International Women’s Day 2026 theme is ‘Give To Gain‘ the core message being that generosity, support, and collaboration multiply opportunities for women and communities. Giving can take many forms—knowledge, mentoring, visibility, opportunities, resources, or advocacy—and when women thrive, everyone benefits. This applies to organisations as well. Companies with more women in leadership often deliver stronger financial performance. Research consistently shows that women leaders bring unique strengths to the table, including enhanced creativity, empathy, and collaborative skills.
However, globally a significant gender gap in senior leadership roles continues to exist.
The Leadership Gap
The ILO website gives some shocking (or maybe not so shocking) figures – Only 3 in 10 managerial positions globally are held by women. Women hold 27% of the world’s board seats. And only 6% percent of CEOs globally are women. This insta reel really drives the point home.
A recent study by KPMG India and All India Management Association (AIMA) revealed that
- Women hold only 17% of C-suite roles in India.
- Only 5% of CEOs of listed companies in India are women.
- 56% of organisations have just 10–30% women in leadership roles, and 9% have none at all.
There are many systemic reasons for this persisting gap. Cultural expectations, inadequate succession planning, and workplace structures that penalize career breaks continue to shrink the pipeline of female talent. Women still face structural barriers—receiving less career support and fewer opportunities to progress, while formal pathways to leadership within organizations become increasingly difficult to access.
The “Mid-Career Drop-Off” Problem
The KPMG report highlights a critical point. Less than 30% of women hired at entry level eventually reach leadership roles. While women’s ambition to lead remains strong, career progression slows during the mid-career stage, often due to organisational barriers and lack of support. The KPMG study reports that 65% of respondents identify the mid‑career stage as the time when women are most likely to leave the workforce. “One of the most significant pressure points highlighted in the 2026 survey is the mid‑career stage, where attrition risk is highest and leadership momentum is most likely to stall. Competing demands related to work–life balance, caregiving responsibilities and burnout continue to intersect with organisational expectations, often slowing progression or prompting exits despite sustained ambition.”
McKinsey calls it the “broken rung”. It refers to the first major promotion in a career – the step from entry-level roles to management. Women are less likely than men to receive this first promotion. For every 100 men promoted to manager, only about 81 women are promoted. The first broken rung of the corporate ladder opens up a gender gap that widens further at every subsequent rung, including senior-leadership positions. Because fewer women move into management early on, the gap widens over time, leading to fewer women in senior leadership roles later in their careers. It is that first broken rung, that affects the entire talent pipeline.
“Give to Gain”: Increasing women in leadership positions benefits the organisation
If we want leadership pipelines to change, people who are already inside the system must actively give time, access and advocacy. Organisations can reduce the gender gap in leadership by creating clear and equitable pathways for advancement. This includes ensuring fair promotion processes, providing leadership development opportunities, and actively supporting women through mentorship, coaching, and sponsorship programmes.
Companies should also address structural barriers such as unconscious bias, limited access to networks, and workplace policies that penalise career breaks. By fostering an inclusive culture and holding leaders accountable for diversity outcomes, organisations can build a stronger and more balanced leadership pipeline.
In this post however, I want to focus on mentorship and sponsorship. Mentorship and sponsorship are especially critical during mid-career transitions, where many women stall or exit leadership tracks.
However, it is important to note that Mentorship, Coaching, and Sponsorship are three different concepts, each important but not exclusive of the other two. Poornima Parameswaran Batish, co-founder of FayrEdge, puts it succinctly. “The career enabling trifecta for advancement we hear about most often are mentors, coaches & sponsors. While all three roles aim to support your growth, they do so through different mechanisms and proximity to your work. A mentor gives you skill/expertise specific advice, a coach gives you a perspective, and a sponsor opens up opportunities. At times, you might need all three to enable move to the next career level.”
Coaching — “Giving capability”
Coaching focuses on helping individuals improve performance, build specific skills, and achieve defined goals. Unlike mentorship, which often relies on shared experience, coaching is a more structured process that uses questioning, feedback, and reflection to help individuals find their own solutions. Coaches support professionals in strengthening their leadership capabilities, improving decision-making, and navigating challenges so they can perform more effectively in their roles.
Coaches help develop:
- leadership skills
- confidence
- strategic thinking
Mentorship — “Giving wisdom”
Mentorship is a developmental relationship in which a more experienced professional offers guidance, advice, and support to someone earlier in their career. The focus is usually on personal and professional growth—helping mentees build skills, gain perspective, and navigate workplace challenges. Mentors primarily act as advisors, helping individuals think through their career paths.
