17 The Glass Cliff

African American CEOs as Crisis Leaders

LYNN PERRY WOOTEN and ERIKA HAYES JAMES

The presence of African American CEOs in Fortune 500 corporations has been described as “glacial”—a slow-moving change with limited progress (White, 2017). In 2001, when we began this millennium, Ken Chenault was appointed CEO of American Express, and throughout the next ten years other Fortune 500 companies appointed African American CEOs—Don Thompson at McDonald’s, Ursula Burns at Xerox, Roger Ferguson at TIAA-CREF, Kenneth Frazier at Merck, and Marvin Ellison at JCPenney. Although African American CEOs held only 2 percent of Fortune 500 CEO positions, their appointments were considered an upward trend. By 2018, however, there appeared to be a halt to this slow but positive trajectory, with only three African American CEOs at Fortune 500 companies.

There are speculations about the causes of this trend, including entry barriers to the C-suite for minorities, corporate diversity polices shifting away from race, and the next generation of African American leaders opting out of the C-suite track and pursuing careers as entrepreneurs and in the nonprofit, educational, and government sectors. Why is this so? Could it be that the role of an African American CEO is perceived as a glass cliff—a risky or precarious leadership position that involves the management of organizations in crisis? If this is the case, are African Americans who are considering CEO positions deterred? And are corporate boards aware of the glass cliff phenomenon when appointing African American CEOs?

Previous research on the glass cliff has focused on occupational minorities, or women and people of color who are underrepresented in certain professions or job categories. In the case of women, some research has concluded that they are preferentially selected for leadership roles for organizations in crisis because of the perception that women have the attributes to manage these situations—being sympathetic, emotionally intelligent, understanding, and intuitive—and that these same attributes may be associated with ethnic minorities (Cook & Glass, 2013; Kulich, Ryan, & Haslam, 2014; Ryan, Haslam, Hersby, & Bongiorno, 2011). An alternative rationale for the appointment of women or ethnic minorities to lead crisis situations is that the organization wants to signal that it is in change or reinvention mode. For instance, this may be the case if white men have historically led the organization and it is now believed that a change to the demographic makeup of its leadership will signal a potential transformation (Bruckmüller & Branscombe, 2010).

A somewhat different perspective for the appointment of occupational minorities as leaders of crisis situations is the desire to protect white male leaders from extraordinarily difficult leadership positions or from being the scapegoat for a failed turnaround attempt. On the other hand, occupational minorities may be more willing to accept such leadership positions because of a fear that they will not be hired for leadership roles otherwise, as well as a belief that these jobs are an investment in their future career trajectory (Collins, 1997; Ryan & Haslam, 2007). In these situations, occupational minorities are expected to be “saviors,” yet often they have limited social capital, significant resource constraints, unrealistic performance expectations, and considerable visibility, and therefore pressure to succeed (Oelbaum, 2016; Staw, Sandelands, & Dutton, 1981). Moreover, key stakeholders (e.g., members of the board of directors) are often impatient with leadership during crisis situations and expect quick results that may not be feasible to achieve in a short-time frame.

In recent years, numerous articles have been written about the glass cliff. Yet we know little about this phenomenon as it relates to African American leaders in the corporate world. Our study addresses this gap in the literature by exploring the experiences of African American CEOs in Fortune 1000 corporations. In particular, we sought to understand the extent to which African American CEOs were appointed to positions that involved leading organizations in crises, characterize the leadership strategies employed during their tenure as CEO, and depict how stakeholders responded to the leadership of these executives.

Research Methodology

As in our previous research in crisis leadership, we used a multiple-case-study methodology to understand the experiences of African American CEOs (James & Wooten, 2006; Wooten & James, 2008). As summarized in table 17-1, the sample comprises seventeen African American CEOs of major corporations who have been featured in the press, including Black Enterprise, Bloomberg Business, Fortune, and the Wall Street Journal. The average tenure of the African American CEOs in our sample is 6.5 years; by contrast, according to an Equilar study (2017), the average tenure for CEOs in Standard & Poor’s companies is 7.2 years.

For our database of articles, Clifton Wharton Jr. was noted as the first CEO of a Fortune 500 company when his appointment began in 1987 for TIAA-CREF. Surprisingly, the sample only has one woman, Ursula Burns. But other African American women have served as corporate division presidents and CEOs of smaller companies, including Rosalind Brewer, former head of Walmart’s Sam’s Club and now chief operating officer of Starbucks; Debra Lee, chairman and CEO of Viacom’s BET (Black Entertainment Television) unit; Stacy Brown Philpot, CEO of TaskRabbit; and Channing Dungey, president of ABC, a division of Disney (La Monica, 2017; Zarya, 2017).

