You got the promotion. The high-visibility project. The leadership role everyone said you were ready for.

So why does it feel like you’re trying to land a plane that’s already on fire?

If you’re a woman or anyone outside of the dominant group in your organization, there’s a pattern you need to know about: the glass cliff.

What is the glass cliff?

The glass cliff describes how women and minorities are disproportionately promoted into leadership positions during times of crisis or decline—when the situation is already failing and the risk of very public failure is highest.

You’re not getting the same opportunity as everyone else. You’re getting the opportunity no one else wanted. And when it doesn’t work out, you take the blame for a situation that was broken before you ever arrived.

The term was coined by researchers Michelle Ryan and Alex Haslam in 2005 after noticing that companies appointing women to their boards had often experienced consistently poor performance in the preceding months. The women weren’t causing the decline—they were being brought in after it had already started.

What it looks like in practice

The setup:

• You’re taking over after multiple people have failed, quit, or been fired
• The project/role/company was already a “dumpster fire” but suddenly the expectation is that you’ll turn it around
• You’re praised as the savior who’s finally going to fix everything
• There’s a lot of visibility but very little actual authority or support
• Resources that were “promised” keep disappearing or never materialize

The pattern:

• You’re handed an impossible situation
• Given inadequate support and resources
• Held to higher scrutiny than your predecessors
• When it doesn’t work, you’re blamed for the failure rather than the system that was already failing

The aftermath:

• Leadership gets to claim they “gave you a shot” without acknowledging they never actually set you up to succeed
• Your failure becomes proof that “people like you” aren’t ready for leadership
• Or that you specifically weren’t the right fit
• Meanwhile, the structural problems that caused the crisis in the first place remain unaddressed
• The next person brought in (often someone from the dominant group during “recovery”) gets more resources, more patience, more credit

Why this happens

Organizations don’t do this consciously or maliciously (usually). Here’s the logic:

“We need to shake things up”

When things are going badly, there’s pressure to do something different. Promoting someone who doesn’t look like the previous leaders feels like change. But it’s often change in aesthetics without change in support, resources, or structural dysfunction.

“She’s so capable, she can handle anything”

High performers from underrepresented groups often have to be exceptional just to be considered competent. So when there’s a crisis, you’re the obvious choice—you’ve already proven you can do more with less. The problem is that “more with less” becomes the permanent expectation.

Expendability

Harsh truth: if leadership knows the situation is likely to fail, putting someone from the outgroup in that role is lower risk to the organization’s core leadership pipeline.

Here’s the logic: If someone from the ingroup fails spectacularly, it raises questions about the organization’s judgment and leadership development. It might damage that person’s career, but it also reflects poorly on whoever promoted them.

But if you fail? It confirms existing doubts. “We gave them a chance, but they weren’t ready.” Your failure doesn’t prompt soul-searching about broken systems—it becomes evidence that justifies not taking chances on people like you in the future.

Meanwhile, the ingroup talent is preserved for roles where success is more likely, protecting both their careers and the organization’s leadership pipeline.

The martyr narrative

There’s something culturally appealing about the story of the outsider who saves the day. It absolves the organization of responsibility (“we gave them a chance!”) while setting you up as either the hero or the scapegoat, depending on outcomes you may not be able to control.

The compounding effect with burnout

If you read the main article about high achiever burnout patterns, you might have noticed something: glass cliff situations are specifically designed to trigger every single one of those patterns simultaneously.

Let’s map it:

Say Yes → You’re given the “opportunity” and feel you can’t refuse without seeming ungrateful or incapable

Be the Hero → The entire framing is that you’re the person who can save this impossible situation

Stretch Targets → Success metrics keep shifting as the situation deteriorates, so there’s no stable goalpost

Live and Breathe the Mission → Intense pressure to prove yourself and represent your “group,” not just do the job

Paying Your Dues → You’re told this is your chance to prove yourself, so any complaint about resources or support sounds like you’re not willing to work hard enough

On top of that, you’re likely experiencing:

• Isolation – You’re often the only one, or one of few, which means less informal support and more visibility 
• Scrutiny – Your mistakes are noticed and remembered in ways your peers’ mistakes aren’t
• Stereotype threat – The psychological burden of knowing your performance will be generalized to your entire group
• Gaslighting – When you point out the lack of resources or impossible conditions, you’re told the previous person “made it work” (they didn’t—that’s literally why you’re here)

This is why glass cliff situations accelerate burnout. You’re not just working hard—you’re working hard in a rigged game while carrying extra psychological weight that others don’t have to bear.

