Why Aren't More Women Being Promoted to Leadership Roles?

Though corporate America is making strides toward greater gender diversity, women are still underrepresented in leadership positions. At the beginning of 2020, women held 22 percent of C-suite roles, despite representing more than half of the workforce. Looking more closely at the hotel industry, women occupy just 18 percent of chief leadership positions. At Pinsight, we conducted research to uncover what causes this lack of diversity across a wide range of industries. Based on data from 328 managers and 129 organizations that together employ more than 500,000 people, we found that unconscious bias against women and minorities creates a self-perpetuating cycle when it comes to promotion to leadership roles. Our research, outlined in the report Repairing the Broken Rung: Overcoming Bias in the Leadership Pipeline, reveals that lack of diversity occurs because a large majority of organizations follow internal practices