By Soumya Kashyap and Priyanka Tripathi
On March 8, 2025, International Women’s Day was commemorated globally, with several companies highlighting initiatives designed to foster gender inclusion and improve female representation in the workforce. Which led to positive trends particularly in India, where the female labour force participation rate increased from 19% in 2021 to 24% in 2023. In alignment with this progress, several Indian brands recently launched impactful campaigns to promote women’s leadership and empowerment. Infosys introduced the #ThriveAtInfosys campaign, which highlights initiatives to create a supportive environment for women in technology, Prega News’ #shecancarryboth addressed the prevalent issue of “mom guilt,” portraying a military officer as a mother and a defender of the nation. Additionally, the “She Directs Ads” collective was launched to amplify the voices of Indian female advertising directors, creating a platform where women in creative industries can feel seen, heard, and empowered. Even India Inc which is actively striving to transform workplaces by fostering inclusivity, diversity, and gender equality in an increasingly tech-driven environment, aims to create a distinctive “pink edge” for women.
Despite such initiatives, the recent repeal of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) programs at the US federal level and a demand for the private sector to cease using DEI-based hiring preferences highlight the challenges and barriers to expanding women’s workforce participation. Research indicates that in India, women leaders’ governance styles are not necessarily marked by increased democratic tendencies or reduced confrontation when compared to their male counterparts. From a policy perspective, gendered expectations are often contradicted by women leaders who also adopt assertive or non-conciliatory strategies. These observations, raises critical questions: Are such instances an indication that these leaders are not considered as ‘real women’? Does this mean that women are unfit for power politics? Or do such cases call for a more critical look at gendered assumptions about leadership and conflict resolution? According to these observations, leadership behaviour is seen as “trans-gendered,” which means that a leader’s gender affects how their behavioural qualities seem. As a result, the meaning of leadership actions is viewed via the prism of socially imposed gender standards rather than being consistently perceived by various people.
In India women constitute 42% of new graduates, 24% entry-level professionals, 19 % as senior managers, 7.7% as board members and only 2.7% as board chair. While campaigns promoting gender equity and awareness mark a step forward, they must be complemented by sustained structural reforms within organizations to drive meaningful and lasting change. Although India’s female workforce participation has seen slight growth, rising from 23.9% in 2016 to 26.8% in 2024, female representation at managerial levels has experienced a concerning decline, now standing at just 18.59%. The Quantum Hub, titled ‘Women in Leadership in Corporate India’, declared that the percentage of women in senior leadership roles increased from 16.6% in 2016 to 18.7% in 2023. Despite this modest progress, women remain underrepresented in key managerial roles. The same report, based on data from 100 million LinkedIn users, highlighted that in 2024, only 18.3% of senior leadership roles — including managerial positions and above — were occupied by women. At the entry level, 28.7% of the workforce is women, but this is much lower at the managerial level, 18.5%. Despite the ongoing efforts to increase gender diversity, the low representation of women in key managerial personnel (KMP) roles is still a testimony to the persistent challenges in achieving workplace equality. Women are presently 14.08% of KMP positions, which are important executive positions, such as CEOs, CFOs, and COOs. It reveals the barriers women face to break through the corporate glass ceiling.
This discrepancy arises from the “broken rung,” phenomenon which prevents women from advancing when they are just as competent as or even more qualified than males. 64% of middle-management women in India feel “stuck” in their positions. They attribute this to a lack of possibilities for professional advancement, sponsorship, and mentorship.
Although there have also been some beneficial developments brought about by legislative measures such as the Companies Act of 2013, which required listed companies to have at least one female director on their boards. Multinational companies (MNCs) including Global Capability Centres (GCCs) are actively enhancing gender diversity by increasing the number of women in senior management positions. There are 1,760 GCCS in India and the focus is on higher value activities like services and Engineering Research & Development (ER&D). The global roles in India have seen a significant growth in the last five years and more than 6,500 such positions have been created. Out of these, 1,100 leaders are women. Women are 6.7% of the workforce in the executive tier, 24.3% of mid-level positions which require 5-8 years of experience and 15.7% of the senior roles which require 9-12 years of experience.
The idea that males naturally have the agentic leadership qualities often linked to success, but women do not is reinforced by the practice of only enrolling women in gender-specific leadership programs. But according to McKinsey’s research, women exhibit the leadership behaviours that are most critical for meeting future business challenges—inspiration, participative decision making, setting expectations and rewards, people development, and role modelling—more often than men. These qualities are consistent with transformational and inclusive leadership styles that are the primary focus of Women’s Leadership Development Programs (WLDPs). To achieve real equity in leadership development, organizations must change the way people think about who needs these programs and why. Presenting WLDPs as a way of ‘fixing’ women perpetuates the leadership deficit discourse, which suggests that women are, in some way, unfit for leadership positions.
Hiring, promotion, and compensation biases should also be addressed in the workplace and at the leadership level. It does not mean that one must be aggressive or divisive, but rather to build an environment of accountability. In the last five years, for instance, the percentage of women in leadership has risen by 14.3%, according to Anuprita Bhattacharya, the Head of Merck IT Centre (MITC) and IT Country Head for India. Several women from India are now occupying senior international posts, steering strategic changes, controlling data and digital teams, and serving on the Group CIO leadership board. Aditi Jha, Head of Legal and Government Affairs at LinkedIn India, said that the recent focus on ‘women-led development’ has led to coordinated attempts by policymakers and business leaders to tackle these issues. On the same lines, Sirisha Voruganti, the CEO of Lloyds Technology Centre, highlighted the company’s policy on encouraging diversity in the workplace. With women being currently represented in the workforce at 36%, the company has set its sights on increasing this figure in the coming years.
In corporate India, efforts to achieve gender parity are still in progress. Women still struggle to achieve equal participation in senior positions and boardrooms, despite recent advancements. Even while regulations have helped increase the number of women working in the business sector, tokenism is still a problem. Through proactive diversity promotion and the development of a work environment that empowers and honours women, Indian businesses may unlock the potential of their workforce and achieve long-term success. Only through such tenacious efforts can the aim of gender equality be realized, and Women’s Day will truly turn into a celebration of the ongoing struggle for women’s rightful place in society.
Contributing Author(s): Soumya Kashyap teaches in UPES, Dehradun. Priyanka Tripathi teaches at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Patna.
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