Inside the "Great Breakup," and what it means for the women who stay
In 2022, the year Lean In and McKinsey labeled the "Great Breakup," two women directors were leaving their companies for every one who got promoted. Not leaving the workforce altogether. Leaving the building, taking their badge and their institutional memory with them, for every one the company moved up.
Why it surprises so many people
In Baltimore, the director title is the rung where you expected the toughest climb to finally be over. Think back over the early career stretch, the years of stretching a maternity leave across a calendar, and the manager in a Towson office who took you for the new hire. The title came, and so did real control over a budget. That is exactly the level where women were walking out at double the rate they were being promoted. The pipeline was holding up at the bottom, so the trouble was not there. The cracks showed up higher, right where the firm had already poured money to build it out.
This pattern shows up in Baltimore too. Across the metro, where health care, professional services and education employ the most people, a director's departure can ripple through a whole department. Johns Hopkins Hospital, T. Rowe Price and McCormick & Company are all major employers here, and each one depends on senior talent it can ill afford to lose.
Where the figure originates, and what it cannot tell you
It comes from the 2022 edition of Women in the Workplace, the annual Lean In and McKinsey study, and it was widely reported, including by Katie Couric Media. The limits matter. It is one year's ratio, drawn from companies that choose to take part, a group that tends to be large and American. "Leaving" describes walking away from one firm, not from the corporate world altogether. Some of those directors took a better director job across town, which is a win for them and a loss only for the company that let them go. Data from the 2025 report confirms that the same underlying problem is still with us. Among those promoted to manager, the ratio is 100 men to 93 women and only 74 women of color. Eighty percent of women say they want promotion, compared with 86% of men, and that gap disappears when support is equal. The desire is there. Support is the variable.
Imagine living it from the inside, the way someone in Towson or Essex would.
Imagine you are a director in a Baltimore office. In the last year and a half, two of the four women at your rank have moved on. One accepted a rival firm's offer that came with a loftier title. One started her own firm, perhaps through a Baltimore Metropolitan Women's Business Center workshop or with help from SCORE Greater Baltimore. During the leadership retreat held in Columbia, the chief people officer presents a retention slide and never once names either woman. Looking around, you see that you are the most senior woman left, and no one has raised the question of what would persuade you to stay.
What the women who remain should take from this
Remaining put after a string of exits carries its own risk and is far from the cautious move. You are now at the table in a bargaining session you never realized had started. Your employer has just seen money vanish through the exit, and it is well aware that you could be the next person to go. That is leverage, and leverage expires. Once a year passes, the exits will be ancient history and your continued presence will be recorded as dedication, which is the least costly thing a firm can get from you.
It also means more work lands on you. With fewer senior women, there are more panels, more mentoring requests and more "could you sit in on this." None of it counts toward promotion, and all of it is now yours.
What comes next
Start the retention discussion yourself, since your employer should have opened it already. This month, not next quarter. Open with: "Two of my colleagues walked out this year. I'd like to stay. What is the path for my next position, and by when?" An employer serious about keeping you will reply with a specific role and a firm date. An employer that is not will offer you thanks and nothing more. Both answers are useful, but only one of them spares you another year of waiting.
Baltimore's women leaders have more allies in this than they might expect. The Greater Baltimore Committee runs a Women and Allies Board focused on advancing women's careers, and groups such as ATHENAPowerLink Baltimore and FemCity Baltimore offer peer networks where these conversations can happen before they become urgent.
If women directors left your company this year, has anyone approached you about staying?