Where are all the women?

I had a call yesterday with another brilliant woman who has left her big global company with its male dominant culture behind and set up her own company instead. I say ‘another’ because I am constantly meeting and talking with women like this who have done exactly the same. After years of tolerating inappropriate comments, being ignored & interrupted in meetings, passed over for promotion, paid a lower salary & bonus for doing the same job and generally not being respected and valued, many women have decided to take their brilliance - along with all the expertise & experience they have accumulated along the way - elsewhere. And, for a significant number, the best elsewhere is a company & organization they have created & designed themselves which is, unsurprisingly, the polar opposite of the male dominant culture they have walked away from.

When I’m not talking with these brilliant women, I’m spending a big chunk of time giving coaching (or Career Therapy as I call it) to amazing women who are also done with tolerating being under-valued by their company and looking for a new role in a better one where they can flourish.

This is not a few women we’re talking about. 5% of women will leave their jobs in 2025, on the back of a similar percentage last year. This is a thing. And it’s a problem - not for the women who are taking their brilliance elsewhere (who are buzzing), but for the companies they are leaving. If this carries on, in a few years the leaders of these companies are going to look around the office (that they tried to force everyone to sit in 5 days a week, separate Rant territory…), scratch their middle-aged male heads and ask ‘Where are all the women?’ And the answer will be: they are the leaders of your competition and you are only playing with half the talent pool on the planet.

So you probably want to avoid reaching the day when you have to ask this question and ask yourself another one instead: ‘How do we keep all the brilliant women?’ And you’d better ask it now and act on it quickly - your bucket is already seriously leaking.