Are women losing our ambition? That was the takeaway for many from LeanIn.org and McKinsey’s new research this week, which found that 80% of women want to be promoted, compared to 86% of men. Sheryl Sandberg told Bloomberg that companies that don’t do the right thing for women are “causing women to lean out.” My former colleague Beth Kowitt wrote about the growing “ambition gap” for women in corporate America who, faced with the reality of what advancement looks like, no longer wish to climb the ranks.
But the question that brings up for me is: how are we defining ambition? If women are deciding that pursuing a promotion track isn’t what they want, what do they want instead?
Despite lots of commentary on the tradwife movement, most women don’t want to abandon their professional identities entirely. After I wrote about Lean In’s findings in Tuesday’s newsletter—specifically, how this gap is manifesting more strongly for women who work remotely—I heard from MPW Daily readers who agree that while their ambition hasn’t disappeared, it has changed.
While corporate America has gotten worse, options outside of it have increased. Portfolio careers as fractional executives, content creators, independent operators are possible. When women are stuck in a corporate structure that doesn’t serve them, why would they say they want more?
Lean In and McKinsey’s study measures ambition through the metric of desire to be promoted at work. A study from the women’s network Chief earlier this year defined ambition through a broader lens, and found that 86% of female senior leaders said they were more ambitious than they were five years ago. Their ambition was for financial success, owning decision-making power, control over their time and flexibility, having autonomy and agency—only after those factors came job title, in fifth place.
“When ambition is measured strictly inside corporate structures and defined only by the desire for a promotion, there is a gap between men and women. But the gap isn’t in ambition, it’s in how ambition is defined,” Chief CEO Alison Moore told me.
None of that is to say the ambition gap inside corporate structures doesn’t matter. It does—more for the future of these businesses, and their impact on society, than for women themselves. Women are finding ways to build career and opportunity outside strict hierarchies. But businesses will miss out on generations of talent if they keep losing women to ways of working, and advancing, that better fit our lives.
Emma Hinchliffe
emma.hinchliffe@fortune.com
The Most Powerful Women Daily newsletter is Fortune’s daily briefing for and about the women leading the business world. Subscribe here.
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ON MY RADAR
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Education, climate: Patterns in billionaire MacKenzie Scott’s massive giving emerge with time Fortune
PARTING WORDS
"Thanks for letting me crash the wedding of the century."
— Melinda French Gates on her cameo on a recent episode of the Apple TV series Loot. The show follows Maya Rudolph as a billionaire who's giving away her money after divorcing her tech tycoon husband.