Red flags you might be on a glass cliff

Not every difficult role is a glass cliff. Sometimes challenges are genuine growth opportunities. Here’s how to tell the difference:

Green flags (challenging but fair):

• Clear success metrics that don’t keep changing
• Adequate resources relative to the scope of the challenge
• Support from leadership when you identify what’s needed
• Your predecessors left for normal reasons (promotion, new opportunity) not politics or failure
• When you push back on unrealistic expectations, people listen and adjust
• Other people in similar roles have similar challenges and similar support

Red flags (potential glass cliff):

• Multiple people have failed in this role or quit quickly
• The situation was already in crisis before you arrived, but the narrative is that you’ll fix it
• Resources you were promised during onboarding keep getting delayed or cut
• You have high visibility but low actual authority to make decisions
• When you ask for what you need, you’re compared unfavorably to a predecessor who “made it work” 
• Success is defined vaguely but failure will be defined very specifically (and attributed to you)
• You’re getting a lot of symbolic wins (titles, visibility, praise) but not material support (budget, staff, authority)

The key question: Are you being set up to succeed or set up to be the scapegoat?

What to do if you’re on a glass cliff

First: Get clear on what you’re actually dealing with

Document everything:

• What you were promised vs. what you actually received
• Resources requested vs. resources provided
• How success metrics have shifted
• How your experience compares to predecessors or peers

If the situation is fair, the data will show it. If it’s not, you need evidence.

Second: Ask the hard questions early

Before accepting a glass cliff role (if you can):

• “What happened to the last person in this role?”
• “What resources are already allocated to this project?”
• “What authority will I have to make changes?”
• “What does success look like in 6 months, 12 months, 24 months?”
• “When previous people in this role identified resource gaps, how did the organization respond?”

If you’re already in it:

• “What resources do I actually need to succeed at this—not to perform a miracle, but to succeed under reasonable conditions?”
• “What are the real requirements for success, and are they being applied consistently to everyone?”
• “What structural problems need to be fixed, and what’s the plan to fix them?”

Third: Stop being the miracle worker

I know. The whole reason you got this role is because you’ve proven you can pull off miracles. But every time you do, you:

• Train the organization that dysfunction is fine 
• Enable broken systems to keep operating poorly
• Become the human band-aid that prevents actual fixes

Sometimes the most strategic thing you can do is let the thing fail in a visible way so the organization has to confront the systemic problem instead of just replacing you with the next person they’ll burn through.

Fourth: Build your exit plan before you need it

Hope for the best, plan for the worst.

• Keep your network active outside this organization
• Document your wins (because if this goes badly, your accomplishments will be minimized)
• Keep your skills current and your resume updated
• Have financial reserves if possible
• Know what your boundaries are—what would make you leave

You’re not being pessimistic. You’re protecting yourself. 

Fifth: Find your people

You need:

• Mentors or advisors outside of the project who understand the dynamics 
• Peers who’ve worked with this specific team or navigated glass cliffs before and can help you reality-test what’s happening
• People outside your industry who aren’t playing the same game and can remind you what normal looks like
• People who care about you as a person, not as a miracle worker

You can’t do this alone. The isolation is part of what makes glass cliffs so effective at burning people out.

When to stay vs. when to go

Consider staying if:

• You have genuine support from leadership that listens when you identify problems and provides resources
• The challenge is real, but the conditions for success exist or can be created
• The work aligns with your values, goals, and your definition of success
• You’re learning and growing, not just surviving
• You have the capacity and desire to navigate this

Consider leaving if:

• Your health is deteriorating
• Success is impossible by design
• You’ve identified what’s needed, and they won’t provide it
• The psychological toll of performing a miracle outweighs any benefit
• You’ve identified a better opportunity elsewhere
• You’re staying out of guilt, proving a point, or because leaving feels like failure
• The team is committed to the dysfunction and you’re just there to look like they tried

Sometimes the smartest thing you can do is recognize you’ve been handed a losing hand and walk away before it destroys you.

Leaving doesn’t mean they were right about you. It means you were smart enough not to let a broken system break you.

The bigger picture

This happens because organizations are change-averse. Whether it’s leadership, culture, structure, or systems—they’d rather see someone take the fall than materially change what’s fundamentally broken.

The glass cliff lets organizations claim they’re promoting diversity while simultaneously setting those leaders up to fail, which then becomes evidence that “diverse leaders” aren’t ready—conveniently ignoring they were never given the same conditions for success.

Until organizations are actually rewarded for fixing what’s broken and held accountable for burning through people, individuals need to protect themselves.

Final thought

If you’re on a glass cliff right now, this isn’t your fault.

You’re not failing because you’re not good enough. You’re navigating a system that set you up differently than it sets up others.

The strategies in the previous burnout article still apply—you still need to redefine success, distinguish between challenging and impossible, build in forced stops, and protect your capacity.

But you also need to be honest about the additional weight you’re carrying that others aren’t. And sometimes the healthiest choice is to refuse to carry it.

You don’t owe anyone your health, your wellbeing, or your sense of self-worth in exchange for an “opportunity” that was designed to fail.

Sometimes walking away from the cliff is the real win.

Related: Why High Achievers Are More Prone to Burnout – The internal mindsets that combine with glass cliff dynamics to accelerate burnout