Heading for a Glass Cliff?
In the first quarter of 2023, about a third of new CEOs were women. Are we sluggishly heading towards gender parity at the highest echelons of business, or is something else at play?
Photo by Sean Pollock on Unsplash
Two people have in recent days sent me links to articles with ostensibly great news: during the first quarter of 2023, almost a third of all new CEOs at U.S. companies were women—an all-time high for any comparable period.
This is certainly cause for optimism. Representation matters, and this is cold, hard evidence that progress towards gender equality—which frequently feels elusive—might actually still exist. Right? Right. But also: it’s complicated.
Everyone’s heard of the glass ceiling. In my humble opinion not enough people have heard of the glass cliff. In 2005, professors Michelle Ryan and Alexander Haslam, of the University of Exeter in the U.K., began conducting research which eventually led to a widely cited paper in which they coined the term “glass cliff,” to describe the phenomenon of women being appointed to leadership positions when chances of failure are high on account of external factors: macroeconomic headwinds, geopolitical turbulence, and other idiosyncratic forces beyond the leader’s immediate control.
Examples of the glass cliff are everywhere with two of the most prominent coming from the U.K.: Theresa May who became Prime Minister as the country hurtled towards Brexit, and Liz Truss who muddled through a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it spell as leader, off the back of arguably the most turbulent few years for British politics in recent history.
In the corporate world there have been countless examples too. For some particularly striking ones, look up the circumstances under which Mary Barra took the helm at General Motors, or what was happening when Anne Mulcahy took over as CEO at Xerox.
I have no doubt that the women who have moved into the top spot in their respective companies’ this year are skilled, knowledgeable, resilient and unequivocally qualified. But it’s not hard to imagine that some of them will face conditions and headwinds that will push them to their limits, in a way that none of their predecessors have ever been pushed.
Even if there have been some signs in recent days of an improving economic backdrop, a 2023 recession is certainly not off the table. Domestically, the U.S. is most likely heading for a rollercoaster few years, politically speaking, and internationally, the war in Ukraine continues to influence everything from global commodity prices to diplomatic relations. Freshly-minted CEOs—male or female—will have to bring humility, rationality, and steely nerves to the table. Of course it’s a good idea to put a woman in charge. But let’s hope it’s for the right reasons.
Speaking to Fast Company, Janice Ellig, CEO of an executive search firm, says that she—for one—isn’t concerned that the glass cliff is at play here. “I think the demonstrated rise of women to lead companies during the pandemic shows they did well as leaders without a playbook, which is often how women lead their personal lives,” she says.
And there’s certainly logic to her reasoning. In January 2021, academics published a paper presenting evidence that countries led by women had “systematically and significantly better” Covid-19 outcomes, and suffered fewer pandemic-related deaths, than those led by men. The scholars examined 194 countries and concluded that the difference “may be explained by the proactive and coordinated policy responses” adopted by female leaders.
I couldn’t find any similar, comprehensive data on the performance of female CEOs. If you know of any, please send it my way!
Glass Everything
Apropos of glass cliffs and glass ceilings, I’ve this week started reading a new book that’s just come out called Glass Walls, by academics Amy Diehl and Leanne Dzubinski.
I’ve been following Diehl’s work for some years, and when I learned that she was writing this book, I immediately liked the title. I’ve always thought that the concept of a glass ceiling is overly simplistic. After all, barriers are everywhere and not just above us.
So far, I’ve been impressed by the authors’ way of weaving narrative with original research to propose actual, realistic solutions to overcome the structural biases that still hold women back at work.
In their words, here are some of the key themes the book tackles:
How male privilege, the bedrock on which gender bias is built, results in a workplace created by men and for men.
How women encounter disproportionate constraints in that workplace, being expected to play supportive roles to men.
The surprising ways in which women experience insufficient support based on gender.
The concept of devaluation, and how it tells women they don’t belong at work.
The troubling ways women face hostility to keep them in their supposed place, merely because of their gender.
How the combined weight of these barriers leads to acquiescence, when women internalize the obstacles and adapt to the limitations.
I’ve yet to finish it, but I’m certain it would make a useful resource for anyone leading a team in any industry or geography. The problems Diehl and Dzubinski describe are global. Fortunately, so are the solutions.
Letting Jane Doe Speak
And finally, the story of one particular Jane Doe this week captured my attention.
About two years ago, an intern at the Idaho state legislature reported that a state Representative named Aaron von Ehlinger had raped her. She was 19 years old at the time—a teen mom who was working nights to make ends meet—and she went by the name of Jane Doe.
What followed was a public ethics hearing. Ehlinger resigned and legislators proudly patted themselves on the back for how swiftly they had been able to take action and how efficiently they had restored justice. The story was over, as far as they were concerned, and they’d done the right thing.
But it wasn’t, of course.
In fact, what the public heard at the time was a mere tip of an iceberg: a glossed over, neat narrative in which Jane Doe featured as little more than a voiceless victim, pretty much indistinguishable from so many others who’d suffered before her and who would suffer thereafter.
This week, I listened to the recent episode of This American Life in which this particular Jane Doe gives her version of events. She tells producer Miki Meek how what she experienced was entirely different to what the public knew, and how her life was transformed by developments in ways in which no news bulletin even attempted to capture.
It’s a masterful piece of podcasting that, some five years after the dawn of the #MeToo movement, puts a woman who was truly at the heart of the movement, where she’s meant to be: at the center of her own stories. Listen to the whole episode here.
Thanks for reading. As ever, comments, questions and criticism are always welcome. And please feel free to share this newsletter with others who you think might enjoy it!