Women Aren't Hiding. You're Not Looking.

Women aren't in the shadows because they lack ambition. They're there because we keep dimming the lights.

Joanne Lipman's op-ed in the New York Times last week hit me hard. Her argument is unavoidable - the current political climate has created a toxic environment around discussions of gender equality, with companies so fearful of drawing the administration's wrath that they're going to absurd lengths to avoid discussing women in the workplace at all, risking a high level of backsliding after years of hard-won progress.

As a society, we're not just stalling. We're actively retreating.

Last year's McKinsey and LeanIn.org annual report found that women have "less career support and fewer opportunities to advance." And now, on top of that structural disadvantage, we've added a culture of silence. Women can't be promoted, sponsored, or elevated if we can't even name them in the conversation.

I've spent the last twenty years as a recruiter doing exactly the opposite.

When I founded Edgility Search, I made a deliberate choice: we would search for, surface, and place a highly-qualified, diverse group of leaders into positions of real organizational power not as a political statement, but because it is the right thing for individuals, for our sector and for our competitiveness as a nation. Diverse leadership teams make better decisions and lead to higher financial and programmatic outcomes. Since our founding, 70% of our placements have been women, and 73% have been people of color. Our entire leadership team is female. We are proof that a high bar and an inclusive process aren't in tension, rather they work in tandem to get to the best result.

One of the searches I'm proudest of is our recent placement of Irene Shih as the Founding CEO of Pave HER Way, a new Los Angeles-based nonprofit built specifically to advance women's empowerment. Organizations like that don't just need a leader — they need the right leader. Someone whose lived experience, values, and vision are in complete alignment with the mission. Finding that person requires going deep, going wide, and refusing to default to whoever is most visible. It requires real search.

I'm also a member of Chief, an organization built on the premise that executive women deserve a peer network as powerful as the ones men have always had. The old boys' network isn't a myth. It's infrastructure. Chief is ours. And moments like this one, when the cultural winds are pushing women back into the margins, are exactly when that infrastructure matters most.

So what do we actually do? Definitely not focus on enacting programs that get rolled back when the political climate shifts, but rather put in effective practices that will last:

Name them. When you're filling a leadership role, don't wait for women to raise their hands. Go get them. The best candidates — especially women — are rarely the ones who self-nominate. They're running organizations, raising families, building things. Your recruiter should be finding them anyway.

Sponsor, don't just mentor. Mentorship tells a woman what she could do. Sponsorship puts your name behind her when she's not in the room. Women are over-mentored and under-sponsored. That gap is where careers stall.

Stop calling it a pipeline problem. The pipeline is full. I know because I work in it every day. The problem is that leadership tables have been slow to make room — and right now, some are actively shrinking the guest list. If your senior team doesn't reflect the talent that exists, that's a choice. Own it.

Build networks that outlast administrations. Programs come and go. Relationships don't. Invest in organizations like Chief, in professional communities, in cross-sector networks that connect women to power regardless of what's happening in Washington, your state Capitol or in private boardroom conversations.

Here's what I know from leading searches across the nonprofit sector for two decades - the organizations that find transformational leaders cast wide nets and hold the bar high. Every time. And when you do that, women win.

The moment we stop talking about women in leadership is the moment we stop seeing them there.

I, for one, am not going quiet.

Christina Greenberg is CEO of Edgility Search where she supports executives and boards with leader transitions, governance and evaluation.