Race, ethnicity and the glass cliff: understanding the 'saviour effect'
How the glass cliff extends beyond gender, and what happens when under-represented leaders are replaced.
In short
- Research shows the glass cliff extends to racial and ethnic minority leaders, not only women.
- Cook and Glass found minority leaders more likely to be promoted into struggling organisations, in both business and college sport.
- When results do not recover, they are disproportionately replaced by white men: the 'saviour effect'.
- Women of colour may face compounded scrutiny, a theme in recent research and practitioner work.
The glass cliff is not only about gender
The original glass cliff research focused on women. Within a few years, researchers asked whether the same pattern applied to other leaders who are under-represented at the top. The 2020 meta-analysis by Morgenroth and colleagues concluded that it does: the glass cliff extended to members of under-represented racial and ethnic groups.
The key evidence
College sport
In a 2013 study in Social Problems, Alison Cook and Christy Glass examined head coaches in US college basketball. Minority coaches were more likely than white coaches to be hired by teams with losing records. When those teams did not improve, the minority coaches were more likely to be replaced by white coaches.
Fortune 500 companies
In 2014, Cook and Glass extended the analysis to Fortune 500 CEO appointments over fifteen years. Women and racial or ethnic minority executives were more likely than white men to be promoted to CEO of weakly performing firms. When performance declined during their tenure, they were more likely to be replaced by white men.
New doctoral research
A 2025 doctoral thesis at Dublin City University by Sean Dempsey examined ethnic minority leaders and the glass cliff, focusing on how context and categorisation shape precarious appointments. It is one sign of how actively the field is still developing.
The saviour effect
The "saviour effect" is the second half of the pattern. An under-represented leader is appointed to a struggling organisation. Results do not recover quickly, as is common in hard turnarounds. The leader is replaced, and the replacement is disproportionately a white man, often framed as the person who will "restore stability".
The effect is damaging in two ways. It shortens the tenure of under-represented leaders, and it creates a misleading story in which their departure and their successor's arrival seem to confirm that the original appointment was the problem.
Where gender and race meet
Practitioners and researchers increasingly discuss the experience of Black women and other women of colour in glass cliff roles, who may face heightened scrutiny and less empathy than either white women or men of colour. Catalyst has run programming on Black women and the glass cliff, and author Sophie Williams addresses race and gender together in her TEDx and TED talks, which are in our video library.
What organisations can do
- Compare treatment. Before ending an appointment, compare the time, resources and support given with what previous leaders received.
- Review before replacing. Understand why an appointment is not working before choosing a successor, and test whether the "safe" choice is a reaction rather than a decision.
- Measure the trend. Judge leaders against the baseline they inherited.
- Build support in from the start. Sponsors, coaching and a clear mandate reduce the chance of an early exit.
Boards can work through these questions with our Board Appointment Check.
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Questions
Does the glass cliff apply to minority men as well as women?
Yes. Research by Cook and Glass in business and sport, and the 2020 meta-analysis, found the pattern extends to racial and ethnic minority leaders.
Who coined the term saviour effect?
It is most closely associated with the work of Alison Cook and Christy Glass on leadership succession in US college sport and Fortune 500 companies.
Is the saviour effect intentional?
Usually not. It tends to come from rushed decisions under pressure and assumptions about who looks like a safe pair of hands.
Sources and further reading
- Cook, A., & Glass, C. (2013). Glass cliffs and organizational saviors: Barriers to minority leadership in work organizations? Social Problems, 60(2). Find the paper
- Cook, A., & Glass, C. (2014). Above the glass ceiling. Strategic Management Journal, 35(7). Find the paper
- Morgenroth, T., et al. (2020). Psychological Bulletin, 146(9), 797–829. Link
- Dempsey, S. (2025). Ethnic minority leaders and the glass cliff. PhD thesis, Dublin City University. Link
- Catalyst: Black women and the glass cliff (2024). Link
Read next
- Twenty years of glass cliff research: what the evidence says, and where it disagreesA plain-language tour of the key studies, the null findings, and what a careful reader should conclude.
- For boards: how to appoint a crisis leader without setting them up to failA governance guide for chairs, nomination committees, CHROs and search panels.
- What is the glass cliff? The complete guideWhere the term came from, what the evidence shows, why it happens, and what leaders and boards can do about it.