New 2025 data: women want the promotion as much as men do, once they get the same support

Roughly four in five women say they hope to move up the ladder. Eighty-six percent of men do. Per the 2025 Women in the Workplace report produced by McKinsey and LeanIn, once women are offered the identical backing men already enjoy, that six-point distance disappears entirely.

For years, the common explanation for why women thin out above the director level has been that they simply want it less. They opt out. They put family first. Talent reviews from Roseville to Davis keep calling them "less ambitious," a phrase people would be hard pressed to defend if sworn in. The data tells a different story. Drive shows up at almost the same level in both groups, and whatever gap is left is better explained by circumstance than by character. It is a reaction to how people are treated.

Source of the data

Since 2015, McKinsey and LeanIn have jointly run Women in the Workplace, a yearly examination of American corporations and the employees who work inside them. The 2025 edition asks women and men whether they hope to advance, then examines what else holds true for the people who answer yes. The first thing most readers notice is the gap of six points separating the two groups. What sits underneath is that workers who described receiving equal backing from their managers, sponsors and encouragement show no gap at all. Because the research is a survey rather than a controlled trial, it stops short of showing that support causes ambition to grow. Still, the two rise and fall together, and the idea that women simply want advancement less does not hold up once they receive what men routinely get. That same report notes that 31% of women starting out in their careers have a sponsor, while the figure for men is 45%. Early on, the backing women need tends to vanish, and that absence is where the trouble starts.

Picture a typical Folsom or Elk Grove conference room where promotions are discussed.

Imagine sitting in a talent review in downtown Sacramento or the Roseville corridor. Picture yourself as a vice president in Elk Grove weighing candidates for an open SVP position, with three finalists on the table, two of whom are men. A colleague remarks that the woman on the list "hasn't really put herself forward." You know better. She has spoken up about her interest twice during one-on-ones, but her manager simply nodded and changed the subject. Those two men never needed to voice their interest in order to be considered. Advocates in rooms exactly like this one made their case on their behalf. The ambition is identical. The advocacy is not. Before the meeting wraps up, her candidacy has been shadowed by doubt, and the doubt falls on her, even though the manager who failed to pass her interest along up the chain is the one who dropped the ball.

What this means for your career in Citrus Heights or Rocklin

Should you have heard that you need to "want it more," that feedback misreads the problem, and it probably came from someone whose own drive never had to prove itself. What actually closes the gap is not something you carry around inside yourself. It takes a manager who advocates for you when you are not there, a sponsor who gets your name onto the shortlist, and encouragement that arrives before you have to request it. Whether these exist depends entirely on the organization. Seeking them out is worthwhile, yet keep in mind that you are compensating for an input that was never supplied, not fixing something broken in you.

What comes next

State your ambitions clearly enough that they cannot be quietly overlooked. Write to your manager with something like: "I'd like to be considered for the next director-level opening." Then ask, "What would you need to see from me before you'd put my name forward?" and request that one senior leader outside your reporting chain agree to speak on your behalf once the slate is assembled. In effect, you have assembled through your own effort the kind of backing that men often receive automatically.

In your organization, who is speaking your name when you are nowhere in sight?