Speaking on BBC’s Radio 4’s Today Program, the newly appointed first minister of Wales, Eluned Morgan, was asked what she thinks about her coming into power when there is a crisis. In the case of Eluned Morgan, the Welsh assembly was in crisis because it had to immediately replace its previous first minister, a man, Vaughan Gethin after he had resigned in controversial circumstances.
There is a current trend in the UK and politics worldwide that when things are really bad, women are brought in to solve the problems. This is known as the ‘Glass Cliff Phenomenon’. First Minister Morgan said she had broken through a few glass ceilings in her lifetime and would cope with any glass cliff she might encounter.
The glass ceiling is the barrier that keeps women out of upper management in organisations, but this barrier is broken through more easily by women when the organisation is in crisis and women are chosen to lead in favour of men. Women then perch on the metaphorical glass cliff, but risk failing in the task set before them.
The glass cliff is observed in many organisations including industry, the legal profession and politics. A 2014 analysis of the US Fortune 500 leadership found that businesses with weak performances were more likely to promote women to CEO positions than men. While a study in 2006 found that in the legal profession, women were much more likely to be assigned a high-risk legal case than men. In politics in the UK, it has been shown that males are more likely to be selected as candidates in safe seats whereas risky ones are more likely to be assigned to women!
To account for all this, results from research on gender stereotypes have suggested that in times of crisis people think that “female” traits are more important in a leader and “male” traits are less desirable. Perhaps, though, gender stereotyping is only one part of this situation, and a very complex sociological question is yet to be adequately explained.
The UK has many challenges and might be described as in disarray, or worse, in a crisis. Does this mean that after the recent general election, the current new large intake of women as Members of Parliament results from the glass cliff phenomenon? In the general election, 190 or 46% of the new Labour MPs are women, out of 264 women MPs in all parties. In addition, women have been appointed to many senior positions in the new Labour government including Deputy Prime Minister Angela Rayner, Rachel Reeves as Chancellor, Yvette Cooper, as Home Secretary, and Bridget Phillipson as Education and Shabana Mahmood Justice secretaries. Kier Starmer’s cabinet is historic because it will have the most female ministers since women were allowed to sit in the House of Commons.
So, do women make better leaders than men? Will these women do a better job of governing the UK compared with the previous, predominantly male, Conservative government? Time will tell, would be the clichéd response. We, men and women, all hope so!
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