Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+

Personnel Today

Register
Log in
Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+

GenderEquality, diversity and inclusionLatest NewsExecutive recruitmentLeadership

Women CEOs face higher levels of scrutiny, bias and double standards

by Adam McCulloch 7 Mar 2025
by Adam McCulloch 7 Mar 2025 Female leaders face a double bind – perceived as either too ambitious or not ambitious enough
Photograph: Shutterstock (posed by model)
Female leaders face a double bind – perceived as either too ambitious or not ambitious enough
Photograph: Shutterstock (posed by model)

Female chief executives face double standards over how their performance is judged to a far greater extent than men, according to new research.

Women CEOs are criticised as either too ambitious and confident, or not confident or ambitious enough, claimed the study by executive recruiter Russell Reynolds Associates (RRA).

Researchers found that women represented just 6% of CEO departures but experienced significantly more discussion (and more negative discussion) when they left a role.

Society often expects women in leadership positions to walk a tightrope between being seen as competent, which requires displaying ambition, and likeable, which often requires downplaying ambition” – Laura Sanderson, RRA

The report – Time to Tell a Different Story – used news coverage to gauge the biases facing women CEOs and consulted experts over how women CEOs are responding in board and investor settings. It analysed more than 20,000 news articles covering almost 750 CEOs in FTSE 100, S&P 500 and Euronext 100 companies. The stories reflected commentary from a broad range of stakeholders, including analysts, shareholders, executives and policymakers, said RRA.

The analysis used machine learning to tag stories according to a series of attributes commonly associated with CEOs. It found that women CEOs were simultaneously described as having too much and not enough of key leadership traits in what represents a double bind.

There was particular focus placed on how ambitious women CEOs appeared to be. Ambition was 73% more likely to be mentioned in discussions of women CEOs, but rarely for the right reasons. Female CEOs were both 2.1 times more likely as men to be described as too ambitious, and 2.1 times more likely to be described as lacking ambition.

Hetty Pye, member of RRA’s board and CEO advisory partners, said: “Behind closed doors women CEOs often tell us that they are held to different standards and experience more intense scrutiny than their peers. News reports provide a fascinating window into how these biases play out in public discourse but make no mistake, they are rooted in our society not the media.”

Female leaders

Number of female doctors overtakes male

Number of women on boards increases again in 2024

Board gender quotas don’t improve executive diversity

A similar pattern can be seen in references to confidence. In the sample, no women CEOs were described as possessing the “right” level of confidence, said researchers. Instead, they were 3.56 times more likely to be described as lacking confidence than men, while men were 1.25 times more likely to be described as having excess confidence.

Laura Sanderson, co-head of Europe, Middle East & India at RRA, said: “Society often expects women in leadership positions to walk a tightrope between being seen as competent, which requires displaying ambition, and likeable, which often requires downplaying ambition. This contributes to women’s sense of ambivalence when it comes to owning up to any aspiration that they may have to take on the CEO role.”

According to RRA’s latest 2024 Global CEO Turnover report, women represented just 11% of total CEO appointments and 6% of CEO departures at the world’s largest listed companies in 2024. Despite this gap, they receive significantly more attention.

Women CEOs receive 1.25 times more mentions than men, while CEO coverage overall is 17 times more likely to mention the words “woman” or “women” than “man” or “men”.

Female CEOs received 1.7 times more attention when they left a role than men. This attention was also skewed in terms of sentiment – while 18% of stories about male CEO departures was negative, 28% of coverage of women CEO departures was.

The research has also found that descriptions of CEOs differed by gender. While men were positioned around their business and industry impact, women’s personal attributes were more frequently under the spotlight. Women CEOs were 27% more likely to be described using people-oriented adjectives than men, while men were 24% more likely to be described for their task-oriented skills.

This pattern is clearest when it comes to innovation and inspiration. Men CEOs were twice as likely to be described as “innovators”, whereas women were 72% more likely to be described as “inspirational”.

Sign up to our weekly round-up of HR news and guidance

Receive the Personnel Today Direct e-newsletter every Wednesday

OptOut
This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

 

Latest HR job opportunities on Personnel Today


Browse more human resources jobs

Adam McCulloch

Adam McCulloch first worked for Personnel Today magazine in the early 1990s as a sub editor. He rejoined Personnel Today as a writer in 2017, covering all aspects of HR but with a special interest in diversity, social mobility and industrial relations. He has ventured beyond the HR realm to work as a freelance writer and production editor in sectors including travel (The Guardian), aviation (Flight International), agriculture (Farmers' Weekly), music (Jazzwise), theatre (The Stage) and social work (Community Care). He is also the author of KentWalksNearLondon. Adam first became interested in industrial relations after witnessing an exchange between Arthur Scargill and National Coal Board chairman Ian McGregor in 1984, while working as a temp in facilities at the NCB, carrying extra chairs into a conference room!

previous post
Migrant care workers exploited for thousands
next post
Mental health: Five years on from pandemic, younger generations still struggling

You may also like

Consultation launched after Supreme Court ‘sex’ ruling

20 May 2025

RCN warns Darlington NHS trust over single-sex spaces

16 May 2025

EHRC bows to pressure and extends gender consultation

15 May 2025

So what does the election of a new...

9 May 2025

‘Unacceptable to question integrity’ of Supreme Court judgment

2 May 2025

Trans ex-judge to appeal Supreme Court biological sex...

29 Apr 2025

EHRC: Interim update on single-sex spaces draws criticism

28 Apr 2025

Opposition to Supreme Court sex ruling is ‘wishful...

22 Apr 2025

Eight new equality laws in the pipeline

10 Apr 2025

Darlington nurses’ changing room case delayed to October

3 Apr 2025

  • 2025 Employee Communications Report PROMOTED | HR and leadership...Read more
  • The Majority of Employees Have Their Eyes on Their Next Move PROMOTED | A staggering 65%...Read more
  • Prioritising performance management: Strategies for success (webinar) WEBINAR | In today’s fast-paced...Read more
  • Self-Leadership: The Key to Successful Organisations PROMOTED | Eletive is helping businesses...Read more
  • Retaining Female Talent: Four Ways to Reduce Workplace Drop Out PROMOTED | International Women’s Day...Read more

Personnel Today Jobs
 

Search Jobs

PERSONNEL TODAY

About us
Contact us
Browse all HR topics
Email newsletters
Content feeds
Cookies policy
Privacy policy
Terms and conditions

JOBS

Personnel Today Jobs
Post a job
Why advertise with us?

EVENTS & PRODUCTS

The Personnel Today Awards
The RAD Awards
Employee Benefits
Forum for Expatriate Management
OHW+
Whatmedia

ADVERTISING & PR

Advertising opportunities
Features list 2025

  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Instagram
  • Linkedin


© 2011 - 2025 DVV Media International Ltd

Personnel Today
  • Home
    • All PT content
  • Email sign-up
  • Topics
    • HR Practice
    • Employee relations
    • Learning & training
    • Pay & benefits
    • Wellbeing
    • Recruitment & retention
    • HR strategy
    • HR Tech
    • The HR profession
    • Global
    • All HR topics
  • Legal
    • Case law
    • Commentary
    • Flexible working
    • Legal timetable
    • Maternity & paternity
    • Shared parental leave
    • Redundancy
    • TUPE
    • Disciplinary and grievances
    • Employer’s guides
  • AWARDS
    • Personnel Today Awards
    • The RAD Awards
  • Jobs
    • Find a job
    • Jobs by email
    • Careers advice
    • Post a job
  • Brightmine
    • Learn more
    • Products
    • Free trial
    • Request a quote
  • Webinars
  • Advertise
  • OHW+