For each CEO, secondary qualitative data was collected from the business press to create a case study. We acknowledge that the archival data used to create the case studies has inherent biases because it is information that was shared with the media. These narratives do, however, represent the formal documentation, perceptions of stakeholders, and primary source for communicating with external constituents about the CEOs in our sample (Altheide, 1996; Forster, 1994).

To develop the case study for each CEO, we coded the business articles to look at three time periods: (1) the press release for his or her appointment as CEO and the experiences brought to the role; (2) the tenure as CEO and associated leadership actions, especially as they relate to crisis management; and (3) if the CEO was no longer in the role, the rationale for the resignation. In addition to focusing on the CEO’s leadership journey, the case studies took into account the macroenvironment and industry dynamics so that we could understand the firm’s ecosystem and how the CEO responded to it. Using a temporal approach for the case studies enabled us to take a long-term view of the glass cliff phenomenon for analyzing leadership behaviors and responses to external pressures (Langley, 1999; Miles & Huberman, 1994). In addition to analyzing case study data for each CEO, we conducted cross-case analysis to synthesize patterns of behaviors across cases. Table 17-2 summarizes this data.

TABLE 17-1
Sample of African American CEOs
Name of CEO	Company	Hiring status	Tenure as CEO
1. Ursula Burns	Xerox	Internal	2009–2016
2. Kenneth Chenault	American Express	Internal	2001–2018
3. Arnold Donald	Carnival Cruise	External (but served on Carnival Cruise’s board of directors)	2013–present
4. Marvin Ellison	JCPenney	External	2014–2018
5. Roger Ferguson	TIAA-CREF	Internal	2008–present
6. Kenneth Frazier	Merck	External	2011–present
7. Aylwin Lewis	Sears/Kmart	External	2004–2008
8. Ernest Stanley O’Neal	Merrill Lynch	Internal	2002–2007
9. Rodney O’Neal	Delphi	Internal	2007–2014
10. Clarence Otis	Darden Restaurants	Internal	2004–2014
11. Richard Parsons	AOL Time Warner	Internal	2002–2007
12. Franklin Raines	Fannie Mae	External (but previously served as vice-chairman)	1999–2004
13. Don Thompson	McDonald’s	Internal	2012–2015
14. John Thompson	Symantec	Internal	1999–2009
15. Lloyd Ward	Maytag	External	1999–2000
16. Clifton Wharton Jr.	TIAA-CREF	External	1987–1993
17. Ronald Williams	Aetna	Internal	2006–2011

