35% OF WOMEN HAVE STOPPED WANTING TO LEAD. THIS IS WHY.
From the Desk of
Katriina Tahka, Founder & CEO
Our 2026 Workplace Visibility Survey results are out today and the findings are hard to ignore.
For the second year now Cultivate Sponsorship partnered with Women’s Agenda to study the career ambitions and challenges of Australian women. Our first survey was in 2024. This year we added in an extra research dimension exploring the impact that being from a culturally and linguistically diverse background or a First Nations woman has on your personal experience.
The results and stories are strong! Invisibility is still dominant. Ambition is not the problem, structural barriers remain. And for the first time we’ve heard about overt ageism operating as a handbrake on the progression of senior experienced women. Over the next few months we will be deep diving into different segments of the data and sharing it with you. I hope you enjoy reading the findings!
Our Research, Published in Women’s Agenda
‘No Clear Pathways’: What Australian Women Say Is Holding Back Their Careers
A woman can be experienced, ambitious, capable and still invisible to the people making decisions about her future.
That is the story behind Cultivate Sponsorship’s 2026 Workplace Visibility Survey, recently published in Women’s Agenda. The findings are clear. Women are not being held back because they lack ambition or skill. More than half want a promotion in the next three years, and around half of respondents are already 15 or more years into their careers.
Yet 43% say they lack clear options for progression. 37% say they lack visibility. Only 12% point to insufficient skills. In other words, the issue is not readiness. It is access.
The research also shows that too many career conversations stop at the line manager, before they reach the senior leaders and decision-makers who can open doors. For culturally diverse women, Indigenous women, and women experiencing ageism, the barriers are often even more complex and less visible to the systems around them.
At the same time, 43% of respondents say their employer has pulled back on initiatives supporting women in the past year, while 75% believe their organisation could do more to improve gender equality in leadership.
This is the moment for organisations to look honestly at what is happening inside their leadership pipelines.
Because visibility does not happen by chance. Access does not happen by goodwill alone. Progression needs structure, advocacy, and most importantly sponsorship.
Read the full Women’s Agenda article and use the findings to start a sharper conversation in your organisation about who is seen, who is sponsored, and who is still being left waiting for a pathway to appear.
Source: Women’s Agenda x Cultivate Sponsorship 2026 Workplace Visibility Survey (n=372)
This Month’s Focus
Sponsorship Is a Performance Strategy
Women in Australia remain highly confident in their professional abilities, yet that confidence is not translating into progression.
HiBob’s 2026 Women in the Workplace report found that only 14% of women received a promotion in 2025, down from 25% the year before. Men were promoted at nearly double the rate. At the same time, 35% of women say they are no longer interested in leadership.
This is more than an equity concern. It is a leadership pipeline risk.
When women stop seeing a clear return on the energy required to progress, organisations lose future leaders, succession depth and internal capability.
Sponsorship helps shift that trajectory by connecting high-performing women to visibility, advocacy and meaningful opportunity.
Cultivate Conversations
New Episode: Pay, Progression and the Power to Ask
The latest episode gets into the mechanics of career advancement: what stops people from having the conversations that would change their trajectory, and what happens when they finally do.
Kat is joined by Sam Trattles, negotiation expert and CEO of The Power to Ask, and Nick Arcaro, Human Performance and Wellbeing Leader at Laing O’Rourke, for an honest conversation about pay, progression, and the ask. They cover why the average pay rise takes at least 12 weeks from the first conversation, what managers get wrong when they play good cop/bad cop with their teams, and why quiet high performers are the ones most at risk of being left behind.
Cultivate Indigenous Conversations
National Reconciliation Week: What Does “All In” Actually Require?
To mark National Reconciliation Week (27 May – 3 June), Warra Managing Director Carlyn Waters and Kat sat down for an honest conversation about what genuine commitment to First Nations leadership looks like inside Australian organisations.
They cover the distinction at the heart of Warra: a mentor talks to you, a sponsor talks about you. And what it means for organisations to move from performative support to something that lasts all 52 weeks of the year. Carlyn also speaks to the cultural superpowers Indigenous professionals bring to their workplaces: stewardship that thinks in generations, and systems thinking that sees the full ripple of a decision, not just the immediate output.
This episode was produced under Cultivate Indigenous and reflects the Warra program’s Connect – Cultivate – Champion – Continue methodology.
Organisational Training, Workshops and Coaching
We help organisations and leaders grow through sponsorship and leadership pathways, inclusive workplace training, and tailored executive labs and advisory support.
Coming Up Next Month…
In June, we look at the mechanics of promotion. Advancement does not reward potential alone: it rewards visibility, endorsement, and advocacy. Who is being spoken for in your organisation? Who is positioned as ready? Who is being seen as a future leader, and who is not, despite being exactly that? Next month, Cultivate examines the gap between performance and progression, and what it takes to close it.
Cultivate News
Laing O’Rourke AU – Willow Program Graduation
Congratulations to the Laing O’Rourke AU cohort, who completed the Willow Sponsorship Program this month. The cohort has been part of a structured sponsorship journey connecting high-potential women with senior leaders committed to advocating for their advancement. Laing O’Rourke’s Human Performance and Wellbeing Leader Nick Arcaro also joined Kat on Cultivate Conversations this month to talk pay, progression, and the power to ask: a fitting reflection of what structured sponsorship looks like inside an organisation that takes it seriously.
SJ Group ANZ – Willow Program Commencement
A warm welcome to SJ Group ANZ, who have commenced their Willow Sponsorship Program this month. We look forward to the journey ahead.
Thank you for being part of the Cultivate community. Let’s keep building pathways for growth together.