Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2026
ISSN
0047-7575
Publisher
University of Missouri-Kansas City
Language
en-US
Abstract
First articulated by researchers Michelle K. Ryan and S. Alexander Haslam in 2005, the glass cliff theory posits that individuals from traditionally underrepresented groups in leadership, such as women and people of color, are more likely to obtain executive leadership positions during times of crisis, which means that such leaders take on their roles under conditions where they are more prone to fail. In this Essay, we focus on what we have termed “the other side of the glass cliff”: the intentional steps that women and people of color leaders in the legal academy have taken to build structures that can enhance any candidate’s, particularly outsider candidates’, opportunities for obtaining deanships and succeeding within them. To do so, we first describe and analyze the glass cliff theory in Part II, noting the theory’s importance in explaining the circumstances that increase the likelihood that faculties and university leadership will support an outsider’s appointment to an executive leadership role. Additionally, we highlight not only the perils for outsiders appointed to leadership roles on the glass cliff, but also the gender and racial biases they regularly encounter in professional spaces, which further compound the challenges of their entering leadership roles during crisis situations. In Part III, we shift our focus from examining women and people of color deans as artifacts of the glass cliff to acknowledging their agency in both producing leadership opportunities for themselves and enabling structures to aid others on a similar path.
Recommended Citation
Angela Onwuachi-Willig & Kellye Testy,
The Other Side of the Glass Cliff
,
94
UMKC Law Review
651
(2026).
Available at:
https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/4220
