On my way back from Perth yesterday I was sitting quietly catching up on some reading – the AFR. Turned to the column written by Catherine Fox – Corporate Woman – entitled “Forget the baby what about the glass cliff?”. I found it fascinating reading – she was referring to the recent appointment of Marissa Mayer as CEO of Yahoo and interestingly challenged us to take another look at this appointment because our focus on her pregnancy had encouraged us to overlook a very critical situation. Yahoo is facing tough times as they face their formidable rivals – Apple, Google, Twitter and Facebook – and they have had 5 CEOs in the last 5 years. Catherine claimed that “the appointment of a woman to the corner office is a classic example of glass cliff theory.”
She went on to share plenty of other examples of this theory in Australia – where women are “passed the poisoned chalice because there are few contenders willing to step in”. She also shared research undertaken at the University of Exeter where they found a strong pattern linking this unpalatable presentation of a leadership opportunity with a shortened rein for women in leadership positions and a backlash of criticism. We only have to recall Kristina Keneally and know that she well and truly fell off the glass cliff…….or could we say she was pushed!
Catherine claims that “several updates on the original glass cliff study have found the theory still holds up”. This got me thinking that we have transformed from the glass ceiling to the glass maze (as presented in HBR a few years ago) and now to the glass cliff over my twenty four years of being a woman in business! How tragic that as a business community we are so determined to make it so very difficult for women to succeed.
I am very used to being the only woman in a business meeting or development program that I am facilitating for the leadership team of a client; so when men draw attention to this and comment on how hard it must be for me……is this because they are secretly, or silently judging me and hoping I might fall off the cliff? Or are they genuinely concerned? I regularly chose to believe they are concerned – however after reading about the research it has certainly piqued my curiosity and invited me to use a more questioning lens around intent.
A recent experience with a group of top executives, if I am deeply honest with myself, has me feeling they may be trying to force me over the cliff………and I sit and ponder as I write this BLOG…….why? Some commented about my gender when I completed a debrief after the end of the ten day leadership development program – saying how hard it must have been for me while working with a room full of “assertive” men, and in an organisation that has very few women in management; while others made it clear they want to work with a male coach moving forward. What is it that women bring to leadership that threatens the status of men with such ferocity they have the need to continue creating ceilings, mazes, cliffs…….I dread to think what the next strategy is? What stories are being run in the heads of business people to promote the on- going actions within the corporate world that support these views and stories?
Can we not get to a place where we respect and value what each person brings regardless of their gender – it starts with the silly jokes we use right from childhood as they work their way to the top executive teams……and believe me they have – like being told “don’t be a girl” when someone is being caring and encouraging. I heard this statement being made in a management meeting last week!!
We need more people inspired to be courageous leaders and STOP this dreadful business practice – we are losing the exponential potential we could create by working collaboratively together. Let’s get rid of the glass and the judgement and enCOURAGE people no matter their gender to be at their best. Idealistic I hear you say – absolutely – dreams are vital initiators of change……………we simply cannot afford to keep losing so many vitally important people from our business and political communities.
