Gender, Sports Coaching, and the Glass Cliff

In a recent book chapter, CSMRE director George Cunningham focused on gender, sports coaching, and the glass cliff. The latter is a theory suggesting that women are under-represented in leadership roles, and the roles they do obtain are usually high-risk in nature. After presenting a narrative review, he conducted a meta-analysis, which is a way of statistically aggregating findings from previous studies. Results showed that women were more likely than men to secure a leadership role for an organization in crisis. Results also showed that when people think about who should lead a poorly performing company, they frequently think of a woman. Finally, he examined the outcomes of the glass cliff. Whereas leader gender did not impact company performance, women appointed to precarious roles were more likely to leave that position than were men. Cunningham concluded: “Sport organisations should ensure that all people have the chance to be successful and that they have the tools needed to do so. Promoting the glass cliff by hiring women to fill precarious positions does not attract top talent, nor does it serve the sport organisation well.”

Cunningham, G. B. (2021). The glass cliff, gender, and sport leadership: A narrative review and meta-analysis. In L. Norman (Ed.), Improving gender equity in sports coaching (pp. 11-29). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003028642