Breaking the Glass Ceiling—and the Glass Cliff: Rethinking Women’s Career Advancement

In the first two decades of the 21st century — a time extremely favorable to women as voices in society and the labor market — many Western and Eastern European countries have made significant progress in closing the gender gap. However, there is still much work to be done. Organizations, in general, still do not fully support women along their career paths.

This is exactly what we discussed with Martina Ernst, Academic Director of the Short Program People & Culture Management at the WU Executive Academy, WU Vienna. Martina is also actively involved in the university’s female leaders network, which was founded a few years ago, serving on its board.

The team at WU Executive Academy conducted a study on why women, particularly female executives, often do not pursue their careers to their full potential. Not only did they identify the reasons behind this, but they also explored possible solutions and alternatives for how women can overcome these challenges.

The university itself sets an example of best practices through its MBA program, where the 23-person cohort of the Bucharest EMBA 2025 includes a high percentage of women—entrepreneurs and managers alike. Notably, a woman, Eliza Gereanu, who served as Head of the Bucharest EMBA Class of 2023–2025, was nominated by the CEM of the WU Executive Academy as the WUman Leader Hub Manager for Romania.

Therefore, Martina Ernst revealed that their main focus is understanding what needs to happen across three key pillars—society, organizations, and women themselves—to increase the chances for women to advance in their careers. She said that one of the topics which really create a barrier for women to advance in their careers is organization-wise, the glass ceiling effect. And what is even, in my opinion, is even more important to consider is the glass cliff effect.

“This was a term which was coined in 2005 by British researchers and then confirmed in 2014 by American researchers. One, the British ones checked the FTSE 100 companies and the other, the Fortune 500.

And they both saw that women had a higher chance to be appointed CEOs or board members when the company was in a crisis just before this period of appointment. Why? They used the women as scapegoats or they thought women are more likely to negotiate harsh layoffs or they thought that women might be more able to be mediators. And what also was interesting, at the same time, they found out that, and they call it the phenomenon of the glass cushion, that men were brought in after the women had turned around positively the company because then it’s like it’s going back to normal, then we want a man.

When things are rough, they want to signal to the supervisory board, we change, we do a total transformation, and then a woman comes in handy. When things go back to normal, women are maybe a bit too complicated or too demanding in the way how they work because they are different. So they want things like in old times.

So this is a phenomenon which was taken or researched. And what does it mean for women? It’s not only women do so much to break the glass ceiling, but I think what they have to do is, and that’s why this glass sleeve is so important, they have to ask themselves when they are appointed. Why am I appointed? Not like, oh, I’m so thankful I’m appointed. I will do everything to please them. No, they have to think of why is it I’m appointed? What is the risk I’m running? And of course, it’s not that I say don’t take a risk. You have to take always controlled risks.

So the question is how can I control my risk? What is it the other side can do for me to make sure that my likelihood to succeed is high? So this is important because often men do that automatically and women have the tendency, as they are so underrepresented, to be overly thankful. That does not really advance them in their careers,” Mrs. Ernst explained.

At the same time, women often carry a disproportionately high care and mental load, even when household responsibilities are shared. This, combined with traditional, male-dominated management styles, creates a work environment in which women may feel pressured to conform or isolated, leading many to opt out of leadership opportunities. Even when women attain top positions, their tenure is typically shorter, often because the organizational culture does not support their success. Additionally, societal biases and stereotypes, such as the idea that girls are inherently weaker in math, begin early in life and continue to undermine women’s confidence and career progression. Although women make up the majority of university graduates in some countries, they are still more likely to experience career stagnation or drop out around age 35—often due to childcare—while men, even with lower qualifications, continue to rise. Without proactive measures, this trend persists across both academia and the corporate world.

“The other thing is that women normally, as they have such high care load, and they also tend to have the higher mental load because they think of everything which needs to be done, even if the husband maybe does 50% of the share.

In addition, there is also the traditional management style. Why is this a hurdle for women? Very simple. When you are the only one in the room, you have the feeling you either need to adapt and become a kind of a man, which you don’t want to. And or you are like always the black sheep or the strange alien in the room, which doesn’t make your job easier. And this is also why it’s not only that women are not asked to step up, but often when they are asked, they say no.

And one of the reasons is because they don’t see themselves in this strange environment. Women tend to be, the tenure of female CEOs is shorter in average than the tenure of male CEOs. Why? Because often women, they’re happy to be appointed, but then they find out they cannot be successful in the environment. And then normally they themselves drop out. So it’s also not really helpful in their careers.

And the other thing is the classical pain points is where women need to work on themselves together with all the people who are in their entourage. It’s the bias and the stereotypes.

Maybe you’ve heard of the stereotype threat. It starts at age of five. So this means everyone thinks you’re a woman, you can’t be good in math. Moms often say to their daughters, don’t worry, I wasn’t good in math. Doesn’t matter. But this is a false belief because maybe she’s excellent. For instance, in Austria, 63% of the graduates from universities are women. Men have a lower percentage.  But, despite this, over the years, the women decline in their career. And there is a flat period at around 35 where women drop out because of the kids.

And the men with a lower degree climb and get, percentage-wise, get to much higher positions. This was observed in the academic field with professor positions. But honestly, I can say more or less the same for in companies. Unless companies vigorously work against you. But that’s the natural trend. If you do not work against it,” Martina  Ernst pointed out.

