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By Team BraveVant
For more than six decades, research published by Harvard Business Review has examined how men and women experience leadership and executive roles. A new 2026 study revisiting earlier research suggests that although attitudes toward women in leadership have improved, significant differences remain in how men and women experience evaluation, promotion, and opportunity.
The study surveyed 193 senior U.S. executives across multiple industries and found a striking divergence in perceptions.
A Growing Perception Gap
Twenty years ago, approximately 35% of both men and women believed women were judged more harshly in executive positions.
In 2026, that figure remains at 35% among men, but rises to 90% among women.
Another finding is equally significant: 83% of women believe they must outperform men significantly to succeed, compared with only 28% of men.
The research describes this as a form of “prove it again” bias, where women’s competence is more likely to be questioned and therefore must be demonstrated repeatedly.
Meritocracy Is Experienced Differently
Only 37% of women surveyed believe promotion criteria are applied equally to both genders, compared with 70% of men.
The gap is even wider when executives were asked whether their company operates as a meritocracy: 40% of women agreed, compared with 76% of men.
This suggests that the issue may not simply be whether formal rules are equal. It may be whether employees have equal access to the visibility, sponsorship, relationships, and opportunities that influence how those rules are applied.
Informal sponsorship can reinforce existing networks of familiarity and visibility, creating advantages that formal corporate policies may not address.
The Leadership Pipeline Remains Uneven
The challenge also appears in career trajectories.
Women are significantly more likely to advance through support functions such as human resources, finance, and legal affairs than through operational roles involving direct profit-and-loss responsibility.
As of 2025, women held only 16% of COO positions, one of the most common internal pathways to the CEO role alongside the CFO position.
Research also indicates that men are three times more likely than women to receive active encouragement to take on profit-and-loss responsibilities. Nearly half of men receive detailed guidance on pathways toward these roles, compared with only 15% of women.
This creates a structural problem: organizations may have women in senior leadership while simultaneously limiting their access to the operational experiences most likely to lead to the CEO position.
The Cost of Assumptions
One of the study’s most important findings concerns assumptions about women’s willingness to accept demanding roles, international assignments, or positions involving greater risk.
Organizations may assume women with young children are less interested in these opportunities. Yet research indicates that women are as willing as men to accept international assignments and career-development opportunities.
The difference may emerge not from initial willingness, but from the unequal consequences women experience after accepting those risks.
The lesson for organizations is straightforward:
Do not make the decision for the employee. Ask.
Leadership pipelines are shaped not only by formal promotion systems, but also by who receives opportunities, sponsorship, visibility, and encouragement.
Creating genuinely meritocratic organizations therefore requires more than equal rules. It requires examining whether people have equal access to the opportunities that allow those rules to work.
Team BraveVant