When Your Promotion is Actually a Glass Cliff
Episode 473 | Author: Emilie Aries
How can you tell if that new promotion is setting you up to fail?
What do you think of when you hear the term “glass cliff”?
Maybe Mary Barra comes to mind, the executive brought in to run GM right as they were navigating a seatbelt-related lawsuit that was about to blow up. Or perhaps you think of Boeing tapping Stephanie Pope as their first female chief executive immediately after a serious door malfunction set them up for a PR nightmare.
Or maybe your mind goes right to Kamala Harris, the first woman of color to appear at the top of a major political Party’s presidential ticket, who’s been given the chance to run just 80 days before an election the whole world is watching.
I have been pondering the concept of the glass cliff for a while now, especially in light of the upcoming election, and I have a couple of thoughts I want to share with every woman who is seeking or being offered a promotion or new job that leaves you worried you’re being set up to fail.
What exactly is the “glass cliff”?
Coined by Michelle Ryan and Alex Haslam of the University of Exeter, the “glass cliff” refers to the phenomenon in business that women have a better chance of breaking through the glass ceiling and being appointed into positions of senior leadership only when an organization is facing a crisis.
There are numerous cases throughout recent history where we see such a phenomenon; an organization on the brink of destruction suddenly brings in a female CEO—usually for the first time—to replace the male leader responsible for the current turmoil. The female executive is always highly qualified, but she is left with what sometimes turns out to be a problem already beyond fixing.
The Harvard Business Review chronicled this very situation in an experiment: they gave 119 college students different newspaper articles that outlined a company in the process of replacing its CEO. The different versions identified the outgoing CEO as either a man or a woman, leaving behind either an economically sound company or one in financial tatters. The participants were asked to select the best candidate for the replacement CEO from a pool of two: one man and one woman, both equally qualified.
When the imaginary company was doing well under a male CEO, 62% of the students chose the male candidate, aligning with the status quo. However, when the male-led company was in crisis, 69% selected the female candidate. When the company had previously been led by a woman—successful or not—there was no difference in the students’ selections.
The study highlighted our society’s willingness to stick with the status quo (which in the world of leadership means sticking most often with white men) unless something huge rocks the boat, warranting a change. In the case of business, we seem to perceive feminine-coded qualities such as empathy, communication, and emotional intelligence as best-suited to right the ship.
One big problem with this approach is that failures in business are notorious for reflecting very differently on male and female leaders. Men, especially white men, have a tendency to “fail upwards,” their unsuccessful endeavors woven into the lore of their rise to prominence. Meanwhile, many women leaders are dogged by past failures throughout their careers.
Be cautious and mindful
Given all of this, what do you do if you’re faced with a promotion or job opportunity that feels a bit like being handed the reins just as the carriage is heading off the cliff?
First of all, be wary. If it feels like a high-risk ticking time bomb, it likely is, so do your due diligence. Decide if you’re willing to be associated with this situation. If the answer is still a tentative yes, then be vigilant in asking for what you need to have the best chance of repairing the problem. Whether it’s budget, or staff, or policy adjustments, make your acceptance of the role contingent on approval of these pieces.
It’s possible this just isn’t the right opportunity for you - and I’m confident it won’t be the last.
Seize the opportunity
There’s another way to look at all this, though. Even if you acknowledge that you might be receiving this opportunity because you’re a woman—albeit a highly skilled and capable one—it’s still a chance. If you can withstand the potential fallout, perhaps you should capitalize on the chance, however rooted in gender-biased blinders it might be.
If your “feminine skills” give you the best crack at this promotion, and you believe you have the know-how and strategy to straighten things out, then be as persuasive as you can and get that promotion!
What has your experience with the “glass cliff” been? Which of these two possible approaches speaks to you? I want to hear your thoughts on all this, so please come by the Courage Community on Facebook or join us in our group on LinkedIn to share.
And if you’re ready to further refine your leadership skills, check out LEVEL UP, our six-month program for first-time and aspiring managers. Together, we’ll hone the executive presence, confidence, and skills that will help you take your career to the next level.
Related Links From Today’s Episode:
Episode 465, What Kamala’s Candidacy Means for Women Leaders
New York Times, When That Promotion is Really a ‘Glass Cliff’
Harvard Business Review, How Women End Up on the “Glass Cliff”
Kathryn Kincaid’s thesis, Why Can Why Can’t a Woman Fail Like a Man?
