Women and Self-Promotion in Leadership:
Barriers, Perceptions, and the Impact on Career
Advancement in the Workplace

Executive Summary

In this report we are going to study the problem of agentic women’s behaviour who under

represent themselves in senior leadership positions, it remains a global organizational challenge.

Although women and men enter the workforce at comparable rates, advancement into

executive roles or managerial roles remains very low. The reason contributing factor is the

“self-promotion paradox,” where women must demonstrate competence through visibility and

face social penalties when engaging in assertive behaviours. This report examines how barriers

to self-promotion influence career progression for women.

This study conducts a critical literature review that integrates academic research and grey

literature, including economic analysis, corporate reports. The study evaluates an explanation

for the leadership gap for the female gender “Broken Rung” by comparing psychological theories

of gender role expectations for leadership. The analysis focuses on debates surrounding

the penalities of modesty of women, traps of confidence and low self esteem in the workplace

climate.

Results found indicate that self-promotion operates within a double bind: women aren’t visible

enough and also tend to less promote themselves; these two penalized them for insufficient

visibility and for violating communal expectations when promoting themselves. There is a solution

that can reinforce these dynamics which is structural bias within promotion. Companies

must implement an objective for performance metrics to reduce reliance of self advocacy. The

report concludes by identifying a research gap concerning hybrid workplaces and evaluation

performance system.

Contents

Introduction 5

Literature Review 6

0.1 Gendered Leadership Norms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

0.2 Modesty Penalty and Confidence Trap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

0.3 Structural Bias and the Broken Rung . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

0.4 Workplace Climate and Burnout . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

0.5 Research Gap . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 7

Conclusion 8

Abbreviations and Glossary

AI – Artificial Intelligence

HR – Human Resources

KPI – Key Performance Indicator

Agentic Behaviour: A set of behaviours characterised by assertiveness, independence,

competitiveness, and goal orientation, commonly aligned with traditional masculine gender

roles and dominant leadership prototypes. Within social role theory, agentic characteristics are

distinguished from communal traits such as empathy, cooperation, and relational sensitivity

(Eagly, 1987; Eagly & Karau, 2002).

Broken Rung: A structural gender gap in career pipelines known as "Broken Rung" occurs

when women are less likely to advance to management positions. Gender disparities in leadership

representation result from this early gender gap that keeps growing across organizational

levels (McKinsey Company LeanIn.Org, 2019; McKinsey Company, 2022).

Double Bind: A gendered leadership constraint in which women are evaluated negatively

when they demonstrate dominant leadership behaviors linked to high organizational performance

and when they don’t in order to conform to gender stereotypes. As a result, women’s

prospects for advancement are restricted by conflicting expectations (Eagly Karau, 2002;

Rhode, 2003).

Modesty Penalty: Modesty penalty is a systemic issue that calls for a systemic, rather than

a behavioral, solution.

Introduction

Despite the efforts of several decades to promote gender diversity, women are still not represented

adequately in executive positions, and as revealed in several corporate reports, the

“broken rung” of first-level management is a major problem, where fewer women are promoted

to managerial positions, creating a snowball effect in leadership positions (McKinsey &

Company, 2022; McKinsey & Company, 2025). In terms of mathematical modeling, the progression

of careers shows that small differences in promotions, especially in the early stages of

a woman’s career, can result in large differences in hierarchical levels, which is a key factor in

a woman’s progression in her career (Clifton et al., 2019).

Self-promotion is a major factor in leadership presence. Leadership traits have been related

to the personality of being “agentic,” which refers to being assertive, independent, and

goal-oriented, which are generally related to masculinity. Women who exhibit these traits are

likely to face penalties such as being considered aggressive and non-communal (Skyline Group

International, 2016).

This creates a kind of ‘double bind’ in leadership, where women must prove their competence

but in doing so, invite reputational backlash, making it harder to move up the career

ladder (Exley & Kessler, 2022; Female Leadership: Effectiveness and Perception, 2022).

The purpose of the current research is to investigate the processes involved in the promotion

of women to senior leadership roles in organizations, from mid-level to senior leadership, and

the psychological, social, and structural barriers to women’s self-promotion. It is also intended

to evaluate the effectiveness of self-advocacy in the progress of women to senior leadership

roles, as well as areas that need to be researched in the future.

The objectives are: To assess the impact of self promotion on promotion outcome. To analyze

the perception effects. To examine how organizational structures influence advancement

opportunities.

Literature Review

This chapter critically evaluates theoretical and empirical debates regarding gendered leadership

norms and self-promotion.

0.1 Gendered Leadership Norms

Leadership prototypes carry an implicit masculine character (Galsanjigmed&Sekiguchi, 2026).

Studies have shown that the same behavior is judged differently depending on the gender (Female

Leadership: Effectiveness and Perception, 2022). Work environments that are femaledominated

have a positive impact on the workplace environment (Alan et al., 2023). However,

it is a fact that such community leadership traits are underappreciated in the current framework

of promotions, which indicates a mismatch in performance outcomes and evaluation criteria.

0.2 Modesty Penalty and Confidence Trap

Another factor emphasized by Exley & Kessler (2022), for women who choose not to selfpromote

through the experience of social backlash, is the social backlash factor. However, the

findings of the research conducted by Reynolds (2022) support the social perception factor, as

they reveal how assertive women are perceived in the professional environment. Although the

research studies differ, as Exley & Kessler (2022) conducted an experimental research, while

Reynolds (2022) conducted qualitative media research, the difference between the findings

reveals the complexity of the self-promotion barrier, not only as a psychological factor, but

also as a social perception factor.

