There has been a lot of progress for women in occupying executive positions and closing the gap with male leaders (FTSE Women Leaders, 2026; Krivkovich et al, 2025). Despite this being welcome news, these reports fail to address the impact on women who exert additional effort to succeed and gain respect in their leadership positions. The benefits for organisations who have women on boards are also well established: organisational adaptability, increased performance and financial profits.
So, how are women experiencing these double standards? My interview study considered gender as a social construction that individuals perform to meet societal expectations. This is based on the theory of gender performativity (developed by Butler, 1990 and West and Zimmerman, 1989). Being a leader myself and passionate about equality in the workplace, I was interested in unpacking some of the disadvantages women leaders face in the workplace. I spoke to 21 women in senior leadership positions in local government, NHS and the charitable sector to understand whether they had to make compromises in being their authentic selves and what the impact of that may have been.
