A recent Marie Claire article titled “Why Don't Women Want to Be the Boss Anymore?” caught my attention for reasons that had very little to do with being a woman.

The article explores why women who once aspired to leadership positions are increasingly questioning whether they want them at all. It examines the pressures of executive life, the changing definition of ambition, and the possibility that climbing the corporate ladder isn't quite the prize we once believed it was.

One woman shared that she didn’t leave her role because she lacked ambition…she left “because I’d started to question whether the version of ambition I’d spent years working towards was actually what I wanted.”

I read that sentence three times.

Because I knew exactly what she meant.

And so did my husband.

Which presents a slight problem with the premise.

I'm married to a MAN.

And we've been having remarkably similar conversations about our careers.

So while we're busy asking why “women don't want to be the boss anymore”, I think we're overlooking a much bigger story… a reckoning.

Mark and I spent our adult lives leading nonprofit organizations. We both reached the executive level with the authority, influence, and professional success we'd spent decades pursuing.

We got what we wanted.

And eventually, we wanted nothing more than…OUT.

Our generation was marinated in the philosophy that the more successful you became, the less of your life you were entitled to keep.

We accepted that bargain as gospel truth. Long hours meant “dedication”. Constant availability meant “commitment”. The more responsibility you earned, the more of yourself you were expected to surrender.

We called that “ambition”.

If you weren’t exhausted, you clearly weren’t trying hard enough.

I had more authority over my professional life than most people ever will and somehow, I still managed to build a life in which almost every waking moment belonged to someone else.

Nobody forced me to do that. I genuinely believed that level of success required unlimited access to my life. And, for a very long time, I never seriously questioned it.

Which brings me back to this supposed crisis of female ambition.

The Marie Claire article references research that suggests women are becoming less motivated to pursue promotions. Meanwhile, Deloitte's 2025 global survey of nearly 25,000 Gen Z and millennial respondents found that only 6% identified reaching a leadership position as their primary career goal.

Not 6% of women.

6% of people surveyed.

Men AND women.

Are there unique pressures that make leadership particularly difficult for women? Absolutely. I've experienced them firsthand.

But this conversation isn't confined to women.

It isn't even confined to people just entering the workforce. Mark and I reached the top of our respective careers and found ourselves asking some of the same questions being asked by people who haven't even begun climbing.

Is ambition actually disappearing, or are people just refusing the terms we accepted?

Our generation fused ambition and sacrifice together so completely that we stopped being able to tell them apart. The more you gave up, the more serious you looked.  Which means anyone unwilling to give up the same things must not want it very badly....

Unless they DO want it. They’ve just seen what it did to us.

It’s an uncomfortable thought. Especially for those of us who spent our careers playing by the old rules.

And we haven't exactly handled that discomfort with much maturity.

We've labeled younger generations “entitled”. We've accused employees of “quietly quitting”. Questioned the dedication of those who aren't particularly interested in making their careers the center of their lives.

But what are we actually criticizing?

People who want to do their jobs and then go home?

People who want to take their vacations without answering emails?

At what point did having a life outside of work become evidence that you weren't serious about your career?

We spent YEARS complaining about the long hours, the missed moments, and the inability to ever really disconnect and now we're offended that the young guns aren't particularly interested in making those same sacrifices?

Think about the arrogance of that.

Then again, maybe our outrage has more to do with us than it does with them.

I mean…what happens when an entire generation begins questioning the sacrifices another generation built its identity around? If they can succeed without making the same compromises, we may have to confront the possibility that some of ours weren't necessary.

That's quite the reckoning when you've spent 30 years convincing yourself there was no other way.

And I say that as someone who helped perpetuate those expectations.

Every time I answered an email at midnight, I reinforced the idea that midnight was an acceptable time to expect a response.

I was so busy trying to be “the example” that I never seriously questioned what I was teaching people to become.

Knowing that…who am I to criticize the people refusing to accept expectations I should have questioned decades ago?

Mark and I built careers we're enormously proud of.

I wouldn't trade what we accomplished.

But, I would absolutely reconsider some of what we believed it required from us.

This isn't some feminine crisis of ambition.

We're witnessing a fundamental shift in how we define success and how much of our lives we should be willing to give up for it.

One generation is questioning the price before agreeing to pay it.

Another is waking up to what it has already cost them.