Women Get Handed Leadership Roles in Times of Crisis
Originally published by Emma Partis for HR Leader
Last Wednesday (1 October), ANU Professor Michelle Ryan told the 2025 Women Unlimited Conference in Sydney about her research on the “glass cliff”, a phenomenon where women are much more likely to be appointed to leadership roles in a time of crisis.
“What we find is that in all of these studies, over and over and over again, a female candidate is much more likely to be chosen when things are going badly,” Ryan said.
“If you take on leadership positions in crisis, when things are going badly, share prices plummeting, you can imagine that that’s a much harder job and the chance of failure is much higher than if you take on a leadership position when everything is going well.”