TABLE 17-2
Summary of CEO’s glass cliff situation
CEO	Glass cliff situation	Strategic responses	Departure description
1. Ursula Burns, Xerox	Declining revenues; threat of bankruptcy; economic downturn; technological change	Shifted Xerox’s focus from products to services and oversaw the acquisition of Affiliated Computer Services	Retirement
2. Kenneth Chenault, American Express	September 11 terrorist attack; 2008 financial crisis; losing Costco as a customer	Engineered a turnaround plan; demonstrated agility and improvisation and oversaw relocation strategy post-9/11; navigated financial crisis through participation in and early repayment of federal government bank bailout program	Retirement
3. Arnold Donald, Carnival Cruise	Viral outbreak on cruise ship; capsizing of cruise ships	Enhanced brand reputation; focused on innovative services and experiences; built consumer trust; managed safety concerns	Currently serving as CEO
4. Marvin Ellison, JCPenney	Management turmoil; declining revenues and significant loss of market share	Led turnaround strategy to boost performance, including e-commerce and a focus on private labels	Appointed president and CEO of Lowe’s
5. Roger Ferguson, TIAA-CREF	Stock market volatility and its impact on retirement accounts	Diversified customer base; weathered financial crisis without participation in the government-sponsored financial bailout program	Currently serving as CEO
6. Kenneth Frazier, Merck	Integration of acquisitions; product withdrawals	Built product pipeline	Currently serving as CEO
7. Aylwin Lewis, Sears/Kmart	Declining revenues; store closings; merger integration	Completed corporate restructuring; shifted merchandizing and market strategy	Abrupt announcement of departure, then served as Potbelly’s CEO
8. Ernest Stanley O’Neal, Merrill Lynch	Market downturn; largest-ever quarterly loss	Reinforced performance-driven strategy that put greater emphasis on riskier bets	Early retirement after the firm reported a $7.9 billion quarterly write-down because of aggressive bets in mortgage-related securities
9. Rodney O’Neal, Delphi	Bankruptcy	Diversified Delphi’s client base; led Delphi out of bankruptcy; cut expenses; streamlined and focused product line; invested in emerging markets	Retirement
10. Clarence Otis, Darden Restaurants	Debt; declining sales of restaurants; changing consumer food preferences	Orchestrated divestures to reconfigure and expand restaurant portfolio; invested in product innovation	Resigned after two years of declining profits and investor pressures
11. Richard Parsons, AOL Time Warner	Massive losses and sharply decreasing stock value after Time Warner merged with AOL	Led strategic, financial, and operational initiatives	Retirement
12. Franklin Raines, Fannie Mae	Attacked by both industry rivals and government officials (critics of the foray into home equity financing and subprime mortgage lending) and for Fannie Mae’s accounting irregularities	Accounting irregularities were investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission; Raines paid $24.7 million as a settlement for the civil lawsuit associated with the irregularities	Early retirement
13. Don Thompson, McDonald’s	Declining performance; movement toward health foods; competition from fast-casual restaurants; charged with “mak[ing] the Golden Arches golden again”	Led McDonald’s digital initiatives and efforts to boost menu innovation	Resigned during a cycle of declining revenues
14. John Thompson, Symantec	Challenged to strengthen Symantec’s leadership in three key areas: meeting customers’ needs, executing a leading digital strategy, and maintaining strong financial health and return on investment for shareholders	Transformed the company from a consumer software publisher to the leader in internet security, data protection, and storage management; diversified Symantec’s customer base; grew revenue tenfold	Retirement
15. Lloyd Ward, Maytag	Losing market share	Brought a new set of expectations and a different approach to brand development	Resigned as chairman and CEO, citing a difference of opinion with the board of directors over the company’s strategic outlook and direction
16. Clifton Wharton Jr., TIAA-CREF	Competitive and consumer pressures for product diversification, innovation, and restructuring	Formulated and implemented a strategic plan for product diversification and realigned the organization to focus on customer service and accountability centers	President Bill Clinton named Wharton deputy secretary of state
17. Ronald Williams, Aetna	Loss from continuing operation	Turned a struggling organization into an industry leader, transforming the company’s strategy, culture, operating performance, and financial results	Retirement

Crisis Leadership as (Un)usual Business for African American CEOs

From our case studies, several patterns emerged that we believe shed light on the glass cliff experiences of African American CEOs. As discussed earlier in this chapter, the core tenet of the glass cliff phenomenon centers on the idea that occupational minorities are more likely to reach positions of power in precarious circumstances associated with crises or periods of instability (Kulich & Ryan, 2017). It should be noted, though, that in the management literature, there are a wide range of definitions for what is considered a crisis. Our previous research has defined a business crisis as “a rare and significant situation that has the potential to become public and bring about highly undesirable outcomes for the firm and its stakeholders” (James & Wooten, 2010, p. 17).

In addition, we have reviewed several typologies for classifying crises, and in our research, we have used language adopted from the Institute of Crisis Management, a crisis consulting and research firm. The institute has identified two types of crisis situations: sudden crises and smoldering crises (Irvine, 1997). Sudden crises are unexpected events over which the organization has virtually no control and for which it is perceived to have limited fault or responsibility. Sudden crises usually disrupt operations of the business for some time. In contrast, smoldering crises are business problems that begin as small, internal problems within an organization and escalate over time because of management inattention.

Interestingly, our analysis revealed that the appointments of African American CEOs were not explicitly related to “traditional” notions of crises, such as sudden natural disasters or catastrophic events, or smoldering crises such as fraud, labor disputes, or lawsuits. Instead, their appointments were linked to what may be considered a need for the management of strategic crisis, organizational change, corporate turnaround, or industry disrupters. Likewise, for some of the CEOs in our sample, leading in a permanent state of crisis appeared to be their assignments (Heifetz, Grashow, & Linksy, 2009). These sustained crises involved cycles of stabilizing the situation and adjusting the firm’s strategy so that it had the capacity to thrive in its new reality. This skill set entails the ability to have an open-system perspective that understands both a firm’s internal and external environments and develop adaptive strategies that improve the firm’s alignment and, ultimately, performance (Nadler & Tushman, 1989; Preble, 1997). Hence, the involvement of a dynamic CEO is a necessity as the firm devises routines for strategizing for opportunities and threats because of the firm’s need for direction, visionary thinking, and balancing the competing demands of stakeholder groups (Wooten & James, 2014).

