The underrepresentation of women at the top of corporate America is a persistent and exasperating problem. Women currently hold 32 CEO positions in S&P 500 companies—slightly more than 6 percent of the total.

“We have all this knowledge on stereotypes and the biases and challenges people face, but there’s still so little progress in actually diversifying the leaders of the largest companies in the country,” says M. Asher Lawson, an assistant professor of decision sciences at INSEAD.

Women climbing the corporate ladder often run up against insidious gender stereotypes that associate men—but not women—with highly valued leadership traits of agency and achievement. And when women do display stereotypically “male” leadership traits like assertiveness and decisiveness, they are often seen as less warm and likable.

These stereotypes may be hidden in plain view in the language a company uses to discuss leadership and women in its annual reports, proxy statements, and investor calls. So how can companies change the way they talk about women and perhaps help break the double standard that undermines female leaders?

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