THE GLASS CLIFF- PHENOMENON OR FICTION?

Are women only being hired in leadership positions when a company is in trouble? Does the current variation on ‘Think Manager, Think Male’ ‘Think Crisis, Think Female’ holds true? City Women’s Network in London invited Professor Alex Haslam of the University of Exeter to share his extensive research on the Glass Cliff.

A few years ago, Professor Haslam was about to make a presentation on gender and leadership when he noticed an article in The Times in November 2003 suggesting that women on company boards ‘wreaked havoc on companies’ performance’. This assertion was accompanied by tables showing that high performing companies had fewer or no women on the board, whilst those that had the highest representation of women were mostly under-performing.

Research

Alex Haslam, Professor of Social and Organizational Psychology, was intrigued and wondered if the analysis was correct. Could there be another explanation? Could it be that women were given positions on the board specifically when companies were doing badly? And further he noted that two companies that showed the reverse effect – good performance with more women, and poor performance with fewer women – had been left out of the tables of company performance used in the article. So Alex Haslam and researcher Michelle Ryan conducted experimental social research (asking people to take decisions based on information provided, rather than simply interviewing them to discover behaviour) and conducted detailed analyses of appointments.

Startling results

They looked at the companies’ circumstances before board appointments and found that women were more likely to be appointed when a company’s performance was poorer in contrast to a man being more likely to be appointed to the board when the company’s performance was better. Yet nevertheless, the appointment of women was associated with improvement in company performance.

Failing leads to falling

Alex and Michelle suggest that since the women will be more in the spotlight when they join the boards of poor performers, and since there will be a differential likelihood that they will fail and consequently be ‘blamed’ for the failure, that these consequences may better explain why ‘women’s tenure of senior leadership positions is about 60% shorter than of men.’

Women ARE popular – sometimes

Alex and Michelle indicate that their research is also consistent with earlier work showing a marked difference in the greater amount of challenge women faced in their senior promotions compared to men. The team’s experimental research, where participants were asked to select from matched male and female candidate CVs, highlighted that men were more often selected (by both men and women) for roles where the company was improving its performance, and women candidates were overwhelmingly chosen where a company’s performance was declining. The same results occurred over a wide range of sectors and roles.

‘Think Crisis, Think Female’

Further research participants were given 92 traits and were asked to identify those that were stereotypic of men, women, ideal managers of successful, and unsuccessful businesses. Male stereotypes were more associated with being able to deal with successful companies and women stereotypes were very much more associated with dealing with currently unsuccessful companies – or as Professor Haslam put it ‘think crises – think female’.

Risky business

Further anecdotal evidence suggested that as women have fewer opportunities the higher they are in the organisation, they are more likely to accept the riskier jobs than a man would. And perhaps that women are seen as more expendable than male workers who cannot be spared to fill a risky position.

When men and women were then asked about how risky they felt roles were, the men more strongly saw the improving company as low risk and the company in difficulty as high risk, whereas women didn’t differentiate quite so strongly.

Are you the dummy here?

The lively Q&A that followed the CWN event in February 2007 indicated that Alex Haslam’s research had struck a real cord with the members of the audience. Some realised for the first time that they had followed a path of taking the most risky jobs. ‘I’m the dummy here’, said one member. Maybe more of us should think very carefully before taking the roles offered. What might we do to ensure that we are also offered the roles that men are more often chosen for? Perhaps when we take such risky roles we should be better at pointing this out, ensuring we get enough of and the right resources, and at least privately gather some mentors and supporters around us.

Cause for concern

Some of us were concerned that using women for the most difficult roles may be driving them out of businesses when they should be lauded for the roles they have taken on. How could we through the CWN ensure that women are more supported without it appearing that they need special help because they are women? A further dimension was the difficulty of making such risky roles more flexible, or adaptable to job sharing – changes that more women than men are seeking.

Alex Haslam encouraged us to join in the debate, to ensure that people were aware of this research and not let the faulty assertions to continue unchallenged. Are we willing to do this?

Ann Baldwin
City Women’s Network

Many thanks to Professor Alex Haslam for his presentation and the use of materials. Visit his website for more information: http://psy.ex.ac.uk/seorg/glasscliff/