Women in Leadership

Women are losing ground in the leadership pipeline. Women are still promoted at a lesser rate and, for the first time in a decade, fewer women even want to be promoted. Here’s what 15 years of PRADCO data reveals about how women leaders have evolved and what success looks like at different levels of leadership.

PRADCO created a development program specifically for women leaders in 2010 since women were underrepresented in positions of leadership in organizations, across job levels and across industries. We also noticed that when leaders were recommended for development or coaching, male leaders were more likely to be given the opportunities to learn and develop than female leaders.

Since the beginning of 2020, 66% of the people enlisted in coaching at PRADCO were male leaders, whereas only 34% of them were women. There is clearly an imbalance in terms of who is getting the opportunity to learn and grow as leaders.

The program started as an in-person program for women from different organizations, but has evolved to be delivered virtually, in a hybrid setting, and for women within specific organizations. All approaches work well – the cohort approach allows women to meet and learn from women in different organizations and industries, whereas doing the program internally allows for customization to cultural issues and allows for deeper relationships within organizations.

Since that time, organizations have tried a variety of approaches to increase the number of women in senior leadership positions, and there has been a lot of focus on gender diversity and investing in development for female leaders. More recently, though, organizations are lessening their commitment to gender diversity and women are reporting less interest in being promoted compared to their male counterparts (McKinsey & Company, 2025). If, in fact, fewer women are asking for promotions and fewer organizations are offering development for female leaders, it stands to reason that the deficit of women in leadership roles will continue to grow.

When PRADCO conducted its first study of women in leadership, we talked to twenty senior executive women to ask them about their experience, their challenges, and how they got to the positions they held. We also evaluated data from the Quick View™ Leadership Assessment to identify the qualities that women leaders emphasize and areas where they might score lower as a group. The Quick View™ Leadership Assessment measures emphasis on 40 different behaviors relative to Individual Qualities, Interactions with People, Decision Making, and Results Through Others. The assessment measures behaviors using a forced-choice format so everyone has highs and lows and people can change their behavior with focus and intentionality. We compared scores from individual contributors, middle managers, and executives to show how women change their approach at different levels of leadership and we also compared scores of female leaders to those of male leaders. The results of those early studies factored into the content and the curriculum for the Striving for Excellence: Women in Leadership program.

Fast forward to 2025, over 1000 women from more than 300 organizations have attended the program. The program has always included a leadership assessment, individual coaching, and group learning with like-minded peers, and this varied approach has allowed us to reach women in a variety of ways. The program has received exceptional ratings from participants and a significant percentage of women who have gone through the program have received promotions and achieved remarkable success in their careers.

While we celebrate the successes of the past, we wanted to see if and how female leaders have changed their approach to leadership over the years, and what behaviors they emphasize compared to years prior. Below is a ranking based on percentile scores that shows how female leaders (managers, directors, and executives) score on the different behaviors measured by the Quick View™ Leadership Assessment. In some cases, there were ‘ties’ which is why there is an unequal number of behaviors reported.

Ranking of Quick View™ Leadership Behaviors by over 2000 Women Leaders

2010	2020	2021-2022	2023-2024	2025
Flexibility	Organizational Awareness	Organizational Awareness	Follow Up	Improvement
Emotional Awareness	Delegation	Persuasive	Responsiveness	Flexibility
Empathy	Interpersonal Awareness	Building Trust	Flexibility	Building Trust
Judgment	Persuasive	Flexibility	Promoting Teamwork	Leading Change
Resourcefulness	Building Trust	Leading Change	Judgment	Interpersonal Awareness
Assertiveness	Flexibility	Compassion	Presence	Judgment
Developing Others	Leading Change	Innovative	Listening	Presence
	Compassion	Valuing Diversity		Listening

As would be expected, there are a number of changes from 2010; only one behavior – Flexibility – is consistently ranked in the top list. Flexibility is defined as adjusting to change and effectively adapting to different circumstances. People who score high on Flexibility can play many roles, adapt to changing priorities, and effectively keep track of multiple commitments. It makes intuitive sense that women would score high on Flexibility with the many demands they face both inside and outside of work.

Organizational Awareness is defined as identifying interpersonal and cultural dynamics and is a highly emphasized behavior from 2020 through 2022. People who score high are astute when it comes to noticing organizational dynamics and knowing how to navigate cultural issues. It might be that organizational awareness received more emphasis due to the effects of COVID and/or the challenges to social justice during those years. Interestingly, this behavior falls out of the top list in 2023, potentially making way for more individually focused behaviors like Interpersonal Awareness, Listening and Judgment (rather than focusing on issues at the organizational level).

A positive finding is the higher rankings of Presence and Judgment for women leaders. These scores indicate that women are more willing to lean into leadership and are demonstrating confidence in their judgment which will undoubtedly lead to them having more impact on the teams and organizations that they lead.

Improvement is the top-rated behavior in 2025 and it’s defined as developing skills and enhancing how things are done. Women leaders emphasize self-development and demonstrate a growth mindset, taking advantages of learning opportunities and getting better every day.

