Women in leadership roles is good business When publicly traded companies have women in senior management roles, those organizations experience an average 47% increase of return on equity and a corresponding 55% increase of earnings. Women want to lead at the highest levels: when 1,400 managers were asked if they had the desire to reach a top management position such as a C-suite role, 79% of women said YES. Yet women hold only 5.8% of corporate executive positions and 14.5% of board positions. So how do we reduce the gap between reality and aspiration? First we need to understand how fairy tale myth, media, and our history of communication have shaped where we are today. Secondly, we need to make different decisions if we truly want to create powerful women leaders.