What Is the Glass Cliff? How It Can Affect Underrepresented Leaders
Breaking through the glass ceiling is usually treated as a sign of progress.
But what happens when someone reaches leadership only after an organization is already struggling?
That question sits at the center of the glass cliff.
The term describes a pattern researchers have studied in which women—and, in some research, members of racially or ethnically underrepresented groups—are more likely to be considered for or appointed to leadership positions when the role is unusually risky or the organization is already facing difficulty (Morgenroth et al., 2020; Ryan & Haslam, 2005).
That could mean taking leadership during declining performance, organizational crisis, instability, or another situation in which the probability of failure is already elevated.
The important point is that the glass cliff is not a claim that women or underrepresented leaders are less capable of leadership.
It is a question about the circumstances in which leadership opportunities become available—and whether some people are disproportionately given those opportunities when success is harder to achieve.
Research on the glass cliff is also more nuanced than the term is sometimes presented online. A major meta-analysis found evidence supporting the phenomenon, but described some effects as small and dependent on context. More recent research on U.S. corporate CEOs has found no clear glass-cliff effect at all (Li et al., 2025; Morgenroth et al., 2020).
So the most accurate question is not: Does the glass cliff always happen?
It is: When does it happen, who does it affect, and what can organizations learn from the research?
Research note: The glass cliff is an organizational research concept. It should not be used to assume that any individual leadership appointment occurred because of a person’s gender, race, or ethnicity.
What to Know About the Glass Cliff
Research on the glass cliff shows a complicated pattern:
The concept originated in research examining women appointed to senior positions during periods of poor organizational performance.
A 2020 meta-analysis found some evidence of a glass-cliff effect for women across archival and experimental studies, although the strength of the effect varied by study type and organizational context.
That meta-analysis also found evidence that the phenomenon can extend to members of underrepresented racial and ethnic groups.
A 2025 field experiment in Australia produced findings the authors described as consistent with glass-cliff theory for applicants with Chinese and Indian names seeking leadership roles during the COVID-19 labor-market shock.
However, a 2025 study of U.S. corporate CEO appointments found no clear evidence that women were systematically appointed under more precarious circumstances.
The evidence therefore does not support assuming that every woman or underrepresented leader appointed during a crisis is experiencing a glass cliff.
(Adamovic & Leibbrandt, 2025; Li et al., 2025; Morgenroth et al., 2020; Ryan & Haslam, 2005)
What Does “Glass Cliff” Mean?
The glass cliff concept was introduced by psychologists Michelle Ryan and S. Alexander Haslam.
Their 2005 study examined appointments of male and female board members at FTSE 100 companies.
The researchers found that during a period of broader stock-market decline, companies that appointed women to their boards were more likely to have experienced consistently poor performance during the five months before those appointments than companies that appointed men (Ryan & Haslam, 2005).
The metaphor extends the better-known idea of the glass ceiling.
The glass ceiling describes barriers that can make it harder for women and other underrepresented groups to reach senior positions in the first place.
The glass cliff asks what happens after someone breaks through that barrier.
A leadership opportunity may become available—but under conditions where the organization is already struggling and the new leader faces an unusually difficult task.
Is the Glass Cliff Supported by Research?
There is evidence for it, but the findings are not universal.
That distinction matters.
In 2020, researchers Thekla Morgenroth, Teri Kirby, Michelle Ryan, and Antonia Sudkämper conducted three meta-analyses examining research on appointments to precarious leadership positions.
They looked at:
archival studies examining real-world leadership appointments;
experiments testing whether women and underrepresented candidates were perceived as more suitable during crises; and
experiments examining whether they were more likely to be selected for leadership during crises.
The researchers found some evidence consistent with the glass cliff across all three analyses for women (Morgenroth et al., 2020).
However, the results were not equally strong everywhere.
The meta-analysis of archival studies found a small glass-cliff effect that depended on organizational domain. In experimental research on perceived leadership suitability, the effect also depended on how the study was designed.
The leadership-selection studies produced clearer evidence that women were more likely than men to be selected during periods of crisis, with the effect larger in countries with greater gender inequality (Morgenroth et al., 2020).