LEVEL UP: a Leadership Accelerator for Women on the Rise
LEVEL UP your leadership potential:
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[INTRO MUSIC IN]
EMILIE: Hey and welcome to the Boss Up podcast, episode 473. I'm your host, Emilie Aries, the Founder and CEO of Bossed Up.
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And today I want to talk about what to do when the promotion you're being offered or the opportunity, a new job, a new leadership position you're being offered is actually a glass cliff.
First of all, have you heard of this phenomenon, the glass cliff phenomenon? It's a very well-documented thing that's been getting some more press recently, perhaps because of what is happening in our current electoral environment. I am recording this at the end of August right now. So wow, have things changed in the political race since I recorded some episodes. But for those who haven't picked up on this already, the glass cliff is a term that traces back to about 2005. This phenomenon where companies and organizations tend to bring in a woman CEO only in moments of crisis, where they require a bit of a cleanup crew. And this can have a double-edged sword. Right? We've seen this a lot of different times.
I remember first learning about it when Mary Barra was named the CEO of General Motors. She assumed this position right when GM was navigating a lawsuit that had been, like, basically ignored and kept under wraps, having to do with seatbelt malfunctions that were gonna be a huge, huge problem for, like, the very next thing that the CEO was gonna have to deal with. Similarly, Boeing recently tapped Stephanie Pope to run the commercial airplanes division in March. The first female chief executive at Boeing. Right, which came after the huge plane malfunction that led to the big PR nightmare of having, uh, that door fly off in the middle of a flight. Right.
This glass cliff phenomenon is a really interesting one, where, for whatever reason, sociologists and social scientists throw up their hands and say, hmm hm, I wonder, why do companies and boards of directors mostly seem to turn to women in leadership only when sh*t hits the fan. Only when we need a woman to clean up the messes that a man created. And that's actually very specific language I'm using because this has to do with, like, bringing in a woman leader after a male leader in particular.
There's a great Harvard Business Review article called How Women End Up On The Glass Cliff that describes this interesting study that was done among 120 or so college students who were asked to read newspaper articles about an organic food company discussing the upcoming retirement of their CEO. Now, depending on whether the CEO was male or female mattered, and depending on whether the company was doing well financially or doing horribly, financially also really mattered. And it made a difference in whether or not the students chose to replace that CEO with a woman candidate or a male candidate who were specifically positioned to be equally qualified.
So what's interesting here, the findings, is that when the company had been led by a man and was doing financially well, 62% of the students didn't see a need to change what they call from the status quo bias. Right, they chose the male candidate. But when the male-led company, had historically been led by a man, but was facing dire financial straits, was in crisis, almost 70% of those students chose the female candidate. And that's really interesting, because we sort of see this trend that we need to bring in someone who has more skills that are coded feminine in times of crisis. Those skills might be things like empathy, listening, caring, communicating, emotional intelligence, when there's historically been a male in the C-Suite, a male candidate in that role. When the company had been led by a woman, historically, there was no difference. The glass cliff disappeared. Whether the company was doing well financially or poorly financially did not impact the student's likelihood of choosing a woman.
So there's two layers to this. One is the massive historical precedent we have in this country and world of having mostly men in charge and, mostly white men on top of that. And only when a company is struggling or in crisis are those opportunities at the very senior most levels made available in some ways to women and folks of color who represent a changing of the guard, something different.
As these scholars put it in HBR, quote, as long as a company headed by men performs well, there's no perceived need to change its pattern of male leadership. Only if male leaders have maneuvered an organization into trouble is a switch to a female leader preferred. And they go on to describe even more evidence and experiments that they've done on this.
So there's lots of examples in pop culture and in the business world. We see this happening perhaps in the political arena right now in some ways. And there's good, solid social science backing this up, that we are biased towards deferring to women leaders when we need someone to come in and serve as the cleanup crew.
So what does this mean for you? Okay, first of all, if you are finding yourself tapped for a senior leadership role that feels like a ticking time bomb, that feels like the stakes are just so d**n high, there's some argument to be wary of these opportunities.
Sophie Williams, author of the book the Glass Cliff which was just published this past March, spoke to the New York Times recently in this July I think, in an article I'll link to in the show notes and she said, quote, I don't think it's a coincidence that when there's a big public mess, when there's a possibility of someone's reputation being tied up with this problem, we suddenly default to women in a way that we haven't historically. Do you want to be associated with this? Is the question to ask yourself, like, is this the leadership opportunity for you? Is this the time for you to step up and lead? And I can't answer that for you, but I think it's really important for us to have eyes wide open. You know vet the opportunity clearly. Set expectations for yourself and others that are realistic. Like, what kind of a turnaround story are you crafting here?
