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The glass cliff: an experience of taking on a leadership role only to find that your chances of success have been limited before you’ve even begun. Equality activist Sophie Williams explores the research-backed reasons behind this workplace phenomenon and how it overwhelmingly affects underrepresented groups, despite a facade of progress and inclusion. Learn more about the biases and behaviors that set people up for failure — and what can be done to make the path to success in leadership better for everyone.

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Transcriber:

I spend most of my time
talking and thinking and writing

about women’s experiences
in UK and US workplaces,

particularly, Black women’s experiences.

And so for me, understanding
the glass cliff —

the situation that underrepresented
leaders find themselves in

when they take on leadership positions,

only to find that their chances of success

have been limited
before they even begin —

really was an eye-opener.

Now, I’m aware that for a lot of people,

this might be the first time
you’re hearing about the glass cliff.

And so I think the easiest way
into the conversation

is by starting with the glass ceiling,

that invisible but seemingly
impossible-to-break-through barrier

that sits above the heads
of women in business

and stops them from reaching
the absolute pinnacles

of their professional capabilities.

We talk a lot about
the glass ceiling being there

and what it’s like to live
and to work underneath it.

But we don’t really talk about
what happens to those people

who do manage to break through.

I feel like we maybe
have this shared imagination

that if someone were able
to break through the glass ceiling,

it would be onwards and upwards
from there, the sky’s the limit.

But in reality, that’s not
what often happens,

because all too often, when somebody
does break through the glass ceiling,

they find themselves in a new,
dangerous position.

They find themselves teetering on
the edge of the glass cliff.

So I’m going to talk about
underrepresented people a lot in this,

and that can mean so many different things

to different people in different moments
and different contexts.

But I’m talking about those people
who are most underrepresented

at the most senior levels of business.

So that is women,

and that’s racially
marginalized people —

essentially, anybody who’s not
both white and male.

And so the story often goes

that when underrepresented people
take over a business,

that business seems to start to fail.

And that’s really strange,

and if that’s true,
that’s worth looking into.

And so “The Times” newspaper
did look into it.

And they released an article
with the headline,

“Women on the Board:
A Help or a Hindrance?”

And they said what I’ve just told you,

that when women take over businesses
at those most senior levels —

board member, CEO —

that those businesses seem to find
themselves in a moment of trouble.

And so, they concluded
that women on the board were, in fact,

bad for business.

And they were right.

But just in one small way.

In 100 other, much bigger,
much more important ways,

they were absolutely wrong.

But we can start with
where they were right.

They were right
that the research does show

that when underrepresented people
do take on those most senior roles,

that businesses do seem to be
in a moment of trouble.

But it’s not like
they want you to think —

It’s not that we’ve, you know,
stomped our way into boardrooms,

only to look around and think,

“Oh, God, I don’t know
what I’m doing here.”

It’s not that at all.

But the reason you might think that

is that they haven’t told you
the beginning of the story.

And the beginning of the story
is what we need to understand

if we want to see what’s stopping
more people who aren’t both white and male

from being successful when
they take on leadership roles.

So, there’s a piece of research
from the University of Exeter.

They looked at FTSE 100 companies,

and when they appointed female leaders,

those businesses were
much more likely than average

to have already been
in a consistent period

of five months of poor performance.

And that poor performance
can look like all kinds of things.

It could be a reputational scandal

where the tarnish is likely to be
passed on to the new leader.

It could be a hit
to market valuations or to profit.

But whatever that was,

these businesses were all
much more likely than average

to have already been in a consistent
period of poor performance

before that new leader was appointed.

And this isn’t a single piece of research,

and it’s not even limited
to a single country.

Researchers at the University of Utah
did a really similar thing,

but they didn’t just look at
the appointment of women.

They looked at the appointment of women
and racially marginalized men.

And they looked at Fortune 500 companies
over a 15-year period —

so, a huge data set —

and they found exactly the same.

Those businesses that appointed
underrepresented leaders

were much more likely than average

to already be in a period
of poor performance.

So maybe you’re listening to this
and you’re thinking, “Well, so what?

So long as these people
are getting an opportunity,

why does it matter if the businesses
aren’t in perfect condition

before these people arrive?”

Well, one of the reasons it matters

is the narrative that
that pushes back to us.

If an underrepresented person
takes on a role

and their chances of being successful
are limited before they even begin,

if they do fail, if they do
fall off that cliff,

the message that we get back is:

“Well, of course they did.

Someone like that — that’s not
the right kind of person

to run a successful business.”

And so that message compounds,
and we just internalize it.

So I think all of this logically
leads us to two questions,

the first of which is:

Why is this happening?

Why are businesses that are in trouble

more likely to appoint
an underrepresented leader?

