Why Is It So Hard For Women To Get Into The Boardroom

Joanne Lockwood is joined by Gillian Jones-Williams to explore why women continue to be underrepresented in boardrooms, and what needs to change for progress to accelerate.

They discuss the structural and cultural barriers that keep leadership teams male-dominated, including bias in perceptions of “gravitas”, expectations around age and readiness, and the experience of being the first (or only) woman in a board environment. Gillian shares what she’s learned from years of coaching senior women, including the extra work many women feel they must do to be heard, taken seriously, and assessed fairly.

The conversation also covers career planning and progression, including how organisations can better prepare women for the jump from senior management to board roles, and why “debiased” recruitment alone may not shift outcomes without deliberate action to widen and rebalance candidate pipelines. Alongside this, they touch on workplace realities that can materially affect women’s confidence and performance, such as menopause, stigma around reproductive health, and the unequal pressures many women faced during COVID-era working.

Gillian also shares her lockdown project: a diary-style book capturing the day-by-day experience of COVID-19 and the effort to keep a business going, written with the aim of raising money in support of NHS staff and their families.

One-sentence summary

Gillian Jones-Williams believes women belong in the boardroom not because of targets or tokens, but because they carry talent, resilience and lived experience that the system has quietly learned to overlook.

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Synopsis

Gillian Jones-Williams has spent 25 years coaching senior women — listening to their doubts, their ambitions, their exhaustion and their brilliance. She describes her superpower as “inspiring people”, but what drives her is something deeper: witnessing capable women question themselves in rooms they’ve earned the right to sit in. She has seen them asked to take minutes instead of set strategy; told they “lack gravitas” when what they lack is tolerance for bluster; and coached to project louder, stand taller, or dress differently, simply to be heard.

What she is trying to change is not just a statistic about board representation. She is trying to shift the culture that makes talented women feel they must reshape themselves to fit. She wants workplaces where ambition and motherhood are not in competition, where menopause is spoken about without shame, where authenticity isn’t penalised, and where merit is not quietly defined by those already in power. For Gillian, this is about dignity — about ensuring women don’t have to trade identity for influence.

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10 Small, digestible concepts for easy learning

1. Confidence gaps don’t appear in a vacuum. They often grow in environments that subtly question women’s legitimacy.

2. Gravitas is often code for familiarity. We mistake loudness and dominance for leadership because that’s what we’re used to seeing.

3. The first woman in the room carries the heaviest load. She isn’t just contributing — she’s breaking social ground.

4. Fair isn’t always equal. If the pipeline is uneven, neutrality won’t correct it. Intentional action will.

5. Motherhood shouldn’t erase ambition. Life stages are not proof of diminished capability.

6. Impostor syndrome is often a mirror of culture. When you’re treated like you don’t belong, your mind absorbs the message.

7. Career pauses are not career endings. Systems that assume they are lose extraordinary talent.

8. Authenticity is strategic. Pretending to be someone else is exhausting and unsustainable at senior level.

9. Silence around women’s health has consequences. Menopause, fertility struggles and hormonal shifts don’t disappear because we avoid them.

10. Visibility isn’t vanity. In virtual and physical rooms, being seen is part of being progressed.

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The “why” in the story

What she believes is true about people

Gillian believes women are just as strategically capable, visionary and decisive as men — but many have been conditioned to question themselves in systems that were not designed with them in mind.

What she cannot unsee

She cannot forget the stories of senior women being asked to fetch coffee in board meetings, or coached to “be more assertive” when what was really being asked was “be more like him”.

What she is no longer willing to tolerate

She refuses to accept that neutrality equals fairness, or that women must harden themselves into caricatures of leadership to be taken seriously.

What she is trying to build instead

She is building spaces where women can plan boldly, speak openly about life stages, and step towards senior roles without apologising for who they are.

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Narrative structure

1. The trigger

Years of coaching talented women who had earned their seats — yet still doubted whether they belonged — hardened her resolve. Hearing about subtle slights at board level, and watching numbers barely move, made incremental change feel insufficient.

2. The tension

She repeatedly meets pushback: men who feel excluded by women’s programmes; leaders who believe meritocracy alone will fix things; organisations that fear asking about family plans yet quietly penalise them.

3. The insight

The problem isn’t capability. It’s culture. We have normalised a leadership mould — loud, dominant, time-unencumbered — and then judged everyone against it.

4. The pivot

Instead of only coaching women to adapt, she challenges organisations to rethink progression, merit, flexibility and visibility. She encourages women to arrive with a plan, to name their ambitions, and to claim space without apology.

5. The destination

A world where a woman in her thirties, forties, fifties or sixties is judged on her thinking, not her fertility; where boardrooms feel dynamic rather than club-like; and where leadership looks like humanity, not performance.

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Five key takeaways and learning points

1. Culture shapes confidence.

So what: If you want confident women leaders, create environments where they’re not subtly diminished.

2. Life stages aren’t weaknesses.

So what: Build flexibility around fertility, parenting and menopause instead of pretending they don’t exist.

3. Meritocracy needs scrutiny.

So what: Examine who defines “merit” and whether it unconsciously rewards similarity.

4. Talking about difficult subjects reduces harm.

So what: When menopause, fertility and family plans are discussed thoughtfully, shame loses power.

5. Preparation matters.

So what: Encourage women to map long-term career plans and open conversations early, rather than assuming progression will happen by default.

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Ten distinct ideas explained

1. The double bind of femininity

Women who appear too feminine are dismissed; those who appear too assertive are criticised. The emotional cost is constant self-monitoring.

2. Impostor syndrome as a social response

Self-doubt often mirrors repeated cues that you don’t belong. Change the cues, and confidence changes.

3. The first-woman effect

Being the only woman amplifies scrutiny and isolation. When there are several, pressure diffuses and voices strengthen.

4. The hidden labour of presentation

Women often feel required to look visibly “board-ready” in ways men do not. The constant calculation chips away at ease.

5. Motherhood as a career crossroads

The expectation that ambition must pause for family embeds hesitation before it’s even discussed.

6. Menopause as an invisible disruptor

Lack of sleep, foggy thinking and emotional shifts can be misread as declining competence rather than biological transition.

7. The illusion of unbiased recruitment

If historical imbalance shapes your applicant pool, neutrality simply sustains the status quo.

8. Virtual visibility is a skill

On screens filled with faces, the quiet can disappear. Presence now requires deliberate strategy.

9. Fear-based silence from managers

Leaders avoid asking about family aspirations in case they offend — yet avoidant silence helps no one plan.

10. Authenticity as endurance

Long-term leadership requires energy. Pretending drains it. Being oneself preserves it.

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How people should change as a result

1. Think

• Move from “Why aren’t women progressing?” to “What assumptions shape progression?”
• See confidence as relational, not individual.
• Recognise that neutrality maintains existing imbalances.
• Understand that health and family realities don’t reduce leadership potential.

2. Feel

• Shift from defensiveness to curiosity.
• Replace scepticism about women-focused support with empathy for lived experience.
• Move from guilt to responsibility.
• Let go of the idea that fairness always feels symmetrical.

3. Act

• Review board composition — and ask why it looks the way it does.
• Invite open conversations about long-term career plans without penalty.
• Normalise discussions about menopause and flexible working.
• Challenge language like “lacking gravitas” and ask what it actually means.
• Sponsor at least one woman visibly and intentionally.
• Reassess hiring criteria: are you hiring the “next Fred”, or the best future thinker?
• Ensure more than one woman sits at key decision-making tables.

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One thing to remember

Women don’t lack readiness for the boardroom — too often, the boardroom lacks readiness for women.