No strings, no control, no hidden expectation: Why support drives women's career success

This International Women's Day is an opportunity to celebrate progress and reflect more honestly on how that progress happens, and who makes it possible.

One of the most important parts of success for women is allyship. However, when we talk about allyship, we often frame it through identity: who supports whom, and why. But in my experience, allyship doesn't belong to gender - it belongs to behaviour.

The Paradox of Support

Support is not always straightforward. It can empower, or it can constrain. It can create opportunities or quietly control access to them. When visibility, sponsorship, or progression are dependent on a single gatekeeper or progression becomes concentrated in too few hands, it introduces a dynamic that can influence not just careers, but confidence, trust, and leadership itself.

This adds to the existing career progression challenges women face, with recent research by WeAreTechWomen showing that approximately 40,000 to 60,000 women leave their tech and digital roles each year, citing lack of advancement opportunity as the primary driver for leaving. 

Often women do not feel emotionally secure in the workplace, or experience good psychological safety, and this is why the way we support others matters. This means sponsoring without strings, supporting without control, advocating without expectation and mentoring and championing others, particularly women, without expecting any loyalty in return but the intention of enabling long-term personal and career growth.

From Intent to Impact

It is vital that we make big steps in not just getting women into tech, but maintaining an environment where they feel truly supported. Real progress is not about what women must do differently, it's about what we can all do better:

• Redefining Progress. We often measure progress by outcomes that include who made it to the top, who holds leadership roles, and who has the most senior title, but this is only part of the story. Progress should also be measured by what happens along the way. This means looking at how opportunities are distributed, who is given visibility, and how consistently people are supported as they grow. 
• Prioritising Psychological Safety. As I've progressed in my career, my perspective on success has shifted and titles have become less important. What matters more is the environment I'm in, who I'm working with, what I'm building, and whether I feel psychologically safe. The reality is many people, particularly women, spend a significant amount of energy always performing, always appearing in control, always composed. Psychological safety allows people to bring their full selves to work without the need to mask or try to be everything to everyone. There is strong evidence that people learn most through difficulty, but that learning only happens in environments where people feel safe enough to experience it without fear and do not feel like these learning opportunities are career failures.
• Reinforcing Allyship. Allyship must be intentional, consistent, and rooted in action and not just an assumption. It is defined by how we show up for others, rather than who we are. Strong allyship creates shared responsibility by moving beyond the idea that women must support women. Instead, it focuses on how everyone can actively contribute to a more open and unbiased environment. This is key to achieving meaningful progress through support that is given freely, consistently, and without expectation of personal return. 

Creating the Conditions for Change

We put a lot of pressure on what women can do to empower themselves, especially around the time of International Women's Day, but it's not simply about what women can do. Progress hinges on what we can all do to create healthier, happier workplaces.

Organisations as well as individuals should take a deeper look into their work environments to understand what is happening under their control. They need to ask the meaningful questions: what can I do to help my colleagues thrive? How can we support women in this company? What barriers can we erase?

Change is possible with concise, concerted efforts and is certainly attainable for the future of women in technology. Above all, progress happens when we remove the invisible conditions that make success harder for some than others.