This is why describing the glass cliff as something that simply “happens to women leaders” would overstate the research.
The evidence suggests a real phenomenon—but one that is shaped by context.
Does the Glass Cliff Affect Racial and Ethnic Minorities Too?
Research suggests that the concept can extend beyond gender.
The 2020 meta-analysis found evidence that the glass-cliff phenomenon also extended to members of underrepresented racial and ethnic groups (Morgenroth et al., 2020).
More recent research has explored that question directly.
Adamovic and Leibbrandt conducted a large field experiment examining hiring outcomes for applicants with Chinese, Indian, and English names in Australia before and during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Across two experiments, the researchers submitted more than 8,000 job applications.
They found discrimination against applicants with Chinese and Indian names in non-leadership positions both before and during the pandemic.
For leadership positions, however, the ethnicity gap in callback rates that existed before the pandemic largely disappeared during the labor-market shock (Adamovic & Leibbrandt, 2025).
The authors interpreted this pattern as consistent with glass-cliff theory: access to leadership became relatively less unequal at precisely the time when the external environment made leadership more challenging.
There is an important limitation.
Overall callback rates fell sharply during the pandemic, particularly for leadership positions. The researchers themselves noted that this makes discrimination harder to detect when very few applicants of any background receive positive responses (Adamovic & Leibbrandt, 2025).
So the study should not be interpreted as proof that employers deliberately reserve difficult leadership jobs for ethnic-minority candidates.
It provides evidence consistent with one mechanism predicted by glass-cliff theory in a particular labor market and crisis.
Does Every Crisis Appointment Count as a Glass Cliff?
No.
A woman becoming CEO of a struggling company is not automatically evidence of a glass cliff.
Neither is the appointment of a Black, Asian, Hispanic, Indigenous, or other underrepresented leader during difficult circumstances.
To make that conclusion responsibly, researchers need evidence showing a pattern of different appointment conditions between groups, not simply an individual example.
That distinction is particularly important because glass-cliff language is sometimes applied retrospectively to highly visible leaders.
An organization can appoint a woman during a crisis because she is the strongest candidate.
An underrepresented executive can knowingly choose a difficult turnaround role.
A crisis appointment can also provide genuine authority and opportunity.
The research question is whether members of particular groups are systematically more likely than comparable majority-group candidates to receive leadership opportunities under precarious conditions.
And the evidence on that question remains mixed across different contexts.
Recent Research Challenges a Universal Glass-Cliff Effect
One of the strongest reasons to avoid oversimplifying the concept comes from newer research.
A 2025 study published in The Leadership Quarterly revisited the glass cliff using a broader sample of female CEO appointments in U.S. corporations.
Researchers Xiaoxiao Li, Olivia Moyer, Olivia Pfeiffer, Raisa Velthuis, and Peter Zaleski examined multiple accounting- and market-based measures of whether companies were in precarious circumstances before CEO appointments.
Their results did not provide clear evidence of a glass-cliff effect among U.S. corporations (Li et al., 2025).
The authors suggested that some earlier findings may have depended on the samples and methods used.
That does not invalidate the larger body of glass-cliff research.
It does tell us something important: The phenomenon should not be treated as a universal law of leadership.
The more accurate interpretation is that glass-cliff effects have appeared in multiple studies and contexts, while other research has failed to find them.
Why Might Glass Cliffs Occur?
Researchers have proposed several explanations for why crisis conditions could affect who is viewed as suitable for leadership.
Reviews of the research have examined factors including leadership stereotypes, perceptions that different kinds of leadership are needed during crisis, organizational efforts to signal change, and the relative desirability of difficult leadership positions (Bruckmüller et al., 2014; Morgenroth et al., 2020).
These are proposed mechanisms supported to different degrees across studies.
They should not be interpreted as a universal explanation for why any particular organization chooses a leader.
The broader point is that the characteristics organizations seek in leaders can change when circumstances change.
And if leadership opportunities become more accessible to underrepresented candidates primarily when those positions become less secure, representation at the top may not tell the entire story.
Why the Glass Cliff Matters for Workplace Diversity
Leadership diversity is often measured by counting who reaches senior positions.
