You’ve got that shiny new promotion and the job looks great — but do you really know what you are letting yourself in for? Have you been chosen because you are capable, or because you are disposable?
Women who have successfully crashed through the glass ceiling to leadership roles in business may find themselves facing the ”glass cliff”, according to new research from the University of Exeter. It suggests that women at the top of the ladder are being promoted into risky and precarious leadership positions, where the chance of failure is high. If everything spirals downwards, they get the blame.
In the London Times last year women were criticised for failing their companies after landing boardroom jobs. They were blamed for ”wreaking havoc” on share prices and profit, after firms they directed were reportedly performing poorly compared to those directed by men. The conclusion? Businesses would be better off ”without women on the board”.
Psychologists Michelle Ryan and Alex Haslam are not convinced. They argue that ”negative outcomes experienced by companies that appoint female leaders are the consequence of a ‘second-wave’ of discrimination women must overcome in the workplace”.
Their research, The Glass Cliff: Evidence that Women are Over-Represented in Precarious Leadership Positions, found that women, rather than being incapable of getting the work done, were getting landed with the ”dirty jobs”.
Ryan and Haslam found that firms that had been doing badly for some time were more likely to elect a woman into the leadership position than a man. And though in general there has been an increase in female managers at other levels, they say that ”once women attain these leadership roles, their performance is placed under close scrutiny. Evaluation is not always positive, women receive positive evaluations when their leadership roles are defined in feminine terms; on traditional, masculine measures, their effectiveness is often perceived to be lower than that of men.”
The research showed an encouraging outlook for women leaders who weathered difficult times. Their companies showed marked improvement in performance.
Last year 87 of the FTSE 100 companies did not have a woman executive director. The poor representation of women in the boardroom was being examined by the Chartered Institute of Personnel Development (CIPD).
”It isn’t that women aren’t capable of fulfilling leaderships roles,” says CIPD equal opportunities adviser Dianah Worman, ”but if performance doesn’t improve, a wrong association is made that this is down to having a woman in the job. We wanted to look at the real reasons these roles were so challenging.”
Ryan and Haslam feel glass cliffs ”cannot simply be explained by out-and-out sexism”. The process leading to the recruitment of a woman into a precarious leadership position is a subtle one. To look at possible reasons, the researchers carried out an online survey as a follow-up to the study. More than 300 respondents took part and provided a number of suggestions.
The ”old boys network” and the lack of support structures for females in high-level positions may play a part. As one female middle manager said: ”A glass cliff requires a competent individual — managers will figure out which candidates can handle the role. Women are capable, yet expendable, because no one is rooting for their success.”
Stephanie Klass, a partner at legal firm Berg & Co, says: ”Women will get the poisoned chalice, the job nobody else wants.”
How do we deal with glass cliffs? Acceptance of the phenomenon is fundamental to tackling it. Managing diversity is also a key factor, says Worman. ”These positions come about when the organisation has a diffi- cult vacancy to fill, attracting different people to the role, who see it as challenging. The historical company structure isn’t adept at managing that role and providing the support necessary for success.”
Worman feels there is ”a lack of flexibility in the traditional role. High-calibre women will go off and set up on their own, rather than attempt to fit into an inflexible organisation.”
This is not good news for businesses wanting to embrace diversity. Changes won’t transpire overnight, since traditional management styles are entrenched in corporate structures.
Recruiting women into supported executive roles takes time, but it is also important to recognise that glass cliffs are not the exclusive domain of large corporations. They operate on many levels in industry and politics. — Â