To Keep Women in Leadership, Redesign the Role Itself

There is a structure to careers that many workplaces still take for granted—a ladder climbed rung by rung, full-time hours assumed, availability taken as a given. For decades, this structure has shaped who rises and who steps aside, and women, disproportionately, have found themselves at the point where the ladder and the demands of caring meet. The Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) has now suggested that the ladder itself may need to be rebuilt, not simply for fairness but for the strength of the organizations that rely on it.

New analysis from WGEA points to what it calls a "part-time promotion cliff"—a sharp drop in opportunities for those who work part-time, or wish to, as they seek management and leadership roles . In the 2022-23 reporting period, while twenty-one percent of employees worked part-time, only seven percent of managers did so . At the most senior levels, the gap grows even wider: just five percent of key management personnel and three percent of chief executives worked part-time . For workers who need or want reduced hours, the path upward narrows abruptly, and for women, who make up thirty percent of part-time workers compared to eleven percent of men, the consequences are both personal and systemic .

The WGEA's chief executive, Mary Wooldridge, has framed this not as a matter of individual choice but as a structural barrier that disadvantages women across their careers . Because women are more likely to work part-time at some point—often more than once—the scarcity of part-time leadership roles limits their earning capacity and contributes to Australia's gender pay gap, where women earn approximately seventy-nine cents for every dollar earned by men . The pipeline narrows precisely when many women would benefit from flexibility, and the loss is not only theirs. Organizations forfeit talent, perspective, and the kind of leadership that reflects the full range of human experience.

The proposal emerging from this analysis is both practical and quietly radical: make management itself more flexible. More part-time bosses, more job-sharing arrangements at senior levels, and more co-CEO structures could allow women to remain in leadership during periods when full-time availability is not feasible . The WGEA has urged employers to redesign management roles rather than treating flexibility as an exception granted to the fortunate few . Some organizations have already begun this work, but the data shows that progress has been slow—the share of part-time management roles increased by just one percentage point between 2018-19 and 2022-23 .

The case for change extends beyond equity. Research from the Business Council of Australia has found that firms with balanced leadership teams outperform peers on value, profitability, and resilience, with regression analysis suggesting that gender balance causally improves company performance . Yet only one in four organizations currently achieve leadership balance, meaning that the majority are forgoing measurable gains . The Business Council's report argues that gender equity should be embedded as a core productivity strategy, not treated as a compliance exercise—a reframing that places flexible leadership models in the realm of competitive advantage rather than social obligation .

The barriers are not simply logistical. There is a cultural expectation that leadership requires constant availability, an assumption that Wooldridge and others say is both outdated and counterproductive . The WGEA's analysis suggests that female-dominated industries, in particular, need to examine why part-time workers are less likely to progress to management, even though they employ the highest number of part-time managers overall . The solutions may look different across sectors, but the principle remains consistent: if the structure of work excludes those with caring responsibilities, the structure must change.

The gender pay gap is often discussed as a number—a percentage, a dollar figure, a statistic to be moved. But behind it are careers interrupted, talent underutilized, and a workforce that has not yet fully reckoned with what it asks of those who also care for others. The WGEA's call for more part-time bosses and co-CEOs is not a demand for special treatment but an invitation to reconsider what leadership can look like when it is designed for the full range of working lives.

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Sources:

· Workplace Gender Equality Agency (WGEA) · Business Council of Australia · Tomedia Newsroom