Five Years or Eight?
This week, I attended my first Women’s Business Enterprise Council Florida event after spending nine months working toward national certification as a Women’s Business Enterprise through WBENC.
It was an energizing day, ripe with new relationships. I met remarkable founders, executives, and entrepreneurs from across Florida who are leading companies in manufacturing, fuel, technology, energy, and industries I knew very little about. I also had the opportunity to introduce DAWN during roundtable sessions with corporate representatives from Duke Energy, Siemens, VYStar Credit Union, and CHEP.
After my two-minute presentation, one of the corporate leaders hearing our pitches told me, “That was the best executive coaching pitch I’ve ever heard.”
I appreciated her generous compliment. But I think what resonated was a truth she recognized from decades of experience in a male-dominated industry: retaining high-impact women requires more than recruiting talented women and placing them in leadership roles.
It isn’t that women leaders are lacking.
Too often, the organizational support beneath them is.
My pitch stood out because I named a reality still rarely discussed in rooms focused on business opportunities:organizations cannot fully benefit from women’s leadership without building workplaces that support women in using their strengths, judgment, and experience.
The question beneath the statistic
As I drove home, one thought stayed with me. There is no shortage of talented women prepared to lead. The question isn’t whether capable women exist. It is whether we have created workplaces where they can continue leading long enough to make their greatest contribution.
That thought connected with a Russell Reynolds Associates report I had recently read.
Since 2018, women CEOs have remained in the role for an average of5.2 years, while male CEOs have averaged7.9 years, more than 50 percent longer.
The report does not suggest that women are less capable. It found that women CEOs are more likely to be dismissed early, even when company performance is strong. They are also more likely to inherit organizations during periods of crisis and encounter leadership evaluations and media narratives influenced by persistent bias. Some also leave for external opportunities, personal reasons, or planned succession.
Importantly, the authors do not stop with the problem. Their report is titledWhy Women CEOs Leave Sooner and How Boards Can Help All CEOs Thrive.
I appreciate that distinction because the statistic isn’t the question that keeps me thinking.
What would have to change for five years to become eight?
That was the question I brought into my conversations with the corporate leaders I met this week. It is also the conversation I want more organizations to have.
Much of the research understandably tries to explainwhy women leave. I find myself equally interested in another question:
What are organizations with longer-tenured women leaders doing differently?
That is where leaders have the power to act.
Over the past several years, I have listened to accomplished women leaders across industries. Very few have told me they wanted less responsibility. They wanted clearer decision-making authority, active sponsorship, honest feedback, transparent advancement pathways, and leaders willing to address problems rather than avoid them.
They wanted fair standards for evaluating their work and cultures where they did not have to spend so much energy repeatedly proving they belonged.
Those are not simply “women’s issues.”
They are leadership and organizational performance issues.
Retention is an ongoing leadership practice
Recruitment, promotion, and compensation matter. But none is sufficient by itself.
A promotion may place a woman in the seat, but it does not guarantee that the conditions surrounding that seat will enable her to succeed and stay.
This is where I think about myLeadership Cake framework. The upper layers contain the expectations and drains a leader carries. Those layers cannot remain stable without a substantial foundation of structural, relational, strategic, and emotional support. When that foundation is too thin, the cake begins to lean or crumble.
While every organization is different, I consistently see five areas that make a meaningful difference andstrengthen the supporting layer beneath the expectations and drains women leaders carry:
Fair pathways and evaluation:Transparent standards for hiring, advancement, performance assessment, and succession that are applied consistently.
Active sponsorship and continued development:Influential leaders who advocate for accomplished women, create access to important opportunities, and continue investing in their growth after promotion.
Decision authority and supportive structures:The autonomy to lead within one’s responsibilities, along with workplace practices that remove unnecessary barriers and recognize that leaders may also carry significant responsibilities outside work.
CEO, executive team, and board ownership:The CEO must visibly lead this work, with the executive team and board actively reinforcing it through decisions, expectations, accountability, resources, and their own behavior. Culture change that helps women stay cannot be delegated to Human Resources or supported only in words. Senior leaders must remain personally engaged in building the conditions women need to lead fully and choose to stay.
Accountability for bias and culture:Leaders who identify and interrupt bias in evaluations and everyday decisions, backed by the resources and sustained attention required for ongoing cultural strengthening.
These conditions address many of the risks highlighted in the Russell Reynolds report, including unequal evaluations, insufficient transition support, biased perceptions, and the heightened vulnerability of leaders appointed during periods of crisis.
They do not benefit women alone. Every leader becomes stronger in that kind of environment. Teams become healthier, decision-making improves, and organizations are better positioned to grow and prosper.
Four questions for boards and executive teams
Instead of asking only, “Why do women leave sooner?” boards and executive teams can ask:
Are we evaluating this leader by the same standards we used for the person who held the role before her?
Have we continued sponsoring and investing in her growth, or have we assumed she should no longer need support?
Have we given her the authority and structural support needed to carry the expectations attached to her role?
Are we willing to identify how bias may be shaping the way we discuss, support, and evaluate her leadership?
These questions do not apply only to women CEOs. They influence whether accomplished leaders at every level stay long enough to create lasting impact.
Five years to eight years is more than a statistic. It represents years of wisdom, trusted relationships, institutional knowledge, strategic momentum, and development of the next generation of leaders.
How long have the women on your executive team been in their roles, and what are you doing now to give them reasons to stay?
What if the question isn’t simply why accomplished women leave?
What if the better question is what we’re willing to change so they don’t?
That is the conversation I am committed to helping organizations have.
Because when accomplished women stay, lead, and thrive, organizations do more than retain talent.
They build stronger futures.
Warmly,
Dawn
Research Notes
Russell Reynolds Associates.Why Women CEOs Leave Sooner and How Boards Can Help All CEOs Thrive.May 21, 2025.
McKinsey & Company andLeanIn.Org.Women in the Workplace, annual research series.
P.S.
Brad Johnson and David Smith’s new book,Fair Share, is sitting on my desk with sticky notes peeking out from nearly every chapter. One idea in particular has me thinking deeply about the unseen work many women continue to carry outside the office and how it quietly shapes their leadership inside it.
I have a feeling next week’sSaturday Sipsmay begin there.
P.P.S. Family Dinner Caesar Salad
This is one of our family’s go-to large gathering staples. Add grilled chicken or shrimp and use as a main course.
