The Broken Rung: When The Career Ladder Breaks For Women with Kweilin Ellingrud | 291

Women excel in school—higher GPAs, more degrees, more advanced education—yet the moment they enter the workforce, the advantage disappears. And when it comes time for promotions, the numbers tell a stark truth: for every 100 men promoted to manager, only 81 women make the jump. This gap compounds over time, keeping women from reaching senior leadership long before they ever get a shot at the top.

This is what our guest today, Kweilin Ellingrud, calls The Broken Rung—the single biggest obstacle preventing women from advancing in their careers. As a McKinsey senior partner, researcher, and co-author of The Broken Rung: When the Career Ladder Breaks for Women—and How They Can Succeed in Spite of It, Kweilin has spent years studying this issue and developing actionable strategies to help women navigate and overcome these barriers—regardless of whether their companies are ready to fix the system.

No one’s saying you have to climb the corporate ladder. If you want to build your own, take a completely different route, or burn the whole damn thing down—I support you. But if you do want to climb, the bare minimum should be that your ladder is as solid, as high-reaching, and as accessible as anyone else’s.

So climb. We’ll be holding the ladder for you.

Connect with Kweilin Ellingrud: 

Book: https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/mckinsey-on-books/the-broken-rung 

Women in the Workplace 2024 Report: https://www.mckinsey.com/featured-insights/diversity-and-inclusion/women-in-the-workplace 

Implicit Association Test: https://implicit.harvard.edu/implicit/takeatouchtestv2.html 

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