How the Performance Review Bias Penalizes Women Leaders

Women at Work: Career, Leadership & Modern Work · Jun 27, 2026 · 7m · transcript

Episode 78 of Women at Work with Fexingo unpacks a specific form of bias that shows up in performance reviews: women receive more personality-based feedback and fewer concrete, career-boosting comments than men. Lucas and Luna dig into a 2024 study of 10,000 reviews at a Fortune 500 retailer, which found that women were 2.5 times more likely to get feedback on their tone or demeanor—'be more confident,' 'speak up less'—while men got direct task-oriented critiques. The hosts explore why this subtle difference compounds over time, costing women promotions and pay, and what managers and…