Glass cliff or breakthrough: four questions that tell you which one you're looking at
On a Sunday afternoon, the board chair places the call. Six straight quarters of losses have piled up in the division, and the two women who ran it before you were both out the door within a year and a half. The job is yours if you want it: a larger title, a $90,000 raise, a seat on the executive committee, and a mandate that, read closely, says "fix what two people before you could not, with the same budget and the same board." You are 53. For half a decade you have been getting ready for a post this demanding, so you know exactly why they are approaching you at this moment. Before Friday arrives, the chair needs your decision.
Whether you have the ability is not the issue that matters most. It is whether this is a glass cliff or a breakthrough, and from the outside the two look exactly alike.
Option A: Take it as offered
The risks on the other side are obvious enough. Should the division stay broken, you end up as the next name in a sequence of failures, and people tend to recall those sequences. Companies seldom ask why three presidents in a row fell short. Once you're gone, they will start hunting for a replacement, and that replacement typically shows up with more money to spend and fewer people watching over the shoulder. Russell Reynolds found, in a small sample so treat it as a signal rather than a verdict, that women CEOs averaged 5.2 years in the role compared with 8.1 for men. Short tenures follow a pattern, not bad luck.
Option B: Walk away
This path has a cost too. Roles of this scale don't open up every year, and "she turned it down" is a story that spreads. You keep your record unblemished, but you may be giving up the one chance to show you can run something that is losing money. Now and then a situation is truly as hopeless as it looks. At other times, you are simply looking at a difficult assignment that no one else was willing to take, and the person who gets it receives the praise if it succeeds.
Option C: Take it on your terms
Agree to the role, but only with terms you have spelled out in a document before anything is signed. That means a defined runway, a named board sponsor, a budget line that did not exist for your predecessors, and a success measure at eighteen months that is more than simply "profitable." The risk is that you may hear no, and a no to reasonable conditions is among the most useful answers you will receive all year. That tells you they were after a familiar face to display, not a real recovery plan.
Counsel from seasoned leaders
Executives who inherited a failing unit and actually pulled it back usually start by putting four questions to the board.
Step 1. Why did the previous two depart, described in their own words rather than as the chair framed it? Call them. They will tell you.
Step 2. What has changed since then? If your name is the only one mentioned, treat that as praise rather than a strategy.
Step 3. Which board member will share ownership of this result with you? If no one can step forward with that name, no one will stand behind you when the first quarter comes in weak.
Step 4. At the eighteen-month mark, what would count as success, spelled out on paper? Without a written standard they cannot assess your work fairly, yet they will still pass judgment on it regardless.
Closing verdict
Everything rests on how the first question is answered. Should it turn out that the previous two were positioned to fail and only the job title is new, say no or push back until the arrangement is genuinely altered. If a meaningful change has occurred, secure it in writing and line up a sponsor to back it. Real turnarounds often present themselves looking like a cliff that now comes with funding. Florida women weighing a role like this can test their terms with a local resource such as the Florida SBDC Network or a women's business group in their own region before they answer.
Your vote
Which option do you pick? You can accept it, refuse it, or accept it on conditions you set. Vote below. We will publish the split next week, along with the question most of you say you would ask first.