Preparing for the CEO Role as Crisis Leader

The CEOs in our sample did not appear to be naively taking their appointments as leaders who were expected to manage a crisis. Instead, they engaged in actions to prepare for their role as crisis leader, and press releases acknowledged that their skills and previous experiences were viewed as assets for resolving a crisis situation or turning around a company. For CEOs who were internal appointments, their preparation work was on-the-job training. This was the case for Ursula Burns. Before becoming CEO, Burns served in the role of president of Xerox, and she and her predecessor, Anne Mulcahy, were described as a dynamic duo who “worked together like combat soldiers in the same foxhole” (Morris, 2007). As the dynamic duo, Burns and Mulcahy reduced debt, produced technology disrupters such as a cost-efficient color printer, and negotiated with company unions to reduce thousands of jobs (Morris, 2007; Zarrolli, 2009). Similar to Burns, Richard Parsons, former CEO of AOL Time Warner, was handpicked by his predecessor, Gerald Levin, to make a merger of an old-line company and online media company work during an economic downturn (Dwyer & Schiesel, 2001). In preparing for this role, Parsons not only served as co–chief operating officer but was also a previous director of Time Warner. While serving as co–chief operating officer, Parsons became known as an indispensable problem solver with an unwavering killer instinct and relentless drive for winning (Bianco & Lowry, 2003).

In contrast to internal appointments for the CEO role, for external appointments the crisis management preparation work was rooted in the expertise the executive would bring into the company to improve the situation. For example, when Marvin Ellison was appointed CEO of JCPenney, he was brought in to clean up an unsuccessful overhaul by former CEO Ron Johnson (Wahba, 2016). Johnson came from Apple and attempted to reposition JCPenney as a hipper retailer, but this had negative financial consequences. The board was willing to take a chance with Ellison, who had led the US operations for Home Depot and thus had retail experience, albeit in a very different segment of the industry (McIntyre, 2017). Even so, he had previously addressed a crisis of lagging sales and low morale and, having partnered with Home Depot’s CEO, was credited with fixing customer satisfaction ratings and propelling the company into the world of e-commerce. To build on his Home Depot experience and to prepare for the CEO role at JCPenney, Ellison spent nine months serving as president under Myron E. Ullman III, who was JCPenney’s CEO at the time of Ellison’s appointment. The two conducted town halls and visited vendors and partners so that Ellison could have a crash course in areas that differed from Home Depot’s, such as apparel factories and merchandising.

Ellison’s tenure at JCPenney’s was a brief four years, among the shortest tenures in our sample. It is worth noting that at the time of this writing, Ellison has been appointed CEO of Home Depot’s largest competitor, Lowe’s, whose stock performance continues to lag significantly behind Home Depot’s. This new executive appointment will put Ellison squarely back in an industry for which he had substantial preparation, given his earlier, twelve-year tenure at Home Depot.

Leading under Pressure

Beyond preparing for their roles as crisis leaders, the African American CEOs in our study perceived the work of managing crises and unstable situations as not an unusual assignment but rather their responsibility. For example, when Clifton Wharton Jr. was CEO of TIAA-CREF, he knew that he was perceived as a crisis manager hired to turn around the company after the 1987 stock market crash. The risk of Wharton’s glass cliff assignment was portrayed in a New York Times cartoon that showed him walking a tightrope across Wall Street and carrying a safe with TIAA-CREF’s spilling currency (Davis, 1988). Yet he was able to use the administrative skills he learned from managing universities and serving on corporate boards to redesign the organization, with a focus on developing human capital and customer service, formulate a strategic plan, and restructure TIAA-CREF’s pension funds (Useem, 1998).

Analogous to Wharton’s experience, other African American CEOs often faced extreme pressures during their tenures to engage in frame-bending behaviors to save or reorient the firm (Nadler & Tushman, 1989). These pressures required organizational agility and the ability to perceive the crisis as an opportunity (James & Wooten, 2010; Wooten & James, 2008). Organizational agility entails having a comprehensive and thorough knowledge of all aspects of the business and the capacity to efficiently mobilize resources and functions to accomplish a goal or solve a problem.

American Express CEO Kenneth Chenault acknowledged that several times during his tenure, he had to demonstrate organizational agility to manage a crisis (Sweet, 2018). For example, early on, Chenault experienced a sudden crisis when the September 11 terrorist attacks occurred in 2001: American Express’s corporate headquarters was damaged and the firm lost eleven employees. Without a headquarters, Chenault had to lead the improvisation of relocating operations to various sites in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut while demonstrating compassion, effectively communicating the context for the firm’s actions, and showing concern for stakeholders (Colvin, 2009).

