Mojdeh Cox will never forget the date July 14, 2022. After 14 months as CEO of a non-profit organization in London, Ont., that was the day she fell off the glass cliff.
“That day, six weeks out from a performance appraisal that I had to initiate, I was walked off my job by an ambush meeting for a fraction of the board that showed up,” said Cox, who is a member of Invest Ottawa’s women founders and owners subcommittee.
“My staff and my colleagues, who I had a lot of respect for, were caught off guard. They also knew I was the primary breadwinner for my family. I was left not only with this trauma, but I had no way of feeding my family. (It was) governance failure at its best.”
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Cox started her career in government, working in public policy on human rights and anti-racism issues. Her work with the Canadian Labour Congress was what first brought her to Ottawa.
In 2021, she took on the position in London, managing her team virtually during the pandemic while still living in Ottawa. It wasn’t her first time in a leadership position, but she was new to being a CEO and executive director in the non-profit sector.
While she cared about her work and had supportive colleagues, the crash was inevitable in hindsight, she believes. During that time, she said she was set up to fail, with very little support from leadership.
“We really didn’t build the infrastructure for my leadership and we had a board that didn’t know what their job was,” she said. “Building infrastructure for marginalized leaders is a responsibility. If we don’t want to continue harming organizations at a high level and severing ties in the community, we’ve got to provide support and really mean it when we say we want to shift leadership to equity-deserving marginalized leaders. We can’t be tokenized anymore.”
What is a ‘glass cliff’ assignment?
Recently, Cox was one of 12 women leaders who worked with Ottawa author and leadership consultant Jenny Mitchell to help co-write her new book, “Embracing Ambition: Empowering Women to Step Out, Be Seen and Lead,” which was released in April.
The phenomenon of the “glass cliff” was one Mitchell saw in several of the women’s stories throughout the collaboration. It’s a term she familiarized herself with through the research of Meghan Rehbein, dean of Douglass College at Rutgers University in New Jersey, whose work underscored the thesis of the book.
“This was an experience that many of the leaders had,” said Mitchell, who is the CEO of Ottawa consulting firm Chavender. “We’re familiar with the glass ceiling, where you get stuck at a certain level, but a glass cliff is more like when you get hired as a last-chance candidate because you couldn’t possibly screw it up anymore.”
It’s a phenomenon that is primarily discussed in the context of women, but can also impact people of colour. For women of colour such as Cox, who is also a first-generation immigrant, the challenge can be even more significant.
“There’s a life cycle to an organization and, to me, the glass cliff assignment is in the second half of the life cycle, where change is happening but the pace of change is out of line,” said Mitchell. “To be blunt, the board is all white men. So the thing they do is hire a woman or a person of colour and they are set up to fail because they don’t have the power balance that you need in order to make the change happen.”
While there’s no shortage of toxic workplaces, Mitchell said employers aren’t necessarily malicious and may be putting new leaders into these positions unintentionally. Still, when placed on a glass cliff, intentionally or not, it can sometimes be impossible not to fall off it.
“There’s so much change that’s required and the levers are so heavy to move that you’re kind of doomed,” she said.
In some cases, the women applying for these positions are young. It’s their first foray into the C-suite and their lack of experience may make it easier for red flags to slip by.
“I’m an executive coach and often (clients) have never had leadership experience,” she said. “Anyone in their right mind would not have taken that job. It’s a double whammy. They’re new, they’re keen, they don’t have supports in place and they don’t have experience … You’re so grateful for the position and the opportunity that you may have blinders on to some of the red flags.”
In other cases, Cox said women who come into these types of roles have extensive leadership experience and are more than qualified for the position. Despite their credentials, they face doubts and even abuse in toxic, dysfunctional work environments.
“Folks who are quite qualified for the position often exceed expectations and bring people into an uncomfortable territory,” said Cox. “I don’t particularly think this is an early career phenomenon. Women, particularly on the Canadian non-profit front, have tremendous skills and experience and still face this.”
So how do skilled women end up perched atop glass cliffs, waiting for the fall? In her case, Cox said she sensed something was wrong from the beginning.
“I felt really connected to the work right off the top, but I ignored my instincts, as often women in leadership do,” she said. “Just in the selection process, I was asked by a very renowned and prominent agency for 10 references. Here I was ignoring red flags from the get-go, questions like, how do you manage your career with four children? Archaic things that you wouldn’t expect in 2021.”
