In women’s leadership and executive coaching, I’ve noticed a common confusion. It’s around the difference between the proverbial “glass ceiling” and the similarly named—but quite distinct—“glass cliff.”
The glass ceiling refers specifically to the barriers women may face in attempting to reach the upper levels of a company. But a glass cliff refers to the reality that women tend to be placed in more senior levels—including CEO—during times of negative markets, crisis, or troubling times for the company.
The result of this unfortunate and sometimes intentional timing is that women who are put in these positions have more risk and a greater chance of failure than their male colleagues, who more often may find themselves offered leadership roles during less challenging times.
In working with a wide range of companies as a leadership consultant, I’ve witnessed that in many cases, if the company fails during the time a woman is leading the company despite extremely challenging conditions, she is blamed for the downturn or failure to turn the company around. I’ve seen clearly that women in these situations are often held to higher standards compared to men.
Some high-profile women leaders who have experienced the glass cliff include:
- Mary Barra. In 2014, Barra was named GM’s first woman CEO when the company had just emerged from bankruptcy and was plagued by recalls of faulty ignition switches. Barra was tasked with managing the fallout of the recalls and attempting to rebuild the company’s damaged reputation.
- Rosalind “Roz” Brewer. Brewer became CEO of Walgreens in 2021, and at the time was only the third black woman to ever hold the top leadership spot of a company. Walgreens Boots Alliance announced on its website on September 1, 2023, that Brewer was no longer CEO of the company. After the incident, a Forbes article quoted Alexis Smith Washington, who holds the William S. Spears Chair in Oklahoma State University’s business school, as stating: “The recent ousting of Brewer confirms our research findings that women of color face higher expectations when it comes to performance and steeper cliffs when analysts and the media judge their missteps.”
- Marissa Mayer. Mayer became CEO of Yahoo in 2012, and was set up to fail in the position by being appointed at a time when the company was having financial difficulties and was falling behind its competitors Google and Facebook in terms of market share. As noted in a Forbes article about Mayer and the glass cliff, “sexism causes those in power to appoint women to these risky positions because they don’t want to risk tainting a prominent man with the stink of failure.”
- Ellen Pao. In 2014, Reddit, which was dealing with controversy and scandal, named Ellen Pao to the post of interim CEO. The social media site’s users who didn’t like Pao’s leadership style piled her with criticism and abuse, which led her to leave the company.
- Theresa May. May was appointed to be prime minister of the UK and right after the Brexit referendum in 2016, at a time when the nation was experiencing extreme political and economic tumultuousness. Feeling the stress and pressure from needing to negotiate a successful Brexit deal while keeping the UK stable, she ended up leaving her position in 2019.
In my next post, I’ll expand on this topic and share strategies on how women can prevent themselves from falling off the glass cliff.
If you or your team have advice for women in leadership that you’d like to share or questions you’d like to ask about this topic, please reach out to me at info@shambaughleadership.com.
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Rebecca Shambaugh is a recognized author and speaker on leadership best practices. She is president of SHAMBAUGH Leadership, founder of Women in Leadership and Learning, and author of the bestselling books It’s Not a Glass Ceiling, It’s a Sticky Floor. Read Rebecca’s best-selling Harvard Business Review article “To Sound Like a Leader About What You Say and How and When You Say It.