From the February/March 2012 Issue of Working Mother

I can name every woman CEO of a Fortune 500 company—all 14. The 486 men CEOs? I can’t memorize that list. I hear the lamest excuses for the lack of business power entrusted to women. “We can’t find qualified women” is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Women make up 50 percent of the workforce, and qualified women are all around us. Companies need to give them the power positions to get them ready to advance.

“When women have babies, they go off the career track” is another lame excuse. Most women have babies, but they can also create a viable career path even if it doesn’t look like the typical steady upward climb men can achieve.

“They don’t want it” is the worst excuse. A lot of executive men don’t aspire to be CEO either, but no one says men don’t want to succeed. “Women aren’t ambitious” reflects conflicted cultural norms. Being an ambitious woman can feel wrong, like living in an ’80s movie with the big hair and stilettos. We need to reexamine “ambitious”: greedy, unprincipled, cold? No. Ambition is the desire to succeed, to get to the next level of responsibility and trust—a strong desire in women.

Once they become moms, women don’t want to work hard. We need to get past the subconscious feeling that men are better, stronger, or suited to lead than women. The ancient association of men with protection and strength, along with resistance to cultural change, squelches the gender-neutral reality of talent. So do the unmet need for systems that counterbalance the rigors of childbirth and the historical gap in women role models.

This month we salute the National Association for Female Executives Top Companies for Executive Women: 60 for-profit and non-profit companies that give female talent the opportunity to thrive and have the women in top positions to prove it. Ten percent have female CEOs, now that Ginni Rometty has taken the reins as head of IBM.

So take a moment to pinpoint your next career move, to ask for supportive programs and policies for moms, to identify unconscious bias that may be holding you back. And, yes, to revel in your own ambition.