0.3 Structural Bias and the Broken Rung

Corporate data reveals that the broken rung at the first promotion is the key factor. This is

common in all corporations (McKinsey & Company, 2022, 2025). Homophily model theories

illustrate the compounded effect of small biases. Mentorship and sponsorship interventions

illustrate a mitigating effect, but this is not changing the evaluation criteria (ChallengesWomen

Experience in Leadership Careers, 2023).

0.4 Workplace Climate and Burnout

Even though female leadership has a positive impact on the work environment, as indicated by

Alan et al. (2023), female leaders experience more burnout, as indicated by Business Insider

(2025). This implies that women are also affected by the pressures of visibility. Grey literature

indicates that perception gaps are still high in business media narratives, as indicated by Vogue

Business (2024).

0.5 Research Gap

The Research Gap section you provided highlights three main points:

Focus on traditional face-to-face systems. Most studies on women’s self-promotion and

leadership advancement look at in-person, conventional workplace interactions. There is little

research on hybrid or remote work settings, which are becoming more common. This means

current findings may not fully capture the challenges or dynamics in digitally mediated environments.

Unclear impact of digital performance tracking. Modern workplaces often use algorithmic

or AI-based performance monitoring. It is still unclear whether these systems help reduce gender

bias in promotions or if they increase penalties for women who engage in self-promotion.

The effect of technology on the double bind or modesty penalty is not well explored.

Need for empirical studies. Because these areas lack research, there is a strong call for empirical

studies to test how hybrid work models and algorithmic evaluations influence women’s

career progression, especially regarding self-advocacy and leadership visibility.

In short, the gap indicates that current literature may not apply to modern, hybrid, or digitally

tracked workplaces, and more data-driven research is needed to understand how these new

systems affect gendered career outcomes.

Conclusion

The above discussion illustrates the mechanism of self-promotion through a gendered double

bind. In order to move up the hierarchical ladder in an organization, females must prove their

competence and believe more in themselves, but they face penalties for breaking communal

norms. The promotion structure aggravates the situation, especially in the first transition of

management.

Consequently, the core research problem that we will address in the next phase of this study

is the interaction between hybrid work environments and performances evaluation system. The

existing literatures is heavily skewed toward traditional, in face promotional models, leaving a

critical gap in understanding how degital first and algorithmique performance impacts gender

based self promotion. Future researchs must determine whether these systems successfully

mitigate human bias or if they merely digitize and obscures the penalties that women face

when advocating for their own advancement and self promotion.

Bibliography

Alan, S., Corekcioglu, G., Kaba, M., & Sutter, M. (2023). Female leadership

and workplace climate. VoxEU Publications. Retrieved from https://cepr.

org/voxeu/columns/female-leadership-and-workplace-climate

Bahrami, P., Nosratabadi, S., Palouzian, K., & Hegedus, S. (2023). Modeling

the impact of mentoring on women’s work-life balance. arXiv. Retrieved from

https://arxiv.org/abs/2301.03456 Bai, A., Vahedian, M., Ghahreman, R.,

& Piri, H. (2023). Elevating women in the workplace: Spiritual intelligence & ethical

environments. arXiv. Retrieved from https://arxiv.org/abs/2304.05678

Business Insider. (2025). Women at the top are exhausted and burned out. Retrieved

from https://www.businessinsider.com Challenges women experience

in leadership careers: An integrative review. (2023). Behavioral Sciences,

13(3), 205. https://doi.org/10.3390/bs13030205 Clifton, S. M., Hill, K., Karamchandani,

A. J., Autry, E. A., McMahon, P., & Sun, G. (2019). Mathematical

model of gender bias and homophily in professional hierarchies. arXiv. Retrieved

from https://arxiv.org/abs/1801.02700 Domscheit-Berg, A. (n.d.).

Gender equality advocacy and Women Matter study. Wikipedia. Retrieved from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anke_Domscheit-Berg Exley, C.,

& Kessler, J. (2022). Women don’t self-promote, but maybe they should. Harvard

DCE. Retrieved from https://professional.dce.harvard.edu/blog/

women-dont-self-promote-but-maybe-they-should/ Female leadership:

An integrative review and research framework. (2025). The Leadership Quarterly,

36(1). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2024.101785 Female leadership: Effectiveness

and perception. (2022). Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 195, 245–260.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2022.01.011 Financial Times. (2024). Women shouldn’t

face a penalty for promoting themselves. Retrieved from https://www.ft.com

Galsanjigmed, E., & Sekiguchi, T. (2026). Gendered leadership in organizations: Men

and women. Encyclopedia, 6(1), 16. https://doi.org/10.3390/encyclopedia6010016

Haegele, I. (2024). The broken rung: Gender and the leadership gap. arXiv. Retrieved

from https://arxiv.org/abs/2210.05753 Investopedia. (n.d.). Academic

leadership by gender. Retrieved from https://www.investopedia.com

9

Kelan, E. (n.d.). Leadership and gender research. Wikipedia. Retrieved from

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elisabeth_Kelan Kim, S.

(2019). Women in leadership: Building self-confidence. EHL Hospitality Insights.

Retrieved from https://hospitalityinsights.ehl.edu/

women-leadership-self-confidence McKinsey & Company. (2016).

Women in the workplace 2016 report. New York, NY: McKinsey & Company. Retrieved

from https://leanin.org/women-in-the-workplace-2016

McKinsey & Company. (2022). Women in the workplace 2022 report. Retrieved

from https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/

diversity-and-inclusion/women-in-the-workplace McKinsey &

Company. (2025). Women in the workplace 2025 report. Retrieved from https://

www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/diversity-and-inclusion/

women-in-the-workplace Public Relations Review. (2026). The confidence trap:

A conceptual framework for understanding the gendered leadership gap. Public Relations

Review, 52(2). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2025.102430