That matters.
But the glass-cliff research raises another question:
What kind of leadership opportunity did they receive?
Two executives can both receive the title of CEO, president, director, or department head while inheriting very different conditions.
One may receive:
stable finances;
an experienced leadership team;
clear strategic direction;
strong organizational support; and
realistic expectations.
Another may inherit:
declining performance;
internal conflict;
limited resources;
high turnover;
reputational damage; or
unrealistic expectations for rapid change.
Both technically received a leadership opportunity.
But they did not necessarily receive the same opportunity to succeed.
That is why the glass cliff belongs in the workplace-diversity conversation.
Representation is important, but meaningful inclusion in leadership also involves examining whether leaders receive authority, resources, support, and realistic conditions once they reach those positions.
What Can Employers Learn From Glass-Cliff Research?
The evidence does not support creating a checklist designed to identify every supposed glass cliff.
It does support asking better questions about leadership opportunity.
1. Look at When Leadership Opportunities Become Available
Organizations can examine whether women and underrepresented employees are being considered for senior roles during both stable and difficult periods.
Adamovic and Leibbrandt argue that organizations should not only hire ethnic-minority leaders during crisis conditions but should build longer-term leadership development strategies that create opportunities regardless of the external environment (Adamovic & Leibbrandt, 2025).
That shifts the question from: Did we appoint an underrepresented leader?
to: Under what conditions are underrepresented leaders being given opportunities?
2. Evaluate the Starting Conditions of Leadership Roles
Organizations can consider the situation a new leader is inheriting.
Is the business unit performing well?
Is there adequate staffing?
Are the leader's objectives realistic?
Do they have the authority needed to make changes?
What resources are available?
Glass-cliff research draws attention to the fact that the title alone does not describe the quality of the opportunity.
3. Provide Resources Along With Responsibility
Adamovic and Leibbrandt specifically recommend providing underrepresented leaders with sufficient resources and support when they take leadership roles during crisis conditions (Adamovic & Leibbrandt, 2025).
Giving someone responsibility for a failing division without the authority, staffing, budget, or support necessary to address the problem creates a fundamentally different leadership challenge from inheriting a stable organization.
4. Evaluate Leadership Performance in Context
If a new leader inherits serious organizational problems, performance evaluation should recognize the conditions present when that person assumed the role.
That does not mean lowering expectations.
It means distinguishing between: the problems a leader inherited and the decisions and results that occurred under that leader's control.
The same principle should apply regardless of a leader's identity.
5. Build Leadership Pipelines Before a Crisis
If underrepresented employees only become visible as leadership candidates when an organization needs dramatic change, the pipeline may already be too narrow.
Long-term leadership development, mentoring, and access to advancement can help organizations build a broader pool of qualified leaders before a crisis begins (Adamovic & Leibbrandt, 2025).
Glass Cliff vs. Glass Ceiling: What Is the Difference?
The two concepts describe different points in a leadership career.
Glass Ceiling
The glass ceiling refers to barriers that prevent qualified people from advancing into senior leadership.
The problem is access to leadership.
Glass Cliff
The glass cliff refers to the possibility that members of underrepresented groups who do reach leadership may be disproportionately appointed when those positions are unusually precarious.
The problem is the conditions attached to the opportunity.
Someone can therefore break through a glass ceiling and still encounter a glass cliff.
But neither concept should be automatically applied to an individual career without evidence.
Final Thoughts
Getting someone into leadership is not the end of the diversity conversation.
The conditions surrounding that opportunity matter too.
Glass-cliff research asks organizations to look beyond the headline: “We appointed an underrepresented leader.” and ask a harder question: “What did that leader inherit, and did we give them a realistic opportunity to succeed?”
The evidence does not tell us that every woman or racially or ethnically underrepresented leader appointed during a crisis was placed on a glass cliff.
It does tell us that researchers have identified patterns worth examining—and that those patterns vary across organizations, industries, countries, and research methods.
For Diversity.com, that makes the glass cliff relevant to a broader principle of workplace inclusion:
Opportunity is not only about opening the door. It is also about what waits on the other side.