Well, it could be that,
in patriarchal societies,

women are viewed
as caregivers, as nurturers,

and so research has shown
that when a business is in trouble,

women are often appointed to lead,

not for their ability to make
transformational change,

but because of their
perceived soft skills,

for their ability to reengage
that workforce

and to get them back motivated again.

But importantly,

because she’s not hired for her ability
to make transformational change,

research shows that she’s often not given
the tools or the time necessary

to make that change.

And so her chances
of falling off that cliff

are increased before she even begins

because of the limitations
of the imaginations

of the people who have brought her in.

The second reason, to paraphrase
Kristin Anderson,

who’s a psychology professor
at the University of Houston,

is that in business, women might be seen
as more disposable, more expendable,

and that means they make
really good scapegoats.

In that case, if your business
isn’t doing well,

bringing in a female leader
could be a real win-win scenario.

If she comes in and is able to make that
transformational change, then great,

your business is transformed.

But if she’s not,

all of the blame is able
to be put onto her shoulders,

and she’s able to get
pushed out of the business,

pushed over that cliff.

Importantly, the research then shows

that she’s more likely than not
to be replaced by a white man,

a move known as the “savior effect.”

And that savior effect signals to us,
to shareholders, investors, employees,

that the business is back
in a safe pair of hands.

It’s back to business as usual.

And really importantly, that new
white male safe pair of hands

is more likely to be given both the tools
and the time necessary

to succeed where the underrepresented
person has failed.

So up until now, we’ve been
talking about what happens

when you are a racially
marginalized person

or a woman.

But as I said, the majority of my work
looks at Black women.

So what happens when we do take
that more intersectional look,

when we think about
the experiences of people

with not just one but two
marginalized identities?

As you might imagine,
it’s not the best story.

If a new Black woman takes over
the most senior role in the business —

board member, CEO —

we can safely assume two things.

The first thing that we can assume,
as we’ve discussed,

is the business might not be
in great shape.

And the second thing that we can assume

is that she’s likely to be managing
a large team of white men,

that leadership layer just below her,

her closest cohort.

And we can assume that because in 2019,

the Lean In Foundation reported that
white men make up about 30 percent

of that entry-level junior cohort.

But by the time we get to the C-suite,

that’s actually ballooned
up to 68 percent.

That means white men are the only group
whose representation grows

as they become more senior.

Or, to put it a different way:

they’re the only group who experienced
the opposite of the glass ceiling.

Instead of looking up and not being able
to see themselves reflected back at all,

they look up and see nothing but
themselves at the most senior levels.

That is, of course, until they don’t,

until they have a new boss
who’s somebody like a Black woman.

And the reason this matters is there’s
research from the University of Texas

and the University of Michigan,

and they looked at what happens
to that group of men

who are so used to seeing themselves
directly mirrored back

when they get a new boss
who doesn’t mirror

both their whiteness and their maleness.

And what they found was amazing.

They found that as soon as they get a boss

who doesn’t directly mirror them
in both of those ways,

they report feeling less personally
connected to the business,

less able to personally identify with it

and less personally invested in it.

And that means that their work
performance suffered;

they did worse at their jobs.

Now, if a business is already in trouble,

even the greatest leader is not
going to solve it single-handedly.

She needs her team,
particularly her senior team.

And so if they’ve stopped
doing their jobs properly,

all they’re doing is continuing to push
her towards the edge of that cliff.

The second thing that same
piece of research found was that

they stopped doing a really important
part of any manager’s job,

and that’s managing their teams.

They stopped developing, mentoring,

working with the people
who was their job to take care of.

But they didn’t stop doing that equally.

No, they mostly stopped helping,
working with, developing

anyone in that team
who was also racially marginalized.

And so in that way,
the glass cliff bites twice.

We’re not only pushing the existing leader
closer to the edge of their cliff,

we’re stopping what could be this new
cohort of underrepresented leaders

from coming up,

because we’re not giving them the same
support, guidance, mentorship, development

that the rest of their
colleagues are getting.

So I’m telling you this because I want you
to be a part of making this change.

And that might sound impossible.

You might be thinking,

“Well, I can’t change businesses
or charities, governments,

any of the places where we see
the glass cliff playing out.”

But — and stay with me for a second —

you can, because none
of those things are real.

Businesses, government, charities —
all of these things

are just groups of people
who’ve come together to do something.

And we’re a group of people
who have come together to do something,

and so we can make that change.

We can look at our own conscious
and unconscious biases,

and we can decide that we see the value
in all people all of the time,

not just some people,

when we have a problem
that they might be able to solve,

or something that we might be
able to blame them for.

So, as Angela Davis says,

we have to “… act as though
[it’s possible to change] the world.

And you have to do it all of the time.”

And so that’s what I’m asking you to do.

I’m asking you to look at yourself

and to decide that you are not
going to be part of pushing anybody else

closer towards the edge
of their own cliff.

And I want you to know
that I’m going to be right alongside you,

trying to do the same.