We’ve Cracked the Glass Ceiling. What Will It Take to Break Through?

Author: Kayleigh Pilkington-Williams

Every August, Women’s Day provides South Africans with an opportunity to recognise the contribution women have made to our country, while also reflecting on the work that remains.

This day commemorates the more than 20,000 women who marched to the Union Buildings on 9 August 1956 in protest against the extension of pass laws to women. In 2026, Women’s Day is being recognised under the theme “Building Resilient Economies for All”, with a particular focus on increasing women’s participation and representation in leadership and the economy.

Seventy years on from that historic march, the landscape for women looks very different. Women are leading organisations, sitting on boards, heading major functions, and occupying positions of influence that previous generations fought to make possible.

We have made progress. We have, in many respects, cracked the glass ceiling.

But we have not yet broken through it.

The leadership gap has not disappeared

The latest South African data tells an interesting story. According to the Commission for Employment Equity 2025/26 Annual Report, women now hold 29.3% of top management positions, compared with 70.7% held by men. This is despite women accounting for 45.7% of the economically active population used in the report.

Globally, a similar pattern remains. Women are increasingly visible in senior leadership yet remain significantly less represented in the most powerful positions. World Economic Forum analysis published in 2026 also suggests that progress may be losing momentum, with the hiring of women into C-suite roles having largely stalled since 2022.

So perhaps the conversation about women in leadership needs to evolve. It is no longer only about whether women can reach leadership positions. We also need to ask what enables women to continue progressing, increase their influence, and thrive once they get there.

Reaching leadership is only part of the journey

As people move into more senior positions, technical expertise alone becomes less likely to determine their success. Leadership increasingly requires the ability to influence, build strategic relationships, navigate complexity and organisational dynamics, make difficult decisions, communicate with confidence, and understand the impact one has on others.

These are leadership challenges, not uniquely female challenges. However, women may encounter them within a different context, including established expectations about what leadership should look like, unequal access to influential networks and sponsors, competing personal and professional demands, and assumptions about how women should communicate and behave.

This can create a difficult balance. Women may be expected to demonstrate confidence and authority while simultaneously navigating expectations about warmth, collaboration, and likeability.

The answer is not to teach women to simply adapt themselves to systems that may need to change. Organisations still have a responsibility to examine their cultures, succession pipelines, talent practices, and access to career-building opportunities.

But supporting the individual and changing the system do not need to be opposing strategies.

We can work towards more equitable organisations while also investing in the women who are leading within them.

And this is where coaching has an interesting role to play.

What can coaching offer a female leader?

One of the most valuable things coaching can offer a leader is something increasingly difficult to find in a demanding working environment: dedicated space to think.

Leadership can leave little time to step outside immediate demands and consider the bigger questions. Coaching creates an opportunity to examine leadership identity, personal impact, career direction, important relationships, visibility, boundaries, and the behaviours that emerge under pressure.

It may prompt a leader to consider where she wants to have greater influence, what might be limiting her progression, which relationships require more investment, how effectively she communicates her contribution, and what experiences she needs to prepare herself for her next leadership challenge.

There is South African research supporting the value of this type of intervention. A 2024 study by Nokuthula Dzingwa and Nicky Terblanche from Stellenbosch University Business School explored the experiences of ten women in corporate leadership positions who had participated in leadership coaching. The women described benefits including greater self-awareness and the development of strategies to manage work-life demands and gender-related workplace challenges. The research also highlighted the importance of organisational commitment alongside coaching – an important reminder that individual development cannot replace organisational responsibility.

Coaching is not about fixing the leader

There is still a tendency to associate coaching with a development problem: something is wrong, performance needs to improve, or a leader needs to be “fixed”.

This overlooks one of the most valuable applications of coaching.

High-performing people often work with coaches precisely because they want to continue developing. In leadership, coaching can provide an independent source of challenge, a confidential space to test thinking, and an opportunity to recognise patterns that can be difficult to see when operating inside a demanding role.

For an emerging leader, this might involve developing a clearer leadership identity, increasing confidence, or preparing for a larger role. For an established executive, the conversation may centre on influence, complexity, strategic relationships, decision-making, or the transition from leading a function to leading an enterprise.

The focus is therefore less on correcting a weakness and more on helping a capable leader become increasingly deliberate about how she leads.

Does coaching actually make a difference?

The broader research on workplace and executive coaching provides encouraging evidence.

A 2023 meta-analysis based exclusively on randomised controlled trials examined 37 workplace and executive coaching studies, covering 39 samples and more than 2,500 participants. It found a statistically significant positive effect of coaching across leadership and personal outcomes.

A separate 2023 meta-analysis of controlled studies found an overall moderate positive effect for executive coaching. Behavioural outcomes showed particularly strong benefits, while positive effects were also identified for areas including self-efficacy, resilience, and psychological capital.

These findings matter because effective leadership development should ultimately translate into something beyond insight. Greater self-awareness is valuable, but its real impact comes when leaders are able to translate that awareness into different choices and behaviours.

For women progressing through increasingly complex leadership environments, coaching can therefore provide both reflection and challenge – helping turn insight into intentional action.

From representation to real empowerment

Women’s Day gives us an opportunity to recognise how far women have progressed while also considering what is needed to sustain that progress.

Increasing representation remains important, but it is only part of the picture. Women also need meaningful opportunities to grow, build influence, and prepare for increasingly complex leadership roles. This requires organisations to look beyond the numbers and consider the development, sponsorship, and support available to women throughout their leadership journeys.

Coaching cannot remove structural barriers, and women should not be expected to individually overcome challenges that organisations themselves need to address. It can, however, form a valuable part of a broader development strategy by creating space for reflection, strengthening self-awareness, and helping leaders make more intentional choices about how they lead and where they want to go next.

As we celebrate Women’s Day, perhaps empowerment is ultimately about more than opening the door to leadership. It is also about creating the conditions that enable women to grow, contribute, and thrive once they walk through it.

Ready to explore what coaching could unlock? Whether it’s for you or your leaders, drop us an email and let’s set up a 15-minute chat about how coaching could support your next step.

References and further reading

Department of Employment and Labour. (2026). 26th Commission for Employment Equity Annual Report 2025/26. Republic of South Africa.

Department of Women, Youth and Persons with Disabilities. (2026, August 1). Minister Sindisiwe Chikunga: Launch of Women’s Month 2026. South African Government. https://www.gov.za/news/speeches/minister-sindisiwe-chikunga-launch-women%E2%80%99s-month-2026-01-aug-2026

De Haan, E., & Nilsson, V. O. (2023). What can we know about the effectiveness of coaching? A meta-analysis based only on randomized controlled trials. Academy of Management Learning & Education, 22(4), 1-21. https://doi.org/10.5465/amle.2022.0107

Dzingwa, N., & Terblanche, N. (2024). Coaching to support work-life balance of women in leadership positions. SA Journal of Human Resource Management, 22, a2509. https://doi.org/10.4102/sajhrm.v22i0.2509

Nicolau, A., Candel, O. S., Constantin, T., & Kleingeld, A. (2023). The effects of executive coaching on behaviors, attitudes, and personal characteristics: A meta-analysis of randomized control trial studies. Frontiers in Psychology, 14, 1089797.

World Economic Forum. (2026, June 18). Gender parity in senior leadership: Progress at a turning point. https://www.weforum.org/stories/leadership/gender-parity-in-senior-leadership-progress/