I learn something new every day. I thought I had pretty much heard of all the ways that the glass metaphor had been used to describe the limitations on women in business, but turns out there are many other ways that glass imagery is used to describe female problems in business (see, e.g. previous posts on the glass ceiling, glass cutter awards and the Glass Hammer Network). This week we'll concentrate on the glass cliff; next week the "glass escalator", then the "glass bubble", and thence to the "glass elevator" and perhaps the "glass is always greener" and "the glass is half full." But I digress.
The "Glass Cliff" was first coined by Dr. Michelle Ryan and Prof. Alex Haslam of Exeter University, United Kingdom, in 2004. My comments today are on their 2007 article Reactions to the Glass Cliff: Gender Differences in the Explanations for the Precariousness of Women's Leadership Positions, published in the Journal of Organizational Change Management. (I'll discuss their even more intriguing recent study in my next installment.)
The "Glass Cliff" describes the idea that women are more likely than men to be placed in precarious leadership positions. In Reactions to the Glass Cliff, the authors report on their analysis of men's and women's reactions to descriptions of this subtle form of gender discrimination. The paper presents a qualitative analysis of the study participants' spontaneous explanations for the glass cliff.
Here's the study described in Reactions to the Glass Cliff: participants read an online news story about the glass cliff phenomenon, which described evidence from business and politics that supported the existence of glass cliff leadership positions for women, and briefly described the potentially negative implications of these positions for women. The article did not speculate about the processes underlying the glass cliff. After reading the article, participants were asked to participate in web-based research related to the glass cliff. The respondents indicated their attitudes towards the phenomenon on seven-point scales. One question measured the belief in whether men or women were more likely to be placed in risky or precarious leadership positions; three items measured how problematic the glass cliff was for women: "How dangerous do you think glass cliff positions are for women?" "How unfair do you think the glass cliff is for women?" and "How often do you think women are placed in glass cliff positions?" and a single item measured the likely outcome of the glass cliff. Participants were then given the opportunity to respond to an open-ended question which asked "What do you think leads women to be appointed to 'Glass Cliff' positions?"
According to the researchers, women were statistically more likely to explain the glass cliff in terms of pernicious processes such as a lack of alternative opportunities, sexism, or men's ingroup favoritism, and men were most likely to favor largely benign interpretations, such as women's suitability for difficult leadership tasks, the need for strategic decision-making, or company factors unrelated to gender. Of most interest to the researchers was the fact that over 50 per cent of male respondents questioned whether the phenomenon existed at all. In contrast, it is striking that only 5 per cent of women expressed doubt about the phenomenon's existence.
The researchers concluded:
"Importantly too, the present research suggests that those who are most likely to be in a decision-making capacity (i.e. men) are precisely those who are least likely to recognize the dangers associated with glass cliff positions and most likely to downplay its existence or explain it in terms of benign or inadvertent processes. Such a finding emphasizes the subtle nature of the glass cliff as a barrier for women, and again suggests that managing the change associated with women's increasing representation in the workplace will not be a straightforward process."
Next up, The Glass Cliff, Part 2: Differences in Perceived Suitability
Cynthia
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