The Glass Ceiling Is Bad Enough. Women in Leadership Also Need to Be Wary of the Glass Cliff.

You’ve probably heard of the glass ceiling, the invisible but seemingly impossible to break through barrier that sits above women in business and stops them from reaching the peaks of professional success. The glass cliff, on the other hand, is likely a newer term for many, but while the name might be less familiar, it’s a phenomenon that you’ve almost certainly seen play out time and time again. 

The invisible sister to the glass ceiling, the glass cliff looks not at what stops women from taking on the most senior leadership roles but at what the circumstances are that lead to underrepresented leaders getting the chance to lead — and their experiences once in place. 

Researchers Michelle Ryan and Alex Haslam, coined the term in response to a 2003 Sunday Times article that purported to show that companies with women on their board perform poorly in the stock market, asserting that the presence of women in the boardroom had “wreaked havoc on companies’ performance and share prices” and that “corporate Britain might be better off” without women in leadership. 

What this article had failed to consider, which Ryan and Haslam’s research did, was the performance of the businesses in question in the period immediately preceding appointment of new, underrepresented leaders. The story the research actually tells is one of systemic inequity disguised as personal failing. And this is the invisible but incredibly dangerous position many women face as they step into senior leadership roles. 

When looking at the performance of businesses before the appointment of female leaders, the researchers found that organizations that turned to women for the top spot had one thing in common — they were all experiencing some kind of institutional crisis and had been for many months before the appointment of their new leader. Which is to say, rather than the women in charge being responsible for downturns, as the Times article suggested, those downturns in business were, conversely and surprisingly, responsible for the appointment of women. 

As shocking as this might seem, when we stop to think about it, many of us will realize that although we might not have had the words to frame it up to now, we are all familiar with the experience of the glass cliff, and have seen it play out for women in leadership in all kinds of circumstances.

Think of Theresa May stepping in to negotiate and lead a Brexit deal for a referendum she didn’t call and wasn’t in favor of, once the men who had led the country to that point were suddenly nowhere to be found, before being pushed out and replaced by a white male to get the deal over the line. Think about Marissa Mayer’s short-lived stint as the CEO of Yahoo after the business had struggled to find its place in the big tech landscape, or Helena Helmersson, the H&M Group CEO who was exited at the end of January this year. 

Which begs the question, why is this happening? Why would a business that is facing a crisis be more likely to turn to a female leader for the first time? And why are women being left in charge of failing, and falling off their own glass cliffs, potentially damaging their own reputations along the way, as they try to rescue businesses from issues they didn’t create?

The first reason that might lead a struggling business to appoint a female leader is a perception, or expectation, of women holding a greater abundance of soft skills. Research suggests that in times of crisis, the long-held adage of “think manager, think male” shifts and becomes “think crisis, think female.” This is because when faced with a challenge, rather than looking for a leader to come in and make transformational change, businesses instead look for leads they believe will demonstrate the kindness and empathy needed to re-motivate a struggling team. 

However, the downside of this is that not only do women face more difficulties by stepping into businesses that are already struggling, research shows us they are more likely than their male counterparts to be fired with a short tenure, giving them less time to turn a difficult start into a story of success. The research also shows us that while both men and women face dismissal when business performance is poor under that watch, men in leadership are able to save their roles by improving personal performance. Women are not offered the same protections, as women in leadership also face dismissal when business performance is good, as when it is poor, and are overall 45% more likely to be fired than their male counterparts. 

Another reason that women may be brought into the lead in businesses experiencing a crisis is that they are viewed as being more disposable, meaning they make good stopgaps while the company looks for the right man for the job. We see this demonstrated not only by the shorter tenures in leadership that women have but also by the fact that more often than not after a female leader is exited, she is replaced by a white male, a phenomenon known as the savior effect.

For businesses that have only had men in the top position up to that point, bringing in a female leader is also an opportunity for companies to show not only how forward-thinking they are but to signal to the world that they are trying a fresh new leadership approach. If a business has had only male leaders up to now, but has found itself struggling, research shows us that they become much more likely to try a new leader who is, at least visibly, not like anyone they have given the opportunity to before. This signals to everyone that a business is exploring all avenues and bringing in some needed diversity of thought in order to find new ways of working and forge a path ahead.