Burying the Lead: Obstacles for women in leadership and renegotiation of care work

There is no question that having women in leadership positions boosts economic outputs. One 2014 study on women on boards from the Academy of Management found that “female board representation is positively related to accounting returns and that this relationship is more positive in countries with stronger shareholder protections.” Female leaders have also been shown to be more willing to make radical changes with minimized risk. The openness of female leaders to outside-the-box thinking might arise from the experience of operating inside a “box” that wasn’t built for them. Yet, corporations and institutions around the world still lag in capitalizing on this opportunity for growth. Out of 146 countries in the 2024 Global Gender Gap report from the World Economic Forum (WEF), Lebanon ranked 133 overall and 111 on indicators of women’s economic participation, a number that reflects Lebanon’s “brain drain” phenomenon, wherein young professionals look for success outside the