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“She’s good, but she doesn’t quite have executive presence.” I’ve heard versions of this sentence in talent discussions for years. It sounds like feedback. It usually isn’t. Ask a simpler question: what exactly do we mean? Did she struggle to explain a recommendation clearly? Did she become defensive when challenged?

One of the clearest signs of a weak succession system is an employee who cannot be promoted because nobody else can do their job. I’ve heard versions of this many times. “She’s too critical to the team.” “Nobody else knows that process.” “The client trusts her.” “Let’s wait until we

We have become very good at telling women what to do differently at work. Speak up more. Be more visible. Build stronger networks. Ask for the promotion. There is value in helping people build these skills, and I have worked with many women who benefited from learning to advocate for

Take two women with essentially the same qualifications. Give one of them a career break, and she is 49% less likely to get a callback. That number should make us uncomfortable, particularly because so much of the conversation around women returning to work still starts with what she needs to

We hear the words “career break” and start thinking “family over career” It happens unconsciously in hiring conversations. A woman has been away from work for a few years, and before anyone asks what she wants next, people start thinking about balance, flexibility and whether she would really want the

Ninety-three percent of Indian men between 25 and 60 participate in the labour force while, Twenty-seven percent of women do. And that’s not a small gap. This indicates most of the adult female population of the country sitting outside the labour market. We talk endlessly about getting women back to

I’ve been looking at a lot of research on women returning to work and the more I put the findings next to each other, the harder it becomes to keep asking the same question we have been asking for years: are we ready to welcome them, in full honesty? Because

Every year, organisations across India report POSH training completion rates of 95% and above, and treat that number as evidence that their people are prepared. A completion certificate proves someone sat through a slide deck. It does not prove they would recognise harassment the moment it actually shows up in

Most HR teams put real thought into the Internal committee training. Far less thought goes into how long members serve, what happens at handover, who ends up sitting in that room at all. In my work with organisations across sectors, composition turns out to matter more than curriculum. Two failure

Ask most people what stops a colleague from saying something when they witness harassment, and the answer is usually some version of, “I didn’t have the courage.” or “It was not my place to do or say anything.” I think we have been too comfortable with these explanations. The obvious

In early days of my career, I recall a very senior leader who every one loved. His successes were spoken about. They were anecdotes on what he did ion that one meeting were repeated. His year or year achievements were something the whole business relied on. But there was another

Ninety-eight percent training completion. A fully constituted Internal Committee. Zero complaints this year. Leadership teams present these three numbers together with real pride (and nothing wrong in that), and together they’re meant to say: we are safe here. But that need not be the reality. What these numbers show is