You finally got the promotion. Or maybe you landed the executive role you’ve spent years pursuing.
You should be celebrating.
Instead, within weeks, you’re wondering:
Why does everything seem to be on fire?
The team is demoralized.
The budget has been slashed.
Customers are leaving. And the board is impatient.
Welcome to what researchers call the glass cliff.
It’s one of the least discussed and most dangerous forms of workplace bias because it doesn’t stop women from getting promoted. It sets them up to fail after they get there.
And if you’re a woman in midlife, you’re particularly vulnerable.
The promotion you’ve been waiting for…may come with hidden risk.
For years we’ve talked about the glass ceiling—the invisible barrier preventing women from reaching senior leadership.
But there is another pattern, the glass cliff, that researchers discovered decades ago.
Women are often appointed to leadership positions during periods of crisis, instability, or decline, when the probability of failure is dramatically higher.
In other words:
Women aren’t simply promoted. They’re handed a mess.
The failing division.
The impossible turnaround.
The toxic culture no one has been willing to confront.
The project that’s already months behind.
If they succeed, they’re considered exceptional.
If they don’t?
People quietly conclude they weren’t ready. But, in reality, they were set up to fail.
Recent research tells a more nuanced story
The glass cliff has now been studied across business, politics, higher education, and nonprofit leadership.
Interestingly, newer research paints a more complex picture than earlier studies. A large 2025 study examining U.S. corporate CEO appointments found no clear evidence that women were consistently more likely than men to be appointed during financially precarious periods, suggesting the phenomenon may depend on organizational context and how “crisis” is defined.
That doesn’t mean the glass cliff has disappeared.
Researchers continue to document glass cliff dynamics in other sectors and cultures, while ongoing work emphasizes that the pattern often emerges under specific organizational conditions rather than universally.
Perhaps the most important finding is this:
Simply knowing about the glass cliff changes how people think about women’s leadership and reduces sexist assumptions about why women struggle in high-risk roles. Awareness matters.
For women, awareness can be a powerful career advantage.
Read the full article on Substack.com
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