It’s also interesting to see what drops out of the top list. Empathy and Compassion have received less focus over the years, not that they are low, but they are not in the top group of behaviors in more recent years. Women have stereotypically been identified as focusing on the softer skills, but the PRADCO data shows that women focus on other behaviors critical to leadership success as well.

Quick View™ Leadership Differentiators Across Leadership Levels for 2500 Women Leaders

The Quick View™ Leadership focuses on behaviors that people demonstrate (versus abilities), so people’s scores can change depending on their role, their team, and their level of responsibility. We wanted to see how scores changed across different levels of leadership, and the results of those analyses are below. Average percentile scores are shared for each group of Individual Contributors, Managers and Directors, and Executive women.

Behavior	Individual Contributors	Gap	Manager / Director	Gap	Executive
Ownership	47	13	60	0	60
Presence	54	12	66	0	66
Coaching	48	12	60	0	60
Inspiring Others	54	11	65	0	65
Delegation	55	10	65	10	75
Strategic	57	0	57	22	79
Leading Change	58	0	58	21	79
Persuasive	61	0	61	20	81
Building Trust	57	0	57	13	70
Organizational Awareness	65	0	65	13	78
Promoting Teamwork	56	0	56	12	68
Decisive	62	0	62	11	73
Motivating Others	58	0	58	10	68

When comparing Individual Contributors (ICs) to Managers/Directors (M/D), Ownership, Inspiring Others, Presence, Delegation, and Coaching emerge as qualities of higher-level leaders that ICs don’t tend to emphasize as much. Delegation and Coaching may be lower for ICs if they don’t have the opportunity to work through others, but demonstrating ownership and executive presence can happen with or without direct reports or formal authority over others. If ICs aspire to move into management level roles, they will benefit from looking for ways to inspire others, take initiative to fill leadership voids, and step into more visible roles. This would help them behave more like leaders and potentially earn greater opportunities for themselves.

Managers/Directors score similarly to Executive women on the behaviors of Ownership, Inspiring Others, Presence, and Coaching which is intuitive as successful people leaders need to focus on these types of behaviors. Executives score higher than M/Ds on decision-making behaviors; they are more Strategic, Decisive, and show more Organizational Awareness. They also emphasize key influence behaviors like Persuasive and Leading Change which help them to rally support for strategic initiatives. Finally, they focus on creating positive work environments in which Building Trust, Motivating Others, and Promoting Teamwork are focal points. For M/Ds to be recognized for their efforts and to be tapped for executive-level roles, they could focus more attention on these areas where Executive women score higher.

PRADCO’s Women in Leadership program offers women the chance to take the Quick View™ Leadership Assessment to see how they score on key behaviors and to provide insight into their strengths and weaknesses. Those scores are reviewed in a coaching session with a PRADCO Coach who specializes in developing female leaders, and collectively an action plan is developed. There are four interactive webinars that cover the topics of Finding and Leveraging Unique Value, Strengthening Relationships, Influencing with Authentic Leadership, and Defining Your Leadership Style. There are also four self-paced assignments covering the topics of Improving Operational Effectiveness, Motivating for Optimal Results, and Making Decisions with Confidence. Participants also have access to the PRADCO Coach throughout the duration of the program.

PRADCO’s Women in Leadership Program is a fantastic initiative designed to empower women, support organizational growth, and promote diversity in leadership. Its engaging facilitators, personalized development plans, personal coaching, and focus on key leadership skills make it a valuable resource for women seeking to advance their careers and for organizations aiming to build stronger, more inclusive leadership teams. The program has been an amazing process of learning and self-discovery that has promoted the women in our cohort to share successful strategies and learn from each other. — WIL Participant

Why is there a decline in women’s interest in advancement?

In our work at PRADCO, we know that performance is a function of a person’s ability and their motivation. Clearly, women are capable and have the ability to be successful as leaders and, in many cases, they are equal to or stronger than men when it comes to demonstrating leadership behaviors. So, what might be interfering with women volunteering for or accepting promotional opportunities? Some potential reasons are listed below.

Seeing what is required of these more significant roles might not be appealing as men and women alike struggle with heavy workloads and work/life imbalance. This might be especially problematic considering the fact that women still take on the larger share of life responsibilities outside of work.

Women may lack confidence in their abilities to be successful if they don’t see women at the senior levels successfully navigating the challenges of high-level roles.

If women are aware of the fact that fewer women get coaching and development opportunities than men, they may not feel they will have the support they need to be successful in leadership roles.

At PRADCO, we believe that people can change and improve with consistent and intentional effort over time. The Women in Leadership program offers women the chance to gain self-insight and practical tools to be more effective in their current roles, and to prepare them for advanced roles in the future. PRADCO also offers individualized coaching for women who want a more personal approach or who have done group development previously.

The data is clear. Women’s leadership skills and strengths are evolving faster than the roles available to them. Organizations that invest in their women leaders today will have the advantage tomorrow. Contact PRADCO today to learn more and to register your female leaders for this impactful program.

Women in Leadership

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