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Are You Listening? – Do You Hear Me? Women Need and Want a Different Approach

Dina Readinger

Dina Readinger

CEO, ACE Coaching Company

July 4, 2022





Despite everything companies are doing, women are still not stepping into leadership roles. Why is that?


Women aspire for leadership roles and actively look for ways to accomplish what they desire and need, yet no one is listening. The age-old ways of offering a leadership program where women get stuck with more non-promotional work, taxing them with more administrative work, and higher levels of burnout, just so others can benefit, must end!


When they ask, “What can I do to move up?” leads to the same old result; feeling stuck! Most women are frustrated by what companies have offered them and there is even more research that supports their frustration since women are not taking more leadership roles.

The Journal of Vocational Behaviors recently shared in their research in over 174 US published studies share that women may not share the same aspiration as men do. There is a difference between how men and women think about their careers; what they want and what they need.


I have worked with over six hundred women in corporate America and around the globe and there are common themes to what women want and need. Until companies can hear their cry for what they need the statistics will remain the same!

  • They want to feel and be seen as a confident woman leader.

  • They want to know they are supported by upper management for their ideas for change.

  • They want to challenge the status quo without risk of alienation from their immediate manager and they want an open door to upper management.

  • When they ask for what they need for personal development, they want a “yes” to their request.

  • Do not give women tasks that are non-promotable. These are tasks that do not advance their careers but may promise a change within the organization or someone else’s career. Women that take on these tasks do NOT get credit for their work for they would be promoted faster.

  • Do not ignore them.

  • Invite them to share their ideas and solicit their ideas often.

  • Ask them to take on powerful projects and support their need for balance for the current work demands and life demands.

  • Expect women to say NO, when they mean NO, without fear of retribution.

  • Let them join a leadership program where it challenges their beliefs and fears and puts them in a powerful place to manage their life and career.

  • They want fairness and equity.

  • They want safety and accountability.

  • They want to live free without fear.

There’s proof, that society fails to see what women need and want. The recent ending of Roe Vs. Wade is a social disaster. A recent quote from Planned Parenthood, Dawn Leguens, “ People who were sitting there scared and fearful and their government has just turned their back on them.”


When will others quit turning their back on women and their needs? Women will do what they need to do to take care of their lives, and it is appalling, again, they have taken away their right to a choice.


When will the world listen to what women need and want? Offer them a program that fits what they want and need, supports their ask, and empowers them to step away from their fear.


Dina Bio:

Dina Readinger is a speaker, author, certified team, and leadership coach with forty years in corporate America, creating high-performing teams through multiple mergers and acquisitions. Dina created Diagnostic Thinking to create inclusive cultures and high-performing women leaders. She has a BS in Biology Chemistry, Nuclear Medicine, and EMBA from Washington University, St. Louis, MO.


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