Why Some High-Performing Women Get Passed Over for Promotion (And What You Can Do)

Brian Page
Jun 11
3 min read

A new academic paper delivers an uncomfortable but crucial message: many women aren’t falling behind at work because they underperform. They’re falling behind because they’re judged differently.

In a large study of nearly 30,000 employees at a major U.S. retailer, economists Alan Benson, Danielle Li, and Kelly Shue examined how promotion decisions are actually made inside organizations. Their focus was something many companies use but rarely interrogate: “potential.”

Download the Research

Their conclusion is stark. Subjective ratings of “potential” account for roughly half of the gender gap in promotions—even though women consistently outperform men on measurable performance metrics.

Performance Is Measured. Potential Is Imagined.

The company in the study uses a common evaluation tool called the “Nine Box” grid. Employees are rated on two dimensions:

Performance: how well you’re doing right now
Potential: how well your manager thinks you’ll do in the future

Performance is backward-looking and tied to results. Potential is forward-looking, vague, and subjective.

Here’s where the gap appears. Women score higher than men on performance. They hit goals. They deliver results. They outperform expectations.

But when it comes to potential, women are rated significantly lower than men.

In other words, women are more likely to be seen as excellent at what they do—but less likely to be seen as future leaders.

The Bias Shows Up in the Data

The researchers tested whether these lower potential ratings were justified. Maybe managers were accurately predicting future outcomes.

They weren’t.

When the authors compared men and women with the same potential rating, women consistently outperformed men in the following year. This was true even among workers who were promoted into new roles.

Even more troubling: managers did not update their beliefs. Despite clear evidence that women were exceeding expectations, women continued to receive lower potential ratings in subsequent reviews.

This isn’t a pipeline problem. It’s a perception problem.

Stereotypes and Retention Make It Worse

The study identifies two forces that reinforce the bias.

Stereotyping

The gap in potential ratings is larger in regions with fewer women in leadership roles and larger gender pay gaps. When managers don’t often see women in charge, they struggle to imagine them in leadership roles.

Retention

Men who are passed over for promotion are more likely to leave. Women are more likely to stay. Managers appear to respond by inflating men’s potential ratings to keep them from quitting, while women’s loyalty works against them.

The result is a perverse incentive: threatening to leave (or leaving) gets rewarded. Quietly delivering does not.

Moving Forward

Couples should be skeptical of systems that:

overweigh subjective forecasts,
fail to update beliefs when evidence changes,
reward exit threats over consistent performance.

Bias thrives in ambiguity. So when negotiating with management, women, in particular, shouldn’t rely on vague language about potential. Ask for clear criteria, written benchmarks, and concrete next steps.

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