The glass cliff is a phenomenon where women and minorities are disproportionately appointed to leadership roles during times of crisis or organizational decline, when the risk of failure is highest. The term builds on the more familiar “glass ceiling” metaphor, but describes what happens after someone breaks through it: they’re handed the reins of a company, political campaign, or institution that’s already in trouble.
Where the Term Comes From
Researchers Michelle Ryan and Alexander Haslam coined the term in 2005 after analyzing appointments to the boards of FTSE 100 companies (the largest publicly traded firms in the UK). Their study found that during a period of overall stock market decline, companies that appointed women to their boards were more likely to have experienced consistently bad performance in the preceding five months compared to companies that appointed men. In other words, women weren’t just getting fewer leadership opportunities. The opportunities they did get came with worse starting conditions.
The study was partly a response to a 2003 Times of London article claiming that women in boardrooms were bad for business. Ryan and Haslam demonstrated that the causation ran the other way: struggling companies were more likely to turn to women, not that women caused the struggles.
Why It Happens
Several psychological mechanisms drive glass cliff appointments, and they don’t require anyone to act with bad intentions.
The first is a “think crisis, think female” stereotype. When organizations face turmoil, decision-makers tend to value traits they associate with women: shared leadership, teamwork, emotional management, and relational skill. Research has found that these stereotypically communal qualities are seen as especially relevant during crises involving declining profits or internal conflict. So the choice of a female leader may genuinely be made with the belief that her strengths match the moment.
The second mechanism is signaling change. When an organization is failing under its current leadership (which statistically tends to be male), appointing someone who looks visibly different from the predecessor sends a message to employees, shareholders, or voters that a new direction is underway. A woman or minority leader serves as a symbol of transformation, regardless of whether the underlying conditions have actually changed. The appointment itself becomes the statement.
These two motivations can overlap. A hiring committee might simultaneously believe a woman’s leadership style suits the crisis and recognize that her appointment signals a fresh start. Neither motive is malicious, but the result is the same: women and minorities inherit problems they didn’t create, with less room for error than their predecessors had.
Beyond Gender: Race and Ethnicity
The glass cliff isn’t limited to women. Research has shown that ethnic, racial, and immigration minority individuals face a similar pattern, particularly in politics. Observational data from elections in the United Kingdom and France has found that minority candidates are disproportionately nominated to run in hard-to-win seats, a dynamic researchers call the “political glass cliff.” The pattern mirrors what happens in corporate settings: underrepresented groups get their shot, but the shot comes with worse odds.
When gender and race intersect, the effect can compound. A woman of color appointed to lead a struggling division faces the glass cliff on multiple dimensions, carrying the symbolic weight of representing change on more than one front while navigating an already precarious situation.
What Makes It So Damaging
The core harm of the glass cliff is that it turns leadership diversity into a self-defeating cycle. A woman or minority leader takes charge of a failing organization. If the organization continues to decline (which was already the most likely outcome before they arrived), their leadership gets blamed. That perceived failure then reinforces the stereotype that women or minorities aren’t suited for top roles, making it harder for the next candidate. The glass cliff doesn’t just set individual leaders up for difficulty. It can set back the broader case for representation.
Leaders in glass cliff positions also tend to receive fewer resources and less institutional support than predecessors who led during stable times. The crisis that prompted their appointment typically means tighter budgets, lower morale, and stakeholders who are already skeptical.
How to Recognize and Navigate It
If you’re offered a high-profile leadership role, the glass cliff framework gives you a useful lens for evaluating the opportunity. MIT Sloan Management Review recommends taking two to four weeks to assess the situation before fully committing. Start by asking the hiring manager to clearly outline expected performance targets, deadlines, and budget. Then identify every stakeholder group connected to the problem: executive sponsors, team members and their managers, collaborating business units, and external partners.
Schedule conversations with each of these groups to understand what happened before you arrived. Your goal is to spot patterns across their responses that reveal the core issues, whether those are problems with organizational processes, internal structures, or culture. No single stakeholder will have the full picture, but the overlap in their answers will point you toward what’s actually broken.
It’s worth noting that glass cliff appointments are rarely deliberate sabotage. The people offering the role usually believe in the candidate and may not even recognize the precarious dynamics at play. That’s precisely why the responsibility falls on the candidate to investigate the conditions independently rather than relying on the hiring manager’s assessment alone. Consulting trusted advisors outside the organization, people who can offer a customer or supplier perspective, adds another layer of clarity.
What Organizations Can Do
The glass cliff is ultimately a structural problem, not an individual one. Organizations that only diversify their leadership during downturns are treating representation as a crisis strategy rather than an ongoing commitment. The clearest fix is to appoint women and minorities to leadership roles during stable and successful periods, not just when things go wrong.
Tracking the conditions under which diverse leaders are hired is a concrete first step. If a company’s female or minority executives consistently inherit worse-performing divisions, that pattern deserves scrutiny regardless of the intentions behind each individual appointment. Pairing new leaders with adequate budgets, realistic timelines, and genuine institutional support matters just as much as making the hire in the first place.