One woman, Linda Yaccarino, is the new CEO (CEO: Chief Executive Officer) of Twitter, the owned network Elon Musk. Investors and economic journalists are worried about Musk’s ubiquity, which is starting to affect their business. There have been warnings about Tesla’s future, for example, and also about the economics of Twitter, which Musk seems determined to turn into a non-neutral political platform. Campaign launch Ron DeSantis to the Republican primary to the presidential election from 2024 This is a more than clear indication.

But the most interesting thing about the Yaccarino case is the little-known phenomenon of the so-called “glass cliff(glass cliff). In contrast to the glass ceiling, an invisible barrier that prevents women from accessing the highest decision-making positions, in business or politics, the glass cliff hypothesis states that women are more likely to reach these positions of power only when the organization is in crisis or in times of serious trouble.Strength is uncertain.

This theory was presented in 2005 by two psychology professors from University of Exeter, Michelle Ryan and Alexander Haslam, in an article published in the British Journal of Management. In United States of America, the press recalls similar cases of Marissa Mayer, who led the sale of Yahoo to Verizon in its final months (in 2012), or the case of Ellen Pao, which was signed in 2014 to save Reddit, without success. We will have a closer example in Spain with the case of Inés Arrimadas and the decline of Ciudadanos. Professors Ryan and Haslam checked the listed companies Great Britain, and they concluded that, already in the 2000s, the arrival of women at the top of large corporations had more to do with the company’s poor financial behavior in earlier months than with explicit recognition of their professional and executive qualities. .

The existence of the crystal cliff is a problem, for several reasons. Set on this precarious leadership womanone that seems doomed to fail, feeding an atavistic discourse about greater capacity traditional executive (white male) versus other options. Also that women manage worse. There is nothing innocent in this type of decision. Hopefully Yaccarino will not become another victim caught in this trap.