If you are going to accept an opportunity that feels like you're inheriting a huge mess, be really clear about what you need to successfully turn that ship around. And if you are not going to get that, then you have to really question if you are simply setting yourself up for massive failure. And, you know, unlike men, who are historically and socially and publicly seen to fail forward, you know, especially in Silicon Valley, the whole concept of failing fast and failing forward from, like, the lean startup era presumes male privilege.
Because women, according to this really interesting research paper that I stumbled upon, it's actually just someone's random thesis. So shout out to Kathryn Kincaid, who wrote her senior thesis from the honors program of Butler University, the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences in the Department of Psychology. Her thesis is titled, Why Can’t a Woman Fail Like a Man? Gender Differences in Perceived Competence Following a Mistake. Very interesting article with lots of other research that she links to, not article a thesis, that I don't know how I stumbled upon. But broadly speaking, as she writes, “women's mistakes are catastrophized. It's hard for women's careers to recover from perceived mistakes or being associated with a sinking ship, whereas men seem to bounce back a lot more easily in terms of their careers being hard to kill, even despite massive public failures on their record.”
So, in other words, we have to be careful about taking high stakes promotions that set us up to fail. And yet, my last thought on this is that if this is a bullsh*t stereotype and a double standard, and a byproduct of unconscious gender bias in the marketplace, perhaps there's also an opportunity here. And this is directly contradicting the advice I just gave you, but it's sort of just like tickling my brain a little bit lately. And I can't nothing say this, but if people are more likely to value the skills that are coded as feminine skills, like empathy, emotional intelligence, communication, crisis management. You know, when things are going poorly in the workplace, then perhaps there's a way to capitalize on that. Like, perhaps it's also fair to acknowledge that when leaders have made a mess, have left a company in disarray, that might actually be your time to strike. That might be the time to position yourself as the leader they've been waiting for, the one they've been overlooking this entire time, the one who they might not otherwise even consider. You might actually have the best odds of getting that C-Suite position in that moment than at any other time in a company's history.
And so, if you are up for the challenge and you have really thought long and hard about if you can, in fact, turn that situation around and you've deemed it a yes,opportunity, then maybe that's your time to be aggressive. Maybe that's your time to go for it. Maybe that's your time to be as persuasive as possible with that board, to position yourself for that promotion.
So, those are just a couple of ways I want you to think about both sides of the same coin here. It's not fair that this is true, but it is true that the world turns to women only when companies are in crisis and needs a leader who's willing to clean up a mess. So, can you use that to your advantage and strike while the iron's hot? Positioning yourself for promotion in times of crisis by working on your crisis leadership skills and management skills. And at the same time, you better be d**n sure that this is an opportunity you want to be associated with and that this is a risk that you feel comfortable taking, because it is a risk. It's especially a risk for women and women of color.
And I honestly, it just, It really feels like that's what's happening in our election right now, doesn't it? I don't want to go on too deep a tangent here, but it's late. I'm recording this way too late right now, and I can't help myself, but it's just like, of course, the first presidential candidate in modern history to have, like, just barely 80 days to run her campaign is also the first woman of color who's headlining a major ticket, right, like this pressure is so intense, the stakes feel so high. The turnaround required to pull this off is so intense for Kamala Harris right now that it does kind of feel like an example of the glass cliff. I wonder if anyone's penned an article on that already because I haven't seen it yet. But it should be done because this is just another example of how we turn to women of color to pull off the impossible, which is neither fair nor right. And yet, if we all do our part, perhaps this is an opportunity for us to do right by ourselves and by her. So I don't know. I'll leave you with that.
I'm curious to hear what you think about all of this, and if you want to talk more about leadership and management and really refine your leadership skills and position yourself for a promotion. Hopefully not a promotion that's masquerading as a promotion, it's really a glass cliff. Definitely consider joining our six month leadership and management accelerator LEVEL UP. The graduates of LEVEL UP go on to earn more, to get promoted, and to really master their own management and leadership skills with a whole new level of executive presence, confidence, and skills to actually lead teams effectively. Our next cohort launches this October, so head to bossedup.org/levelup to check it out and learn more.
And I want to hear from you. What did you make of this very rambly episode?
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I'd really be curious to keep the conversation going, as always, in the Bossed Up Courage Community and in the Bossed Up group on LinkedIn. And until next time, let's keep bossing in pursuit of our purpose. And together let's lift as we climb.
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