Made it to the top - but the view's not what we expected...

I know I've banged on quite a bit about women on boards, but here's a health warning. 

It seems that when women do get to the top many are faced with a glass cliff and left dangling over a dangerous company precipice.

Women are more likely to be appointed to leadership positions
when an organisation is in crisis.

By 2015 Lord Davies wants 25% female representation on boards (yes, one in four – an odd way of construing equality I know). And this year’s figures suggest everything’s on target to achieve it. In the FTSE100 women now account for 15.6% of all directorships, up from 12.5% last year. And although there are still 11 all-male boards, at least that’s down from last year’s staggering 21.

But last week, when talking to Ernst and Young about diversity, a lovely lady there alerted me to the notion of the glass cliff. 

Yes, we’ve heard of the glass ceiling – that invisible put impenetrable barrier that hinders female advancement in the workplace -  and even the glass escalator that gives men a smooth ride to the top, but the glass cliff? 

It comes from research by Ryan and Haslam at the University of Exeter who, in a systematic study of the performance of FTSE 100 companies before and after appointing a board member, found that companies who appointed a woman were more likely to have experienced consistently poor performance in the months preceding the appointment.

This is both good and bad news. It demonstrates that companies are willing to do something different in times of crisis. In fact there's more recent evidence that  a crisis disrupts traditional stereotypes of what makes a good leader, favouring female attributes over male. But it's a bit like taking over the controls after the car has been wrecked and Ryan and Haslam  include a note of caution in their paper, saying:

Positions on glass cliffs can be seen as being exceedingly dangerous for the women who hold them. Companies that have experienced consistently bad performance are bound to attract attention to themselves and to those on their boards of directors … In this way, compared to men, women who assume leadership offices may be differentially exposed to criticism and in greater danger of being apportioned blame for negative outcomes that were set in train well before they assumed their new roles.

Ryan & Haslam (2005),The Glass Cliff: Evidence that Women Are Over-Represented in Precarious Leadership Positions, British Journal of Management.

Staying in's the new going out.

Where I live in Herts is like a frozen wasteland at the moment. There's so much snow that I haven't left the house for days!

That's not as desperate as it sounds.

I had papers to write and have got lots done without interruptions, holed up in one room, not quite wearing fingerless gloves and sipping cabbage soup but nearly, feeling a bit like Anne Frank (but with friendlier neighbours).

I did manage to force my husky dogs out to the post-box, to send the five winners of signed books their prizes for helping with research.

Thanks Nina, Nicolette, Janet, Debbie and Alisoun!

Hope you enjoy the books, not just Sheconomics but the latest one 'The Do Something Different Journal: 100 Ways to Shake Up Your Life' by me and Professor Ben Fletcher.

If you've taken part in our research surveys in the past, a big, warm, thermal-lined thank you.

We'll run further competitions soon and who knows, we could be digging Postman Pat out of a snow drift and pointing him in your direction soon!