In Times of Crises: More Women Appointed to Leadership Positions |

When organizations face turbulent times, leadership choices often change in telling ways. Periods of crisis, financial strain, or public scrutiny appear to open doors that are otherwise firmly closed. This raises questions about why women are more likely to be appointed to top roles precisely when the stakes are highest and the risk of failure is greatest.

This pattern is described by the Glass Cliff theory, which suggests that women are more likely to be appointed to leadership positions when organizations are in crisis, for instance, during financial difficulties or following corporate scandals. While women remain far less likely than men to be selected for top positions overall, Max Reinwald, Assistant Professor of Management, explains that their chances increase markedly in times of organizational turmoil.

The recent media attention was sparked by the appointment of Evelyn Palla as the new CEO of Deutsche Bahn, a company that has long faced major challenges. Reinwald interprets such appointments as an attempt by organizations to signal renewal and change in difficult times. This tendency is particularly strong in companies that have traditionally been led by men – such as Deutsche Bahn. The greater the public visibility of an organization, the more pronounced the Glass Cliff effect tends to be.

Reinwald’s findings are based on a large-scale study conducted together with two colleagues from the University of Konstanz, in which they analyzed over 26,000 leadership transitions in publicly listed U.S. companies between 2000 and 2016. Although only 7.4 percent of these transitions involved women, the results are statistically robust due to the large sample size. Reinwald assumes that the findings are broadly transferable to the German context.

In Times of Crises: More Women Appointed to Leadership Positions

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