Mentors provide:
- guidance
- perspective
- career navigation advice
Sponsorship — “Giving opportunity”
Sponsorship goes a step further. A sponsor is a senior leader who not only advises but actively advocates for their protégé. Sponsors use their influence and networks to create opportunities—such as recommending them for high-visibility assignments, promotions, or introducing them to key decision-makers.
Sponsors actively:
- recommend someone for leadership roles
- advocate in decision-making forums
- create visibility
This distinction is important because most organisations focus on mentoring but not sponsorship. While mentorship provides guidance and advice, sponsorship is about action – using influence to propel women into leadership roles.
Mentorship May Exist, But Sponsorship is Missing
Research from Catalyst shows that mentoring alone is not enough to advance women. When women have sponsors—senior leaders who actively advocate for them—they are just as likely as men to be promoted. Catalyst defines a sponsor as a senior leader or other person who uses strong influence to help the sponsee obtain high-visibility assignments, promotions, or jobs.
The research also shows that men’s “mentors” are actually more senior, more influential, and have access to a wider network than women’s mentors i.e. men’s “mentors” are often really sponsors, a critical difference. When women have sponsors, they are just as likely as men to be promoted. This highlights why sponsorship is a critical lever for closing leadership gaps.
Given these dynamics, sponsorship can be an essential and impactful tool for closing opportunity gaps and fortifying robust pipelines that do not overlook critical talent.
The KPMG survey also notes that leadership development programmes exist but many women still lack access to stretch assignments, visibility and sponsorship. Training, mentoring or coaching alone does not create leaders. Access to opportunity does.
A study by Ibarra et al. found huge disparities in the types of mentoring men and women received mirroring the Catalyst research. Women often described mentorship as receiving helpful career advice and gaining a better understanding of themselves and their values. Men, however, spoke about mentorship as help with planning career moves and receiving public support and advocacy from their mentors. This difference led researchers to conclude that women were mostly receiving traditional mentorship, while men were benefiting from sponsorship. In other words, high-potential women were often over-mentored but under-sponsored compared to their male peers.
Harvard Business Review describes sponsorship as involving four key actions (ABCD):
- Amplifying a person’s achievements to decision-makers
- Boosting them by recommending them for high-visibility projects
- Connecting them to influential leaders and opportunities
- Defending them against biases or unfair evaluations
The Ibarra et al study also highlights the need to train sponsors—particularly male sponsors—so they better understand the challenges women often face on the path to leadership. Without this awareness, well-intentioned advice may unintentionally reinforce the “double bind” women experience in workplaces. Strong sponsorship programmes also include accountability, where organizations expect sponsors to actively support and advance the careers of the women they sponsor.
Creating the ecosystem: “Who Needs to Give?”
Organizations that want to support high-potential women should move beyond basic leadership training and developing sponsorship programmes. Research shows that successful programmes clearly define the role of a sponsor for both the sponsor and the person being sponsored. This includes setting expectations, outlining the nature of the relationship, and explaining how both parties can make the most of it. Careful selection and matching of sponsors is also important to ensure good chemistry and regular interaction.
Senior leaders can play a critical role by offering sponsorship and advocacy. Beyond providing advice, they can use their influence to champion high-potential women, recommend them for leadership roles, and ensure they are considered for high-visibility opportunities.
Managers contribute by providing stretch assignments, constructive feedback, and access to meaningful projects that build leadership experience. These early opportunities help women develop the skills and confidence needed for advancement.
Peers can help by creating visibility and collaboration opportunities. Recognising contributions, sharing credit, and inviting women into influential projects or networks can strengthen professional presence and expand access to opportunities.
The Leadership Gifts That Multiply
The most powerful leadership gift is not advice, it is opportunity. When leaders mentor, coach and sponsor others, they do more than help individuals succeed. They create ecosystems where talent multiplies, leadership deepens, and everyone gains.
Achieving gender equality in senior leadership aligns directly with Sustainable Development Goal 5.5, which calls for ensuring women’s full and effective participation in and equal opportunities for leadership at all levels of decision-making in political, economic and public life.
This blog post is part of ‘Blogaberry Dazzle’
hosted by Cindy D’Silva and Noor Anand Chawla
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