Is Twitter's new CEO, Linda Yaccarino, being set up to fall off the 'glass cliff'?

• Elon Musk appointed Linda Yaccarino, a former NBCUniversal exec, to succeed him as CEO of Twitter.
• Amid Twitter's turmoil, some suggest that Yaccarino could fall prey to the so-called "glass cliff."

That Linda Yaccarino, Elon Musk's newly announced pick to succeed him as the CEO of Twitter, inherits a tough gig goes without saying. But the question is: Is she being set up to fail?

Some media outlets, including Axios, suggest that Yaccarino could fall prey to the so-called "glass cliff" — in which women and people of color are promoted into leadership positions in times of financial crisis or economic uncertainty when their chance of failure is highest.

While there's little doubt that Yaccarino, the former ad chief at NBCUniversal, is eminently qualified for the role, her track record and expertise might not matter in the end. Even when women reach the upper echelons of corporate America, the proverbial deck is often stacked against them — especially when the company is already in trouble.

"If there's a right person for this job, it's Linda, and personally, I am cheering her on," Meghana Dhar, a former executive at Snap, Snapchat's parent company, and Instagram who now works as a strategic advisor for technology companies, told Insider. "But I am also worried that she's being put in an untenable position."

Women and the 'glass cliff'

Research shows women face a number of barriers trying to climb the corporate ladder. While men often glide on a "glass escalator" to the corner office, women often confront a "glass ceiling."

The "glass cliff" — a term coined in 2005 by two academics at Exeter University in the UK — is a related occurrence. Their research suggests that women were more likely to be appointed to leadership roles in times of crisis — and as a result, were more likely to fail. More recent research in the US confirmed the trend, and other studies found that the phenomenon also applied to people of color.

Dhar said examples of the phenomenon include Carly Fiorina at HP, Marissa Mayer at Yahoo, and Sue Gove, who took over as CEO of Bed Bath & Beyond last year amid falling sales. The retailer has since filed for bankruptcy.

Twitter's turmoil is no secret. Musk has slashed the company's workforce from about 7,500 to roughly 1,000. Misinformation on the site is up, and some advertisers have fled. Meanwhile, his plans to boost Twitter's finances through paid features such as Twitter Blue have yet to pan out.

To be clear, Dhar doesn't believe Musk is trying to sabotage his new CEO. At the same time, she noted that Musk indicated he'll continue to be active at Twitter, taking on the dual roles of executive chair and chief technology officer, overseeing product, software, and systems operations.

"There's been a lot of chaos under Musk — and Linda has to dig Twitter out of that while he's still there," Dhar said. "In the meantime, she'll absorb the public scrutiny and blame if she can't pull it off."

Jennifer Reynolds, the CEO of Women Corporate Directors, a global network of 2,500 female corporate directors, said she thinks that one of the reasons the glass cliff exists is that women are often considered particularly suited to managing challenges.

"Women are seen as better leaders in times of crisis," she told Insider. "We're seen as good collaborators, good listeners, and we're thought to have the ability to get different stakeholders together to tackle tough issues.

"We're perceived to have these qualities, but the trouble is that your odds of success are harder when you're in these situations," she said. "I wish we were seen as good leaders in good times, too."

Amid a national dialogue about the importance of diversity in the workplace, Yaccarino's appointment underscores how few women lead major companies. Only about one in 10 CEOs of Fortune 500 countries is female.

Mita Mallick, the head of diversity efforts at Carta, a fintech company, and the author of the forthcoming book "Reimagine Inclusion," said that while she's experienced the glass cliff firsthand, she also believes the concept "can be weaponized to diminish" a woman's credentials.

That might be what's happening to Yaccarino, Mallick told Insider. "She has built her career working with advertisers and she's supremely qualified to solve the exact problems that Twitter is facing," Mallick said.

"I don't want to dismiss the term or have others think I am erasing their experience, but it's worth pointing out that we wouldn't be talking about this if a man with her background were taking over," she said.