Climbing over The Broken Rung How women can succeed in their careers

Women around the world get better grades and graduate at higher rates than men but underperform their male peers in the corporate workforce—a disparity that starts long before the glass ceiling comes into sight. The odds of advancement are lower for women at the pivotal first promotion opportunity to manager, women’s than men’s: In the United States, for every 100 men, only 81 women are promoted, on average. The number drops to , 65 for Latina women and 54 for Black women. This is what senior partners Kweilin Ellingrud, Lareina Yee, and Maria del Mar Martinez call the “broken rung” on the career ladder, which causes women to fall behind early in their careers and keeps them from catching up as the effects compound over time.

The three are the authors of The Broken Rung: When the Career Ladder Breaks for Women—and How They Can Succeed in Spite of It, a new book that weaves together data from a decade of research, stories of 50 inspiring women and their decisions at pivotal moments, and the experiences of the authors, who were the first three chief diversity and inclusion officers at McKinsey.

During the McKinsey Live, the authors shared how their book helps women to climb over the broken rung and reach their full potential. While acknowledging that leaders and companies must do more to address systemic bias and gender inequalities in the workplace, the authors focus on what women can do to help themselves:

• Gain experiences that truly matter. Start by seeking out a company, not a job. A high-quality organization will invest in you and help you shine.
• Continue accumulating skills. Never stop learning and stretching yourself.
  • Make big, bold moves, into positions that require a high percentage of new skills.
  • Seek out the power alley—that is, where a company makes its money.
  • Become a technologist.
  • Be an entrepreneur within your organization.
• Be ready for the inevitable bumps in the road. Invest time in building your network. Maintain momentum by tending to your personal and financial health.

Q&A from the session

1. What led to identifying the ‘Broken Rung’ as the most significant career barrier for women, and was there anything unexpected in the findings?

McKinsey has partnered with Lean In since 2015 to collect data on women’s experiences in corporate North America. While we have seen some meaningful progress in women’s representation in the C-Suite (~12pp. increase since the report started) in the last decade, progress at the beginning of the talent pipeline, specifically the entry-level and first promotion to manager, has seen only modest gains. When coupling this data with the fact that women earn 59% of bachelor’s degrees in the United States, and have for 40+ years, we knew this was a topic worth investigating in more detail.

2. How does sponsorship accelerate getting the right experiences? How does this differ from other relationships in your network?

Networks are typically comprised of three types of contacts: connections, mentors, and sponsors. Connections know you in a professional or personal context and can be either more or less senior than you. A mentor shares knowledge, wisdom, and advice and can act as a sounding board, and is usually (but not always) more senior than you. Finally, sponsors do what mentors do by understanding and inspiring you, but they take it further and open up real opportunities, such as promotions, project assignments, a specific role in a meeting, or greater visibility.

Women and people of color tend to be over-mentored and under-sponsored, meaning they have a lot of people giving them advice, but not enough actively pulling them into opportunities and elevating them in front of decision-makers. Having sponsors who are opening new doors for you and getting you visibility from leaders in your organization is a major career accelerator. For every new sponsor you have, your chance of being promoted increases by 10%, and if you have four or more sponsors, you are five times more likely to be promoted. It is also important to recognize that sponsors typically do not become sponsors immediately; they may start as a connection or a mentor and then grow into a sponsor over time as the relationship deepens.

3. How do you prepare yourself to make a big, bold move so you are ready to step into the right opportunity when it arises?

Making a big, bold move — i.e., a job switch into a new career or industry where at least 25% of the skills in the new role are net new — is one of the best ways you can build experience capital. There are many ways you can prepare yourself to make a big, bold move. In general, we advise adopting four practices to help you feel ready for your next move:

1. Bet on yourself: Evaluate whether your current role is serving you and setting you up for the short- and long-term career you aspire to. If not, it may be time for a big, bold move. Studies have shown that women tend to apply for roles where they have a 100% skills match, whereas men tend to apply with only a 60% skills match. This is not due to women’s lack of confidence that they could do the job well, but more often simply because they do not think they will get the job. Putting yourself up for consideration is the first step toward making your next big, bold move.
2. Build your narrative: Look at the types of roles that interest you (e.g., specific industries) and identify the skills they share, and practice communicating why you want to move into the role and why you’re the right person for the job. Even if the experiences you have do not map exactly to the role you’re pursuing, explain how the experience you have has helped prepare you to quickly build the skills needed for the role, as well as creative ways you have been able to practice them in your current position.
3. Activate your network: Your network can act as a way of connecting you to new roles, a sounding board to help you pick the right company and position, and a means to help you identify and fill any skills gaps you think need focus to set you up for success. In addition, our research shows that when it comes to making big, bold career moves, women and men are equally dynamic — making job changes as frequently and traversing similar “skill distances” (i.e., the percentage of new skills needed on the job that you did not build in your previous role). However, women switch less often into “growing” occupations – by 2030, 73% of men vs. 67% of women would be employed in occupations projected to grow in demand, if past patterns of role-switching prevail. Leveraging your network to identify growing industries / companies and then having those you know connect you to new people in them can help you learn more about the space you’re moving into and position you well for a role that will enhance your experience capital.
4. Signal the right skills: Once you’ve identified the right roles and industries for your next move, build your resume to showcase the full range of your abilities, focusing on quantifiable and impact-driven examples in language consistent with the skills the hiring team is looking for (e.g., instead of “Quarterly planning,” try “Able to think strategically to develop short-, medium-, and long-term business plans”). Do not forget to signal your soft skills as well as your technical abilities, as hiring teams typically want to see your capabilities in both.

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To gain insights into avoiding the broken rung and creating a workplace where all employees can thrive, read The Broken Rung, “Author Talks: How women can overcome the ‘broken rung’” and articles such as “How women can steer toward growing industries and companies,” “Repairing the broken rung on the career ladder for women in technical roles,” and “Are women’s prime working years in peril?.”