The Glass Cliff
How are you setting up your team for success?
It’s hard to imagine now, but as recently as 1970, only fifty percent of women participated in the workforce.1 Now, fifty percent of the college-educated workforce are women and women account for nearly fifty percent of the global workforce.2
Women have certainly made progress in building fulfilling careers. But forty-two percent of women say they have been discriminated against3 because of their gender. There’s actually a term for this type of discrimination: the glass ceiling. Coined by management consultant Marilyn Loden in 1978, the term is “a metaphor usually applied to women, used to represent an invisible barrier that prevents a given demographic from rising beyond a certain level in a hierarchy.”
While we’ve made great progress in breaking the glass ceiling for women over the past several decades, there’s still much work to do in ending all sorts of limitations not just for women, but many different kinds of employees. This is the work of conscious leaders: to create equal opportunity for anyone who has the talent and commitment to do a job well.
Even as we work to end blockades such as the glass ceiling, we need to be equally aware of the glass cliff.
I wasn’t familiar with the term until I attended the Thrive conference late last year and it was brought up in the context of supporting the burgeoning Diversity, Equity, Inclusion (DEI) positions many corporations are creating to open greater opportunities for minorities and women.
Too often in the business world, politics, and entertainment, new concepts like DEI are trumpeted and promoted because they seem progressive and are good for a brand boost. But in reality, the company or leader isn’t really invested in making actual progress on the challenge. So they hire someone, often a woman or minority, to lead the feel-good, brand-boosting DEI work within the company, cross it off their to-do list, and never actually invest in the work.
This leads to the DEI employee who was hired for the role being set up for failure. They’re asked to accomplish greater diversity in the company, but aren’t given the resources to actually meet those goals. Thus, the staffer is never set up for success and eventually falls off the glass cliff. They are blamed for not reaching the goals the company set for them. But how were they to do so when they didn’t have internal support?
I thought this metaphor was a brilliant riff on the glass ceiling concept with which we’re all familiar. How often have you felt like you were asked to accomplish specific goals in your role, but then were never given the support you needed to meet those goals? Or were given a highly risky task, and made the scapegoat when goals weren’t met?
As conscious leaders who want to transform the workplace, we must be aware of the dangers of the glass cliff. This means being truly invested in a role, not because it seems popular, or it’s the lates idea trending on TikTok, or we feel we have to, but because we actually believe the work will help our organization thrive.
Preventing the glass cliff also means making sure every staff member has the resources and support they need to accomplish their goals. Otherwise, we’re setting them up for defeat. The emotional ramifications are far worse than not reaching goals. When a staff member feels like they were never really supported, they doubt themselves and become resentful. This could haunt them for years and sabotage their future success.
I’ve coached several clients who basically needed to be rehabilitated after experiencing poor or even terrible management. They had fallen off so many glass cliffs they felt they’d never be successful. Our role as conscious leaders is to prevent glass cliffs and ensure our employees can meet and even exceed their goals.
This week, consider whether there are any glass cliffs in your organization. How can you make sure your team has the resources and support they need to be successful? We’re investing in far more than business outcomes; we’re investing in the growth and flourishing of our colleagues. That’s the transformative power of conscious leadership in the future of work.
Work happy. Live happy. BE happy.
Meredith
The way we work and build teams is rapidly changing. Leaders often feel unprepared to navigate the transition. As a conscious leadership coach, consultant and communicator, Meredith helps leaders and their teams create new ways of working and relating so they can prepare for the future by consciously co-creating it.
Contact her to develop your conscious leadership and transform your organization into the workplace of the future.
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https://www.brookings.edu/essay/the-history-of-womens-work-and-wages-and-how-it-has-created-success-for-us-all/
https://teamstage.io/women-in-the-workforce-statistics/
https://teamstage.io/women-in-the-workforce-statistics/