Should women take a big leadership promotion of a crisis situation?

Liz Truss made history by becoming the shortest served prime minister in Britain by resigning just after 44 days in office. From the beginning, she knew she wouldn’t have things easy. As she was entering the office, the energy bills were about to skyrocket due to the Ukraine war. The inflation was high and the economy sluggish to recover from pandemic. Liz took on the challenge, only to resign six weeks later after causing greater political and economic uncertainty. This is a familiar story to tech world where we saw the rise and fall of Marissa Mayer, who took the Yahoo CEO role when Yahoo was already losing its big shares to Google. 5 years after her appointment, Marissa resigned, after massive advertising revenue loss and 50% reduction in staff during her tenure there. We’ve seen such scenarios enough that it makes us wonder, should women take a big leadership promotion of a crisis situation?

The academics and researchers gave this phenomenon an official term called ‘glass cliff’. Glass cliff is when women leaders take on leadership positions during crisis or downturn periods when the risk of failure is highest. When the big leadership promotion opportunity arises, it’s hard to turn down because who knows when the next opportunity will arise, if ever? Besides, wouldn’t taking it be inspiring for fellow women and minorities? Well, yes, only if the woman leader succeeds in the role. If the opportunity were given to me, I initially thought, why not? Then, I realized, this is not just a regular promotion. This is a promotion where the risk of failure is highest. I can’t just jump on the promotion without doing a thorough, objective assessment of my own self. If a woman leader takes on the role when she’s not ready, the result could be disastrous for both the individual and women as a whole. Collectively, it could further aggravate people’s prejudice against women leadership.

There are different guesses as to why women seem to find themselves in this glass cliff situation often. Some argue that women are appointed to lead during crisis because they are naturally more fit to lead during uncertain period. Women exhibit more characteristics such as transparency, empathy, and open communication that are valued highly during crisis. It could also be that organizations appoint women leaders during crisis to signal to the public that they are ready for a real, transformative change. Regardless of what the reason is, we women need to take a very careful and thoughtful approach before jumping in to take that big promotion.

To avoid another glass cliff from happening, below are some questions that we women should consider:

• Am I set up for success? The organization must have realistic expectation on goals when a new leader takes on the position during crisis. There needs to be ample mentorship and support structure to help the new leader focus on the tough tasks ahead. Culture should be inclusive that embraces ‘progress over perfection’ mindset to allow for experimentations and failures.
  

• How will this impact my career in the long-run? Given the higher risk of failure in leading during crisis, one must objectively think through what implications this may have on her career in the long-run if things don’t go as intended. It may be difficult to think that far out due to the excitement that the immediate opportunity offers. Thinking through the worst case scenario and being mentally prepared is crucial given the high stakes this promotion entails.
  

• Do I have what it takes to lead during crisis? Setting aside ego, one must do an honest and objective evaluation on the kinds of experiences and strengths she brings to the table. Have I experienced any similar crisis situation before that I could draw lessons from? Do I have the clear vision and skillsets? Are my strengths aligned to leading during crisis? If the answer to any of these is no, then one may want to pass on this opportunity and wait for the right one.

Unfortunately for Liz Truss, she also made leadership rookie mistake of trying to make drastic major changes during the first few days in her office. That goes to show, she didn’t have the right experience to even know what to do during the critical first few days. She didn’t realize that she needs to listen before acting. Only the individual will know if she’s truly ready to lead the organization through tumultuous time. Don’t just jump into what looks like a big promotion. If not handled carefully, it could end up being the complete career dead end, unintentionally further cementing the glass ceiling.

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