According to Cox, governance shortcomings and ill-equipped boards are at the crux of the glass cliff issue, especially in the non-profit sector.
“What I’m seeing is high-calibre people (on boards) driving this glass cliff phenomenon through poor leadership and really bad governance,” she said. “They don’t have an HR committee, they don’t have a management principle, they don’t even actually have a lot of management experience, these boards. Imagine lawyers, financial experts, experts in the community, who are great at what they do but they don’t actually have basic governance concepts.”
Especially in the non-profit sector, she said organizations may be unprepared for a transfer of power, leaving incoming leaders without direction or support to tackle a mountain of issues.
“Boards don’t know what their job is,” said Cox. “Organizations are strapped and when they’re strapped they don’t have the time or the resources or even the skillset to build an onboarding process. It isn’t transparent or ethical (for incoming candidates).”
A lack of clear information about the position — including an onboarding package — is one of the flags Mitchell said women should look out for to spot a glass cliff job posting. The state of the organization’s finances should also set off alarm bells that something isn’t right in the organization.
“They don’t have sustainable funding,” she said. “They don’t know where next year’s grants are coming from. They have broken relationships with funders. That’s a major flag.”
Another thing to look out for is high turnover at the executive level, which could indicate an unhealthy environment. A lengthy hunt for a top-level replacement should also be a warning sign, especially for inexperienced candidates, indicating that other more seasoned candidates may have sensed trouble and stayed away.
“The breakdown at the board leadership level manifests itself as a breakdown between the (executive director) or the CEO. It’s an extension of the dysfunction,” she said. “There’s an element of release when they hire someone, which translates into a hands-off approach. Often they’ve gone through an extensive leadership search, multiple declines. Then you get hired and you’re so grateful. There’s a contrast in the level of excitement and enthusiasm of the new hire and the realization of how far things are from okay.”
Are glass cliff assignments ever worth the risk?
Despite their downsides, Mitchell said there’s many reasons candidates are attracted to glass cliff positions.
“It’s a powerful job title and usually a jump in title. People do look at that,” she said. “It can be a sector thing, too. Maybe it’s in the sector you want. Maybe it’s because of the pay bump.”
The question then becomes, do the potential benefits outweigh the risks?
While some falls over glass cliffs happen behind closed doors, others happen under the scrutiny of the public eye. For example, in the past few years, a handful of prominent men have left top positions in the military and in sports organizations following public scandals within their organizations and women have been brought in to clean up the mess. These “crisis appointments” may help the organization save face at the beginning, but it’s just as easy for the new women leaders to become the scapegoats, even while trying to right a doomed ship.
Mitchell said there is a certain reputational risk that women need to consider when stepping into the fray.
“There’s a risk of your professional brand being sullied with that taintedness of journalistic scandal,” she said.
But a willingness to step up to the plate amid monumental challenges can also reflect well on leaders when they apply for future opportunities, even if they couldn’t stop the organization’s downfall.
“There’s an element of there being a bigger reason for doing it,” said Mitchell. “That someone has to do it, that it must be a woman. You can be part of the calling out and due process of that organization, knowing full well that you won’t be at the next phase. It’s also hard closing an organization, but it’s an important role. It depends on the way you see it.”
Ultimately, Mitchell said the most important thing is to walk into the position with “eyes wide open” and to have the courage to turn it down if it isn’t right for you.
After she was walked off the job, Cox decided to chart her own path, working for herself. She is now the founder and CEO of Cox and Co., a boutique consulting firm that specializes in strategic planning, organizational audits and ethical governance.
When it comes to taking on glass cliff roles, she said there can be opportunities for challenge and improvement hidden within. But it’s important to assess whether those things are achievable in that particular organization’s environment.
“Trust your gut,” said Cox. “If you think there’s a problem, there probably is.”
For women who decide to take it on, she said bringing in an outside perspective can help leaders hold their ground, especially in a difficult environment. That could include hiring a leadership coach to provide advice. Cox said leaders should try to negotiate that kind of support into their contract if they feel it’s needed.
Cox said the decision to take on glass cliff roles is a personal one for every leader and every circumstance. But Cox said the most important thing is for leaders to know their worth.
“I don’t want to discourage people from taking leadership positions,” she said. “But I have to say that you’re worth more. To those folks sitting on the fence, knowing the red flags, there are other opportunities that will come that are more aligned. Before putting yourself out there for leadership roles, build your guardrails. Go for these positions, make people uncomfortable if you have to. But get support for yourself and build in that accountability.”
