“We need to empower ambition that makes sense for women: without it, we will stay in a world led by men.”

Sheryl Sandberg’s words, not mine at the equality debate on Women Moving Forwards at the World Economic Forum in Davos last week. I happen to agree with her.

There is a wide ambition gap and, according to Sheryl, it’s not at the societal level but at the personal level, and the developed world is lagging behind the developing world. Let’s look at the data: in 1981, 50% of college leavers were women. In the last 31 years, women have progressed at every level. Over the last 10 years they’ve stopped making progress at the top. “We’re stuck in corporate America with only 16% of women in C-level jobs,” says Sheryl. “When women around the world were asked to self-indicate their personal ambition, only 36% responded ‘very’ in the US compared to 59% in Brazil, 66% in China and 85% in India.”

So why are women less ambitious than men?

It’s clearly a wide subject that we’re not going to solve here. But let’s look at some of the ideas Sheryl puts forward, and their root causes:

We don’t raise our daughters to be as ambitious as men: It’s shocking to hear that in 21C America T-shirts went on sale in a well-known kids’ department store with the slogan, “Smart like Daddy” “Pretty like Mummy.” No wonder girls are called bossy when they display leadership characteristics that are rewarded in boys: showing assertiveness, taking risks, and being competitive. But Sheryl, is upbringing enough to counter external stereotyping? It’s not enough for parents to instil gender equality in the home Let’s also give them role models, women who they can aspire to, either inside or outside the home, and have mothers raise their sons in the same way as their daughters: to be more ambitious in the home as well as in the workplace, which brings me to Sheryl’s next point.

We’ve tried to equalise things in the workplace, we haven’t equalised things in the home: If both men and women are working full-time, a woman still does twice as much in the home as the man. This is physically exhausting and not sustainable which is perhaps why I believe so many women give up and take their talents with them before they’ve even tried. Equal paternity and maternity leave will help bridge the life work gap and hopefully prevent less women using family as a reason to quit. But is that enough?

We need men to understand the success and likeability correlation from the woman’s point of view: the more successful women are, the less liked they are, according to Sheryl, who says the reverse is true for men: the more successful they are in negotiating salaries for example, the more people want to work for them. This is a difficult challenge and not one that’s going to be solved overnight. I agree that there has to be a structure in place from the top that supports women if we are to see more of them in the boardroom. However, I think it’s also up to the sisterhood of women to support each other. Ambitious women helping other ambitious women achieve by nurturing that ambition to lead at an early stage so she gets to the top no matter what, if that’s where she wants to go, without having to imitate men. Women-friendly companies are performing better so let’s help more companies adapt their management style to suit the woman’s agenda by reward women’s leadership style.

I too like Warren Buffet’s quote, “ I was successful because I only competed with 50% of the population.” Let’s change that.

Women need to think big, believe in themselves and make important life choices: choosing a career they’re passionate about, a life partner who supports them equally at home and at work, and a winning mindset that is fuelled by ambition that makes sense for women, in a complimentary role with men.