For years, the conversation around women ascending into leadership positions has been dominated by one question: how do we enable more women get to the top? Across Africa, organisations have invested significant effort in addressing barriers to entry, improving representation, and creating pathways into senior leadership. These efforts have delivered meaningful progress. More women are sitting on boards, leading business units, and occupying executive positions than ever before.
Yet a less-discussed challenge is emerging. While women are increasingly being appointed to leadership roles, many are not remaining in those positions as long as their male counterparts. The challenge is no longer simply about access; it is about tenure. It is about understanding how women can convert appointment into sustainable influence and how organisations can ensure that leadership opportunities translate into long-term impact for their women leaders.
South Africa has become a recognised leader in advancing gender diversity in corporate governance. According to the SNG Grant Thornton Women in Business 2026 Report, female representation in senior management positions in South Africa reached 47.3%, significantly higher than the global average of 32.9%. This upward trajectory is reinforced at board level. The 2024 Spencer Stuart South Africa Board Index reports that women occupied 37% of board seats among JSE Top 50 companies, including 40% of non-executive director roles.
These figures suggest that important progress has been made. However, a closer examination reveals a more complicated reality. The average tenure of women directors is 4.9 years compared with 6.9 years for men, according to Spencer Stuart South Africa Board Index. Women in board leadership positions serve an average of 4.1 years, while men remain in similar positions for approximately 7.5 years. In other words, women are spending almost three fewer years in roles where influence, authority, relationships and institutional credibility are built.
This gap matters because leadership effectiveness is rarely immediate, organisational influence accumulates over time. It is built through experience, trusted relationships, strategic decision-making and the capacity to shape long-term outcomes. When women occupy leadership roles for significantly shorter periods, organisations may lose the very benefits that diverse leadership is meant to create.
Research has consistently demonstrated the value of diverse leadership. Nearly a decade ago, McKinsey's Women Matter Africa report highlighted the positive link between women's leadership and business performance across the continent. More recent global research continues to demonstrate that organisations with diverse leadership teams tend to achieve stronger financial outcomes, better decision-making and greater innovation. However, these advantages can only be fully realised when leaders remain in positions long enough to influence strategy, culture and organisational direction. Representation alone is not enough, sustainability matters.
The question, therefore, is not simply why women leave leadership roles earlier. A more useful question is whether authority is distributed differently for women once they arrive in senior positions. Too often, leadership development focuses on skills, competencies and performance indicators while overlooking the realities of power. Yet influence within organisations is shaped by both formal structures and informal networks. The formal organisation appears on organisational charts. The informal organisation operates through relationships, alliances, sponsorship, trust and institutional memory.
Many women leaders find themselves navigating these informal dynamics from a different starting position. One example is the well-documented "glass cliff", a phenomenon where women are appointed into leadership roles during periods of organisational uncertainty, crisis or transformation. Success under these conditions requires far more than functional expertise.
The conversation must therefore shift from access to influence. Securing a leadership role is important, but lasting impact depends on the ability to build credibility, navigate organisational dynamics and shape decisions over time.
Women leaders can strengthen their ability to sustain influence by:
- Building strategic alliances early and intentionally: Influence is rarely sustained in isolation. Developing trusted relationships with sponsors, peers, board members and key stakeholders creates a support network that can provide advocacy, perspective and credibility during periods of uncertainty.
- Understanding the organisation beyond the organogram: Every organisation has formal structures and informal networks. Successful leaders invest time in understanding how decisions are made, where influence resides and which relationships shape strategic outcomes.
- Establishing a clear leadership mandate from the outset: The first months in a leadership role are critical – defining priorities, communicating expectations and demonstrating early wins helps build confidence and reinforces authority.
- Linking leadership to measurable business outcomes: Technical expertise may secure the appointment, but enduring influence is earned through visible contributions to organisational performance, growth, innovation, governance or transformation.
- Developing leadership capital: Leaders who mentor others, create opportunities for emerging talent and build high-performing teams often strengthen their own credibility and influence in the process.
- Building resilience for high-pressure environments: Many women are appointed during periods of organisational change or crisis. Maintaining composure, communicating transparently and making disciplined decisions can help leaders navigate scrutiny and strengthen trust.
- Focusing on legacy: Lasting influence comes from building systems, capabilities and governance structures that continue to deliver value long after an individual leaves a role.
- Advocating for organisational accountability on tenure: Boards and executive teams should measure retention and tenure alongside representation, ensuring that women are supported to succeed and remain in leadership positions.
Ultimately, the next chapter of the leadership conversation in Africa is no longer about whether women belong in positions of power. That case has already been made. The true measure of progress will be whether women in leadership roles have the support, influence and organisational conditions needed to build meaningful tenures, lead effectively, create lasting impact and leave a legacy that transforms the organisations they serve.
