women are most likely to be raising kids. All of a sudden, women are forced to make very hard choices to manage the demands of work and family. As the founder of Moms First, I’ve heard versions of this story from more women than I can count. Maybe mom drops down to part-time so she can make it to school pickup. Or maybe she switches to a new job that pays less but offers more flexible hours. Or maybe she drops out of the workforce entirely, because the cost of day care would have outpaced her salary anyway. Make no mistake, we are talking about moms here. When women are paid less than men anyway (and, in the case of Black and Hispanic women, way less), deprioritizing their careers can feel like the only logical decision, even if it isn’t what they wanted. This creates a vicious cycle, where pay inequity begets more pay inequity ‒ and women are systematically excluded from economic opportunities. At the same time, while women experience a motherhood penalty, men experience a fatherhood premium ‒ working more hours and reaping bigger rewards than those without kids. As Nobel laureate Claudia Goldin put it, when describing her pioneering research on the pay gap, 'Women often step back, and the men in their lives step forward.' Because here’s the thing: The 'choice' to step back from the workforce isn’t much of a choice at all. If grandma isn’t around to pitch in and child care costs more than rent, what other option do you have?"

🚨 Wake-up call: Black women face a battlefield disguised as a workplace. It's time we confront this head-on. The harsh truth: Shrinking to fit: Black women often diminish their brilliance, expertise, and understanding just to make others comfortable. Even their names become casualties in this war of conformity. Invisible then hyper-visible: Overlooked as leaders and innovators, until they're thrust into the spotlight as tokens. Glass cliffs await: When leadership roles open, they're often set up to fail. The double-edged sword of intersectionality: Race 🔗 Gender = A uniquely challenging experience Think about it: "Thriving at work is considered as a source of personal growth." But how can you thrive when you're busy shrinking? In white, male-dominated spaces, the pressure to conform is suffocating. Conceal your identity or risk being marked as "other." The tokenism trap: Added for appearance, not genuine inclusion Expected to represent an entire race and gender Set up as diversity window dressing, not empowered leaders This isn't just unfair. It's a waste of talent, innovation, and leadership potential. The question isn't whether this is happening. It's what are YOU doing about it? Leaders: Are you creating real opportunities or just checking diversity boxes? Colleagues: Are you amplifying Black women's voices or contributing to their silence? Organisations: Is your culture nurturing Black women's talents or forcing them to conform? It's time for real, systemic change. Not just words, but actions. Because a workplace where Black women can't bring their full, authentic selves isn't just failing them — it's failing everyone. Are you ready to be part of the solution? #BlackWomenLead #AuthenticLeadership #WorkplaceDiversity #IntersectionalityMatters

A significant hurdle to women in asset management becoming Portfolio Managers is that the promotion decision is typically taken around the time many women have children, i.e. early 30s or after approximately 10 years as an Analyst. While most women take extended parental leave, men rarely do; in addition, women typically bear the majority of childcare responsibilities after birth. Moreover, there is an age range where, if a woman has not made PM, she likely never will and is viewed as a career analyst. Relative earnings dynamics within a family amplifies workplace dynamics. If a woman is overlooked for promotion in her early 30s while having children, her earnings may have fallen significantly behind her partner’s by her late 30s. The family dynamic may either dissuade her from returning to work or require her to bear more childcare responsibilities after returning, further increasing inequality. The career interruption from pregnancy applies outside of promotion concerns. A woman in the early stages of pregnancy or intending to become pregnant may be reluctant to take risk (e.g. by speaking up, making a contrarian investment, or switching firm) because, if she is made redundant, it will be difficult for her to find a new job as she will be at a late stage of pregnancy. One interviewee knows of women who have had abortions because they were too new in the job and being pregnant would expose them to too much career risk. This issue is highlighted in my report on Cognitive Diversity in Asset Management for Diversity Project - Investment Industry. https://lnkd.in/eASk7x3P Potential solutions are in my response to the FCA's consultation on Diversity and Inclusion in the Financial Sector at https://lnkd.in/eWgkd8qz (see p7). I would be grateful to learn of additional solutions: please leave a comment.

Women are not losing ambition; they are losing patience with environments that punish it. The real story is not an ambition gap, but a support, fairness, and respect gap. One of the earliest pieces of career advice I received was: “To progress, you need to have ambition.” Over 24 years in the corporate world, that's been a double edged sword - I have been praised for being driven and, in the same breath, criticised for being “too ambitious.” I have also sat in talent reviews where women were quietly written off as “not ambitious enough". In 2022, during a leadership review, a male colleague even said out loud: “Women don’t progress because they don’t have ambition .” 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗽𝗼𝗿𝘁 𝗴𝗲𝘁𝘀 𝘄𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗴 The latest Lean In and McKinsey Women in the Workplace report highlights a growing ambition gap: fewer women than men say they want to be promoted. Yet the same data make something else crystal clear: women and men are equally committed to their careers, and when women receive the same sponsorship, support, and stretch opportunities as men, the ambition gap largely disappears. So the issue is not that women suddenly woke up less driven; it is that many are looking at the “next level” and seeing more burnout, less support, and fewer real chances to succeed. In that context, stepping back from the race is not a lack of ambition - it is a rational response to a system that feels rigged. 𝗪𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝟮𝟬+ 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀 𝗶𝗻 𝗰𝗼𝗿𝗽𝗼𝗿𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝘄𝗼𝗿𝗹𝗱 𝗶𝗻 𝘁𝗲𝗮𝗰𝗵𝗲𝘀 𝘆𝗼𝘂 For roughly the first 15–20 years, many women respond to blocked opportunities with even more effort and ambition: working harder & overdelivering. When doors are repeatedly closed with vague feedback like “lack of executive presence,” or “too emotional,” frustration accumulates. After decades of having to prove yourself again and again, it is not ambition that runs out; it is the willingness to keep playing a game where the rules feel opaque and uneven. That is one of the reasons so many experienced women leave corporate roles or step off the traditional ladder mid-career. 𝗧𝗵𝗲 𝗿𝗲𝗮𝗹 𝗰𝗮𝗿𝗲𝗲𝗿 𝗮𝗱𝘃𝗶𝗰𝗲 The complete career advice is: protect your ambition by choosing workplaces where: Support systems, fair processes, and allyship actively enable women’s progression. Sponsorship, not just mentorship, is in place so that women are advocated for, not just advised. Policies, leadership behaviour, and culture reduce burnout. Because ambition without support does not magically create opportunity; it only creates exhaustion, cynicism, and burnout. What would your organisation need to change so that they would choose to stay and grow? #careeradvice ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ I have learned a lot during my 2 decades in the corporate world, mostly the hard way. Every Sunday, I share some of my learnings and what has helped me climb the corporate ladder while staying true to my values