What the "Glass Cliff" Means for Working Women

Brut America

These woman may have broken through the glass ceiling, but they've fallen off the glass cliff — a phenomenon where women appointed to leadership positions are set up to fail.

Transcript

00:00We need more women in leadership, but it tends to be at these crisis moments at these moments where there's a high risk of failure

00:18So the glass cliff is the idea

00:20That when women are appointed to top leadership positions, it tends to be in organizations or in roles that are in crisis

00:27They're appointed to manage the crisis

00:31Oftentimes they're blamed for the crisis, even though

00:34This was not a crisis of their own making if they're not able to fix the crisis in a short period of time

00:40They're replaced by white men and we term this the savior effect the decision

00:46to fire me

00:49Frankly I know more about what it wasn't than I know what it was. It wasn't about performance

00:57We've actually spent a couple years conducting in-depth interviews with women and minority

01:26to CEOs to actually ask them about their impression.

01:30They realized that to overcome their hyper visibility as outsiders,

01:35they had to prove themselves again and again and again.

01:37And the way they did that was by going after the toughest,

01:41most challenging assignments from early in the career all the way to the end.

01:52Several of our respondents described the one mistake rule,

01:56that if they're going to go after this extremely high visibility,

02:01high risk leadership role, they have to execute it flawlessly.

02:05One mistake, and not only would the mistake be exaggerated

02:10because of their outsider status, but it would likely derail their career.

02:19As you know, I have made the promise to fix

02:21what happened in the company to make sure that we are dedicated to safety,

02:25that we're dedicated to excellence.

02:27We are well on our way.

02:28We've made significant change.

02:30To do that, I need the right team.

02:32She's an important example to me because she survived the crisis.

02:36She's still the CEO of GM.

02:37She's incredibly successful.

02:40And I think that speaks to another factor here,

02:43which is by the time that women and people of color

02:46reach these really senior leadership roles,

02:50they are truly exceptional.

02:51I will shortly leave the job that it has been the honor of my life to hold.

03:03The second female prime minister, but certainly not the last.

03:08She was put in the position of leading an effort that was doomed to fail,

03:13where there were no good solutions.

03:16And she was held accountable for that.

03:18She was held accountable for a crisis that was not of her making.

03:22The public scrutiny and criticism that she weathered as the face of Brexit

03:27is unfortunate, not just for Theresa May,

03:30but for our perception of women leaders' capability.

03:34It's really important for women to know that some of these challenges

03:37they face aren't about them.

03:38This isn't a failure of women.

03:40This is a failure of organizations.

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