Leadership representation matters.
So do the resources, authority, stability, and support that determine whether someone has a fair opportunity to succeed once they get there.
Hiring? Explore how Diversity.com can help you connect with qualified professionals from a broader talent pool.
Get Started with Diversity.com
At Diversity.com, we connect employers with qualified candidates through inclusive hiring, and help job seekers find employers committed to it.
For Employers & HR Professionals:
✔ Post a job and reach candidates across healthcare, higher education, government, nonprofits, and private industry
✔ Browse our resources for guides, checklists, and reports on inclusive hiring
✔ Join our community in LinkedIn for hiring and compliance updates
For Job Seekers:
✔ Find Inclusive Jobs at organizations that chose to post here
✔ Create a free account to apply and get matched to new openings
✔ Browse our resources for career guides and tools
Have questions? Reach out to our team. We're here to support you.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is the glass cliff?
The glass cliff is a research concept describing situations in which women or members of other underrepresented groups are more likely to be appointed or selected for leadership positions during periods of crisis or instability.
Research has found evidence supporting the phenomenon, although the size and consistency of the effect vary across contexts (Morgenroth et al., 2020).
Who coined the term glass cliff?
Psychologists Michelle Ryan and S. Alexander Haslam introduced the glass-cliff concept through research examining the conditions surrounding appointments of women to boards of FTSE 100 companies (Ryan & Haslam, 2005).
Is the glass cliff the same as the glass ceiling?
No.
The glass ceiling describes barriers to reaching leadership. The glass cliff examines whether some people who do reach leadership are more likely to receive precarious leadership positions.
Does the glass cliff only affect women?
The concept originated in research about women, and much of the literature focuses on gender.
However, a 2020 meta-analysis found evidence extending the glass-cliff phenomenon to underrepresented racial and ethnic groups, and more recent field research has examined the phenomenon among applicants with Chinese and Indian names (Adamovic & Leibbrandt, 2025; Morgenroth et al., 2020).
Has the glass cliff been proven?
Research has produced evidence consistent with the glass-cliff phenomenon, but findings are not universal.
A 2020 meta-analysis found some support across multiple research designs, with effects varying by context. A 2025 study of U.S. corporate CEO appointments, however, found no clear evidence of a glass-cliff effect (Li et al., 2025; Morgenroth et al., 2020).
It is therefore more accurate to describe the glass cliff as a documented but context-dependent research phenomenon, not an outcome that occurs in every organization.
How can employers reduce the risk of glass-cliff appointments?
Research suggests organizations can look beyond representation numbers and consider when leadership opportunities become available, what conditions new leaders inherit, and whether leaders receive adequate resources and support.
Building leadership pipelines during stable periods can also help ensure underrepresented leaders are considered for a full range of opportunities rather than primarily during crises.
Related Articles
Sources & References
Adamovic, M., & Leibbrandt, A. (2025). Ethnic minorities and the leadership glass cliff: Insights into a field experiment. Industrial Relations: A Journal of Economy and Society, 64(3), 380–394. https://doi.org/10.1111/irel.12378
Bruckmüller, S., Ryan, M. K., Rink, F., & Haslam, S. A. (2014). Beyond the glass ceiling: The glass cliff and its lessons for organizational policy. Social Issues and Policy Review, 8(1), 202–232. https://doi.org/10.1111/sipr.12006
Li, X., Moyer, O., Pfeiffer, O., Velthuis, R., & Zaleski, P. (2025). Female CEO selection: Does the glass cliff exist? The Leadership Quarterly, 36(2), 101853. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.leaqua.2024.101853
Morgenroth, T., Kirby, T. A., Ryan, M. K., & Sudkämper, A. (2020). The who, when, and why of the glass cliff phenomenon: A meta-analysis of appointments to precarious leadership positions. Psychological Bulletin, 146(9), 797–829. https://doi.org/10.1037/bul0000234
Ryan, M. K., & Haslam, S. A. (2005). The glass cliff: Evidence that women are over-represented in precarious leadership positions. British Journal of Management, 16(2), 81–90. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8551.2005.00433.x