Another topic addressed by the Academic Director of the Short Program People & Culture Management at the WU Executive Academy is the called leaky pipeline or broken rung concept.

“It’s something we have to think about. Yeah, because honestly, when I was the head of HR for a company, and we were responsible for 20,000 people, and at the beginning, women even earned a little bit more. So there was no gender pay gap.

And there was not even in big corporations when companies really take care of being fair and gender neutral, there is no gap. But once women get the first child, the chip gets to minimum 5%. And then when the woman gets a second child, it gets to over 10%.

Why? Because then women come back into part-time positions. And often companies then give these women who have the same qualification as before, and maybe even a higher one because of management with children, they get lower positions. So they decline, although their competences have not declined.

And this is really the unfortunate case in our society, in the German-speaking. I don’t think it applies to CE countries. But it’s not that the choice of the woman.

I mean, otherwise, she chooses to have the child, and she decides, I want to work less time, so I can stay. A couple decides to have a child, and the men have zero disadvantage in their careers. They just continue.

They’re never asked, why do you have, how do you manage three kids and a career? Women are constantly asked. And it’s true that in our society, because of this mom guilt phenomenon, women even put themselves, I would say they degrade themselves. But it’s psychologically because of the stereotypes we have in our country, especially in the German-speaking markets,” Martina detailed.

Another aspect that is negatively impacting on women’s career in socialization terms is that women tend to be overworked and undervalued because the society expects women to be the main caretakers, a thing that is taken for granted.

In this respect, a professor at the Executive Academy conducted research showing that women are often perceived as being in the “wrong” age group throughout their careers. Early on, they are seen as too young or naive, then considered a risk due to potential maternity, and later viewed as too old. “These biases significantly impact women’s professional opportunities. One HR leader shared a successful initiative to hire women over 50, who turned out to be highly committed, efficient, and valuable team members—despite common prejudices about age. However, such age-related stereotypes remain deeply ingrained in both corporate culture and individuals’ mindsets. As the workforce ages, there is hope for a shift, but overcoming these false beliefs is essential for real change. So this is a hindrance,” Martina underlined.

Another issue is the self-representation. “Women always say, no, I don’t want to be visible. Currently, I’m listening to researchers from the Harvard Kennedy Business School, and they argue that companies should not have an opt-in policy for leadership advancements but an opt-out, meaning  you should automatically be eligible for a career position if you comply with certain requirements. And only if you say, by no means, I want this position, then you are like, how to say, eliminated from this career ladder. Because what we do now is many companies, they say, but she didn’t apply for the job. So, full stop, end of story. And this is how the broken rung or the leaky pipeline happens. Because we know by research and by practice, women do not apply. They look at what the requirements are from the next higher position, and they say, no, no, no, I can’t do that,” Martina said, adding that she was in the same situation when she was young.

“Honestly, I was the same when I was young. And I had the chance that our CEO and the head of HR, they really believed in me, and they gave me a fallback option. I had negotiated it, really. I was a typical woman, and I was like, no, no, no, I am not able. And each time they promoted me, I wanted a fallback option. And only the last three or four times, I was like, I knew that somehow it would work out. But it’s a different learning curve than to men. Men are not like this.”

So, the WU Executive career expert argued that to support female advancement, organizations must consider the entire employee journey—from job postings to promotions—ensuring inclusive language and visuals, unbiased recruitment processes, and ongoing bias awareness. One-off bias trainings are ineffective; instead, interviewers should receive reminders of potential biases before each interview. Tracking key performance indicators (KPIs) such as gender balance in hiring, promotions, and talent pipelines is essential. An example is UniCredit, which required executive search firms to provide 50-50 gender candidate lists. The speaker also points out that countries like Romania, where many women hold leadership roles, can serve as role models for others lagging behind in gender equality.

“I really think in organizations, apart from what the state has to do, in organizations, what you have to do is you need to look at the total employee journey, and you need to think of, do I address people accordingly? So will women, when they read the job assignment, would they apply? Often they won’t. So you need to adjust pictures, language, so that it’s appealing for women. Then you need to look at, how is my recruiting? How biased am I? And also here, I listened to a researcher who said, now corporations do a lot of bias trainings, but they are not effective if you do them once, and then you just say, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, and you go out and forget about them.

So what you need to do is, the moment before you interview someone, you should get two or three questions which remind you of your potential biases. That is really effective, because then you are aware that this might occur, and then you can change it. So this is the second thing which has to happen.

Then you need to rigorously follow KPIs. Without KPIs, honestly, you can forget everything. You need to track, do I really recruit 50% men or women? How does my talent pipeline look like 50-50? What about my promotions 50-50, yes or no? And if you don’t, for example, I remember UniCredit already in 2010, 2011, they sent a letter to all the executive search companies saying, if you want to continue working with us, you either provide us with 50-50, and these were all top positions, because otherwise you don’t use executive search, or we discontinue our corporation.

I remember, it was like a shockwave, because this is in the land, and how can we provide a 50-50?” Mrs Ernst stated, noting that in Romania, many companies have women in charge and as a general note, women here are helped by a more pro-work mindset.

“I think you are really in a lucky position, because we can learn from countries like Romania”, she concluded.

Martina Ernst, Academic Director of the Short Program People & Culture Management of the WU Executive Academy. Martina Ernst is former head of human resources at Erste Bank, founder of the salary and career consulting companies, www.salarynegotiations.at , www.fairandequalpay.com and www.colourfulcareer.com