Female Leadership Ambitions in Germany: A Comparative Qualitative Career-Stage Analysis

Abstract

Despite more than a decade of policy intervention, the share of women in leadership positions in Germany has remained essentially unchanged at approximately 29%, well below the EU average of 35.2% (Statistische Bundesamt 2025). While structural barriers are extensively documented, less attention has been paid to how women themselves form, revise, and act upon their leadership ambitions across career stages. This study therefore asks: How do women in Germany form, revise, and act upon leadership ambitions across career stages, and under what conditions do they perceive leadership as worth pursuing? This paper presents a comparative qualitative study drawing on 31 interviews with Young Professionals (n=17) navigating whether to pursue leadership for the first time, and established leaders (n=14) navigating whether to advance further. Applying the Boundaryless Career Model (Sullivan and Arthur 2006a), Role Congruity Theory (Eagly and Karau 2002), Self-Determination Theory (R. M. Ryan and Deci 2000), and the Theory of Planned Behavior (Ajzen 1991), the analysis yields both deductive and four inductively emergent findings: a universal concept-context split in which ambition is conditional rather than absent; a systematic career-stage shift in the central question women ask; sustainability as a primary evaluation criterion; and the tension between seeking influence and avoiding depletion. Together, these findings suggest that many participants evaluated not leadership as such, but specific organizational models of leadership that they perceived as potentially depleting. Implications for talent management, employer branding, and leadership pipeline design are discussed.