New 2025 data: women want the promotion as much as men do, once they get the same support
Four out of five women say they hope to be promoted. Eighty-six percent of men do. According to the 2025 Women in the Workplace study by McKinsey and LeanIn, that six-point difference vanishes completely when women receive the same support men already get.
If that finding holds, a long debate should be settled. For years, the reason women thinned out above the director level was supposed to be that they wanted it less. They stepped back. They put family first. They were called "less ambitious," a label applied in more talent reviews than anyone would readily admit. The numbers now show that the drive is present at almost the same rate. What remains is not a personality trait. It is a reaction to the environment.
Tracing the source of the statistic
Women in the Workplace is an annual look at US corporate employers and their staff, conducted by McKinsey and LeanIn since 2015. The 2025 edition asks women and men whether they hope to move up, then examines what else is true of those who say yes. The headline is the six-point gap. Beneath it sits the key result: among employees who report equal backing from their managers, sponsors and encouragement, the gap falls to zero. Because this comes from a survey and not a controlled experiment, it stops short of proving that backing causes ambition. It does show the two arriving together, and it undercuts the claim that women simply want it less, at least among women who receive what men receive. The same study found 31% of entry-level women with a sponsor, compared with 45% of men. Support is the missing piece, and it goes missing early.
What this dynamic looks like in an actual meeting
Picture a talent review in Tampa, Jacksonville or Miami. Picture yourself as a vice president in Tampa Bay, reviewing a slate of three candidates for an open SVP post, two of whom are men. A colleague remarks that the woman on the slate "hasn't really put herself forward," though you have firsthand knowledge otherwise. In fact, she has voiced her interest twice in one-on-one meetings, and each time her manager simply nodded and changed the subject. None of the men on that slate ever had to announce their interest to get on it. In Tampa Bay boardrooms much like this one, their sponsors advanced them personally. The ambition is the same. The amplification is not. By the end of the meeting her name carries a question mark, and that question falls on her, not on the manager who never carried her interest upward.
What this means for your path forward
If you have been told you need to "want it more," you received the wrong diagnosis, likely from someone whose own wanting was never put under scrutiny. The factor that would close this gap is not something you can summon from within yourself alone. It is a manager who speaks your name when you are absent, a sponsor who puts you on the slate, and encouragement that arrives before you ask. It is up to each organization to either supply these conditions or withhold them. You can go looking for them, but recognize that you are making up for a missing input, not repairing a flaw.
What to do next
State your interest plainly so it cannot be missed by the people deciding. Put it in writing for your manager, something like: "I would like to be considered for the next director-level opening." Ask what you would need to demonstrate before your name goes forward, and then request that a senior leader from outside your reporting chain, perhaps someone in Jacksonville or Sarasota, agree to act as a reference when the slate is assembled. Through these deliberate steps, you will have manufactured the kind of backing that men often receive without asking.
Who within your organization speaks your name in the rooms you never enter?