Leadership at the Edge: Navigating the Glass-Cliff

Glass-Cliff isn’t a new phenomenon. It occurs when women are promoted to positions of power or top leadership roles in an organization during times of crisis or organizational failures, significantly more than when the company is successful. While it may sound similar to the glass ceiling, the two concepts are different. The glass ceiling refers to the unofficial or existing practices that keep women from advancing to management and leadership positions. 

Let’s understand Glass-Cliff through a few contextual references in the following section.

Context:

1. Carly Fiorina was appointed CEO of Hewlett-Packard as the tech bubble burst.

2. Erin Callan became Lehman Brothers' company spokesperson, but she resigned soon afterward, and the company declared bankruptcy three months later. 

3. Jill Abramson became the first female chief editor of the New York Times despite declining advertising revenues and uncertainty regarding digital technologies. She attempted to improve profits by introducing substantial staff redundancies but faced extreme criticism and was fired.

4. Mary Barra was appointed CEO of General Motors (the first woman to lead a global automobile company) only weeks before it announced the recall of 1.6 million cars due to electrical faults allegedly linked to 13 deaths.

5. Marissa Mayer was appointed CEO of Yahoo during a period of significant decline.

6. Anne Mulcahy was appointed CEO of Xerox when the company was close to bankruptcy, and the Securities and Exchange Commission investigated its accounting practices. 

What do these scenarios have in common? Women leading organizations in crisis. Research suggests this is not a coincidence but a real phenomenon—the Glass Cliff.

While the Glass Ceiling has long been a barrier to women reaching leadership roles, many are now breaking through. However, they are often appointed to senior positions during times of crisis, where the risk of failure is high, and success is far from guaranteed. This pattern suggests that women are more likely to be placed in precarious leadership roles, reinforcing biases that question their competence rather than recognizing their resilience and capability.

True progress isn’t just about giving women leadership roles—it’s about ensuring they receive equal opportunities, support, and resources to succeed rather than being set up to fail.

What is Glass Cliff?

The underrepresentation of women in leadership positions in both the public and private sectors refers to invisible but persistent organizational barriers that prevent women from advancing through the ranks, called Glass Cliff. (Carres, Rodriguez,2013). Women are perceived to be more competent in leadership skills needed in times of crisis, such as soft skills to smooth things over. (Bruck Miller & Branscookes, 2010; Bruck Muller et al., 2014). 

The Impact

Empirical investigation suggests that men and women probably face glass cliffs to the same extent. However, women have higher chances of falling over the edge (run higher risks) compared to men since they lack the supportive networks that will catch them. 

Research suggests that women struggle to seek a leadership role and agree to accept a less desirable role to get their foot in the door. The top is not diverse; therefore, women's experience facing the glass cliff is contextual and organization-dependent. If a low representation of women is present in an enterprise, it is risky that they will be perceived as a representation of gender and not as individuals. A very common connotation is addressing them as diverse candidates. Contrary to this, if an organization has women in the top positions, the glass cliff ceases to exist because there is already a social acceptance of female leadership and, hence, a higher probability that women will attain these positions. 

A few reasons for the occurrence of the Glass Cliff phenomenon are: 

    1. Leadership and Gender: Research indicates that in times of organizational crisis, people responsible for appointing leaders may not automatically think male. Research by Ryan, Haslam, and Postmes T. (2007) demonstrated that when asked to develop spontaneous explanations for the process underlying the appointment of women to glass cliff positions, approximately 16% of women and 10% of men suggested that gender stereotypes played a role. Expressly, the investigation indicated that women were chosen as leaders in times of Crisis because of their abilities, including the fact that women always want to help the underdog, that women have more skills to balance risk, and that they tend to cope with failure more pragmatically than men (Ryan et al.,2007, 2007, p. 190) 

    2. Gender stereotypes: There is no simple or universal (implicit) theory of what it means to be a leader that will likely inform perception and action across all situations. Gender stereotypes are generalizations about the attributes of men and women that are shared in a society and include both descriptive components (i.e., describing how women and men are) and prescriptive components (i.e., prescribing how women and men should or should not be) (Burgess & Borgida, 1999; Eagly & Karau, 2002; Glick & Fiske, 1999; Heilman, 2012).

