Today I Learned: What Is Glass Cliff?

While the glass ceiling is an informal barrier keeping women from upper management, researchers have found that women have a better chance of breaking through. Glass cliff is a phenomenon according to which women are more likely to get leadership roles than men during times of crisis.

They can offer solutions to the same problems in society. Considering themselves as what Michelle Ryan and Alex Haslam, of the University of Exeter, have termed the “glass cliff.” the question is how did it occur and why it is necessary?

What Is Glass Cliff?

Overview 

In a study, Ryan and Haslam examined the performance of the Financial Times Stock Exchange index or FTSE 100 companies before and after the designation of new board members and found that companies that appointed women to their boards were more credible than others to have experienced systematically bad performance in the previous five months. This work in time cultivated into the occurrence known as the glass cliff, like the concept of a glass ceiling. The only difference was that it enabled women to recognize a cliff's obvious border rather than the false promise of elevated organizational positions which can be "seen" through a ceiling of glass but are actually unreachable.

Suggested Reading: Today I Learnt: What Is Stealthing?

 Explanation

The Harvard Business Review 2011 conducted two experiments. In the first one, they asked 119 college students to read two newspaper articles about an organic food company. The first article discussed the future withdrawal of the CEO. Creating two versions of the piece, where the company was currently and historically headed by men in one, and, headed by women in the other, the review also created two versions of the second article. The second article dealt with the company’s financial status, so some students read about a company that was growing, and others about a company that was closing stores and firing people. Then they asked the students to choose between two equally qualified candidates for CEO, one male and one female. “62% of the students who read that scenario chose the male candidate. But when the male-led company was in crisis, 69% chose the female candidate,” the review said. This is how the glass cliff was understood back then. 

Implications

Glass cliff positions, however, risk hurting the women executives' reputations and career prospects. When a company does poorly, people tend to blame its leadership without taking into account situational or contextual variables. And they blame women even more. 

Researchers have found that female leaders find it more challenging than men to get second chances once they have failed due to having fewer advisers, and patrons. They also have less access to a protective "old boys' network", an informal system in which moneyed men with similar social or educational backgrounds help each other in business matters.

Examples

1. Julia Gillard was appointed as Australia's first female prime minister and afterwards expelled amid complaints about her leadership.
2. In 1993, the Canadian Progressive Conservative Party was facing low authorization ratings and almost lost in the future general elections. People elected Kim Campbell, then-defence Minister, to replace Brian Mulroney as its leader. 
3. In 2010, Dilma Roussef was nominated as a candidate for president of Brazil by Partido dos Trabalhadores (Labor Party). She won the elections and later, in 2014, the re-election. She was then impeached in 2016.
4. In 2011, "a horrible time for newspapers",  The New York Times appointed Jill Abramson as editor, and in 2014 she was fired owing to claims of plagiarism. 

Feature image shows Jill Abramson, Picture Credit: New York Times.