Formerly, when a woman was appointed to the top position in a firm, she was lauded as having broken through the so-called glass ceiling. Long defined as the intangible barrier women face when seeking career advancement in an organisation, the glass ceiling has been expanded to include minorities facing similar discrimination based on how they look. Frequently today, however, when some women ascend to the pinnacle of leadership there is little to no cause for celebration as they are in fact being placed on the glass cliff.
This latter phrase was said to be coined by British academics Michelle Ryan and Alex Haslam in 2005 after an extensive study of the 100 companies listed on the London Stock Exchange with the highest market capitalisation revealed that there was a tendency to appoint women to head firms that were either in financial crisis or on the verge of collapse. As the head of the organisation, the woman was then held responsible for its fortunes, even though the downhill spiral had begun before she was appointed. Further, in some cases, the woman was fired after she managed to turn the company’s fortunes around. The analogy of the glass cliff is therefore apt and like the glass ceiling, it has been found to also apply to minorities.
What is disconcerting, though not surprising, is that up to today, more than 16 years after Professors Ryan and Haslam published the results of their study, the glass cliff still exists. Men, along with some women, but mostly men, are even now bent on setting women up to face situations they dare not, or choose not to encounter for various reasons.
This by no means suggests that women are incapable of seeing the danger or are being led blindly to failure. On the contrary, as the research suggests, women are often ready to face risks and are found in fact to be critical to the survival of some of these entities. Unfortunately, they could still end up being dispensed with after their innovative approaches have saved the day.
Lest we forget, although the gender gap is closing it is happening slowly and grudgingly. According to the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) 2021 Global Gender Gap Report, on its current trajectory, it is estimated that gender parity will not occur for another 136 years. Meanwhile, the economic gender gap is expected to take another 267.6 years to close. The WEF report said that the overall situation had worsened owing to a widening in the political gender gap from 95 years in 2020 to 146 years in 2021, and this was particularly observed in several countries with large populations. Women are hitting glass ceilings with nary a crack, yet, in some cases, they can be found teetering on glass cliffs.
A case in point is the tenure of Theresa May as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom. Mrs May took the reins of the Conservative Party and the PM’s Office after the resignation of David Cameron, who will go down in history for gambling with his leadership and losing, very badly. It was Mr Cameron who inexplicably held the referendum that led to the exit of Britain from the European Union, the now infamous Brexit.
With that fait accompli looming, Mrs May chose to walk the glass cliff of guiding the country through the maelstrom. She was ineffective. Much maligned for her efforts, she resigned after three years and was succeeded by a man who considered himself capable of succeeding where she had failed, current PM Boris Johnson. We all know how that is proceeding.
Here in Guyana, several women have walked the glass cliff, the most recent possibly being former minister Nicolette Henry. In 2015, after the APNU+AFC Coalition won the elections, Ms Henry, an unknown in the sphere of politics, was appointed minister within the Ministry of Education and given the portfolios of culture, youth and sports, which at the time were being absorbed by that ministry. A former officer in the Guyana Defence Force, Ms Henry held a Master’s in Public Health and had been working in that field. Her execution of the culture portfolio especially was not without significant public bumbling, which ought to have given her political superiors pause for thought. Apparently not.
In 2017, following a couple of health scares the then minister of Education Rupert Roopnaraine was moved to a less strenuous post and Ms Henry was appointed to act in the position, “until such time that the president in his deliberate judgement considers that there is some other arrangement that needs to be put in place,” then minister of State Joseph Harmon had been quoted as saying. Already gravity poor owing to decades of neglect, the education sector became Ms Henry’s second glass cliff. It would be safe to say she was saved from falling off it when her party lost the 2020 elections.
However, as the saying goes, with great risk, comes great reward. Now the holder of a PhD, obtained via a government scholarship whilst serving as minister, Ms Henry recently resigned as an opposition parliamentarian, possibly extricating herself from ever landing in such a situation again, at least in politics.