Sam Allen, PhD candidate and Sixth Level Contributor, this is an overview of his dissertation.
It is well-established that, despite a lack of difference in ability or aptitude, individuals from historically marginalized social groups (ex: women, racial minorities) are underrepresented in organizational leadership roles. In the context of gender, this is known as the glass ceiling, a metaphoric representation of the “invisible” and often impermeable barriers women face in ascending to organizational leadership positions.
In recent years, interest has piqued in studying a related phenomenon, the glass cliff, in which researchers have found that when women are able to break through the glass ceiling, they often inherit leadership roles that carry high precarity and risk of failure.
The existence of the glass cliff complicates our understanding of the mere representation of women in leadership roles. While representation in leadership is often lauded as an unequivocal indicator of progress towards equality, ignoring the contextual features of leadership roles runs the risk of perpetuating or amplifying inequality.
My dissertation takes a multi-method approach, combining qualitative and quantitative inquiry, to study the implications of glass cliff situations on gender inequality in leadership. Interviews with leaders and managers who inherited organizations and teams in times of crisis or downturn will offer insights into how individuals navigated these roles, what strategies they used to address their associated challenges, and the potentially gendered implications of these experiences on future personal and professional decision making. An experimental design will test the gendered nature of how leaders in glass cliff situations are evaluated, offering insights into the risks that one takes in these positions and potential strategies for overcoming their challenging circumstances.
In sum, this project seeks to understand the potential pitfalls associated with glass cliff situations and how individuals and organizations can set up leaders for success in an equitable way. Glass cliff situations may appear as ostensible progress and yet functionally perpetuate existing inequality through the internalization of negative experiences and unfavorable evaluations from outsiders. Through this work, I am striving to develop a better understanding of the nuanced implications of these situations. Most importantly, I hope to uncover tactics that individuals and organizations can deploy in order to buffer against the negative effects of the glass cliff and advance equality in the ranks of leadership.