It's TED Talks Daily. I'm Elise Hugh. Today's talk asks us to peel back our socialized

assumptions about women and people of color who ascend to C-suite jobs and other top positions.

Sure, they've made it past the proverbial glass ceiling, but anti-racism advocate Sophie Williams

lays out a far more insidious problem.

The Glass Cliff. Her TEDx London women talk from 2021 makes the case for better recognizing

the dynamics at play here in order to change them for the better.

So I spend most of my time talking and thinking and writing about women's experiences in UK and US workplaces, particularly black women's experiences.

And so for me, understanding the glass cliff, the situation that underrepresented leaders find themselves in, when they take on leadership positions

only to find that their chances of success have been limited before they even begin, really was

an eye-opener. Now, I'm aware that for a lot of people, this might be the first time you're hearing

about the glass cliff. And so I think the easiest way into the conversation

is by starting with the glass ceiling.

That invisible but seemingly impossible to break through barrier

that sits above the heads of women in business

and stops them from reaching the absolute pinnacles

of their professional capabilities.

We talk a lot about the glass ceiling being there

and what it's like to live and to work underneath it,

but we don't really talk about what happens to those people

who do manage to break through.

I feel like we maybe have this shared imagination

that if someone were able to break through the glass ceiling,

...