About
The Four Factors for Women was developed by Dr Amanda Sterling in 2025. Amanda noticed that there was a lot of research exploring the problems women faced progressing their careers into senior leadership roles, but not a lot of clear solutions.
She also observed how senior leaders championing women’s representation in leadership – working with good intention, investment and active work – were feeling overwhelmed by limited progress and frustrated by a lack of clarity on what would make an impact.
An opportunity emerged to better understand the factors having the most positive impact on women’s careers into leadership, the critical opportunities for workplaces to amplify what was already working, and to provide better resources for leaders on the front lines doing this work.
The Women in Leadership: Insights to Action (Impact) survey was created based on decades of research into women, leadership, and women at work. This research based survey – and its results – identified the Four Factors having THE MOST POSITIVE impact on women’s careers into leadership.
The insights from this challenged conventional diversity wisdom and provided a way forward for workplaces looking to remove barriers for women into leadership roles, increase representation and close their gender pay gaps.
Dr Amanda Sterling, Principal Consultant and Founder
“The future of leadership is in people, with a variety of different lived experiences, coming together to solve complex problems . But we’re only going to achieve this by people (especially women) actually bringing their different lived experiences into spaces of power and decision-making.”
Dr Amanda Sterling partners with workplace leaders to remove barriers for women into leadership roles. Her approach is unique for how she combines deep research expertise with decades of practical experience.
After a distinguished career working in corporate leadership and culture change Amanda made the decision to pursue a PhD on motherhood and leadership because of her own experience being passed over for a senior leadership role after becoming a mum.
Her PhD (completed in 2023) revealed the barriers women continue to face progressing their careers into leadership. But it also revealed opportunities to better include women in leadership roles by challenging what gets rewarded and recognised as leadership.
Amanda founded her consulting practice to use these insights to better help workplaces remove barriers for women into leadership roles.
But she wanted to provide more insights, actions, and resources – to make a difference for leaders championing the inclusion of women in leadership roles. The Four Factors for Women – its resources, and the Women Leading Workplace assessment – was born.
Amanda believes that – in an age of increasingly complex problems – creating opportunities for women to progress into leadership isn’t just a social good but what workplaces need to survive and thrive.
Amanda is a neuroscience trained Executive Coach, author, and winner of the HRNZ award for Innovation for her work leading a global community of people and culture to create more humane workplaces. She is also mumma to one human boy and a ragdoll kitten.
AMANDA'S RESEARCH FEATURED IN