The gender stereotypes most relevant to the domain of leadership are those maintaining that "women take care" and "men take charge" (Dodge et al., 1995; Heilman, 2001; Hoyt, 2010). Per the descriptive stereotypes, women are communal and warm (Fisk et al., 2007; Heliman, 2001). At the same time, men are stereotyped often with agentic characteristics such as being confident and assertive. People frequently see agentic characteristics as requisite traits for leadership. (Dodge, Gilray, and Fenxel, 1995; Kornig et al., 2011; Rudman et al., 2012). 

Interestingly, an empirical investigation suggests that people no longer perceive agentic traits as necessary during a crisis, and an alternate think crisis-think female association has emerged. Hence, the ideal manager for a company in crisis was described in favorable terms and possessed more traditionally feminine traits than masculine ones (e.g., understanding, intuitive, and sympathetic). Managers in terms of crisis were more like descriptions of the average woman than average men. Women may be overrepresented in precarious leadership roles because they have the traits seen as necessary in times of crisis. Implicit theories of gender and leadership see women as better suited to crisis management than men (Ryan & Haslam, 2005).

    3. Strategic Imperative: Enterprises always led by men may decide to appoint women as leaders as a part of a strategic decision to demonstrate change. The device motivates the response to present an organization in a favorable light.  The appointment of women in leadership roles during the crisis also serves as a message of bringing change to the culture and strategic intent of the organization. Interesting literature cited men as seeking stability and women as seeking change. 

Why Do Women Take Up Leadership Roles During Crisis? 

Women have long found it challenging to break the glass ceiling. Therefore, women take up opportunities even if it is challenging to seize them and turn them around. They would have waited for that role, position, and opportunity throughout their lives. Women also take such opportunities and challenges and create remarkable impacts and contributions. 

Conclusion

Nutly and Mudd (2005) argue that while men and women may face glass cliffs, women are more likely to fall over the edge due to weaker support networks. The real issue lies in intent—women are often placed in leadership during crises, not to succeed but to absorb backlash and failure, reinforcing biases that question their competence.

However, the solution is not to shield women from challenging roles but to recognize their strength in navigating crises. Organizations must appoint women to precarious leadership not as a token effort but with the trust, support, and confidence they deserve—not because they are set up to fail but because they are built to lead.

References:

1. Ryan, M. K., Haslam, S. A., Morgenroth, T., Rink, F., Stoker, J., & Peters, K. (2015). Getting on top of the glass cliff: Reviewing a decade of evidence, explanations, and impact. The Leadership Quarterly, 1–10.

2. Sabharwal, M. (2013). From glass ceiling to glass cliff: Women in senior executive service. Journal of Public Administration Research and Theory Advance, 1–29.

3. Ryan, M. K., & Haslam, S. A. (2005). The glass cliff: Evidence that women are over-represented in precarious leadership positions. British Journal of Management, 16, 81–90.

4. Bruckmüller, S. & Branscombe, N. R. (2010). The Glass Cliff: When and why women are selected as leaders in crisis contexts. Journal of Applied Psychology, 49, 433–451.

5. Acar, F. P. (2015). Gender differences in promotions to top-level management positions: An examination of the glass cliff in the IT sector. Procedia - Social and Behavioral Sciences, 223, 230–236.

6. Ryan, M. K., Haslam, S. A., Hersby, M. D., Kulich, C., & Atkins, C. (2007). Opting out or pushed off the edge? The glass cliff and the precariousness of women’s leadership positions. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 1(1), 266–279.

7. Ryan, M. K., & Haslam, S. A. (2007). The glass cliff: Exploring the dynamics surrounding the appointment of women to precarious leadership positions. Academy of Management Review, 32(2), 549–572.

8. Ryan, M. K., Haslam, S. A., & Hersby, M. D. (2011). Think crisis—Think female: The glass cliff and contextual variation in the think manager—Think male stereotype. Journal of Applied Psychology, 96(3), 470–484.

9. Burgess, D., & Borgida, E. (1999). Who women are, who women should be: Descriptive and prescriptive gender stereotyping in sex discrimination. Psychology, Public Policy, and Law, 5(3), 665-692.

10. Nutley, S., & Mudd, J. (2005). Has the glass cliff replaced the glass ceiling for women employed in the public sector? Public Money & Management, 25(1), 3-4

     

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