In addition to responding to the terrorist attacks, Chenault led American Express through the 2008 financial crisis, when the company experienced substantial losses in its consumer credit card business, and he managed yet another crisis in 2015 when Costco ended exclusive use of American Express in its stores (Sweet, 2018). As a consequence of the 2008 financial crisis, American Express received $3.4 billion of funds from the US government bank bailout program, but it was able to repay those funds in less than a year. Costco’s business with American Express represented 8 percent of spending for American Express cardholders and 20 percent of the firm’s loans. Yet by marketing to Costco customers, American Express was able to persuade many of them to switch to a new version of its credit card even though it was not cobranded with Costco.

Rodney O’Neal, former CEO of Delphi, is another example of a CEO in our sample who inherited a crisis and is credited with resolving it and then reinvigorating the organization. Delphi is a spin-off of General Motors’ auto parts subsidiary. O’Neal was appointed as CEO of Delphi in 2007, two years after the company filed bankruptcy, and he committed to financial and strategic actions that would transform the organization (Snavely, 2015). Restructuring pension plans and receiving the aid of investor groups enabled Delphi to emerge from bankruptcy. O’Neal asserts that the turnaround required visionary thinking and the ability to see possibilities and seize opportunities relating to sustainability, technological innovations, and the global marketplace.

Personal Resilience and Reinvention

An assumption of the glass cliff theory is that when occupational minorities are placed in the upper echelon of organizations, their assignments are risky and will be detrimental to their professional development and advancement. Furthermore, if they are not successful in the role, it will reinforce the stereotype that minorities lack the competence required to succeed as CEOs (Bruckmüller & Branscombe, 2010; Rudman & Glick, 2001; Tran, 2015). Thus, when examining our data, we sought to understand whether the CEO had a short tenure or a controversial departure from the role and, if so, how it was perceived and how it affected the person’s career. We observed that the narrative for exiting glass cliff assignments varied, but the CEOs in this study used their glass cliff experiences as a bridge to another act in their careers. Put simply, they demonstrated resilience—the ability to bounce back from adversity, repair oneself, and, in some cases, thrive by having a growth mindset and going beyond the original level of functioning (Ledesma, 2014).

The retirement of McDonald’s former CEO Don Thompson is an example of a contentious departure. He was blamed for an array of the fast-food chain’s problems: decline in sales, confusing menus, not responding to health food trends, fast food’s role in childhood obesity, and the underpayment of employees (Brown, 2015). Yet industry analysts noted that Thompson was appointed during a challenging time when traditional restaurants were learning how to compete with fast-casual restaurants like Chipotle, Five Guys, and Shake Shack, and McDonald’s leadership team was counting on its past successes and was not nimble enough to change (O’Conner, 2015). After retiring from McDonald’s, Thompson leveraged his previous experience to start Cleveland Avenue, a food-focused venture fund (Pletz, 2018). This fund has invested in ZeroCater, which features an online portal for providing lunches to businesses, and Beyond Meat, a company that is developing a plant-based substitute for meat.

Conclusion

It is fair to say that in today’s environment, chief executives across all industries and of all demographic backgrounds are finding themselves needing to leverage (or acquire) crisis management skills to do their jobs. The economic, political, and competitive landscape means that no executive, and no organization, is immune from challenge and disruption. In this regard, the astute executive knowingly enters into a C-suite appointment aware that his or her tenure will likely not be characterized by stable leadership; rather, he or she will inevitably face challenges that could ultimately threaten their executive legacy and career. Although we cannot know for certain, nor in totality, the motives for CEO appointments, it is noteworthy that women are seemingly tapped for glass cliff appointments disproportionately more than their white male counterparts. Whether they are simply deemed to be more skilled at managing crisis than men, or whether they are tapped to be the scapegoat for challenged organizations, thereby protecting the prototypical CEO, is inconclusive.

In the first decade of the twenty-first century, more African Americans were appointed to CEO roles than in any other time in history. Although the overall numbers are still small, their appointments appear to follow a similar pattern: they are seemingly tapped for glass cliff CEO assignments disproportionately more than are white executives. This chapter provides a preliminary case study examination of the African American CEOs appointed since 1987. We sought to understand the circumstances of their appointment, their preparation for the role, and their leadership approach while serving as CEO. In short, our look at African American CEOs offers an enhanced understanding of the glass cliff—who steps onto it, why, and to what end.

In our research, we observed that the executives who accepted the CEO challenge did so knowing the personal risks they faced: being blamed or scapegoated for failure, losing status, or interrupting a career track with a premature termination before a crisis is resolved. These outcomes for African Americans are often assumed to be more likely than would be the case for their white counterparts because the likelihood of the latter’s being tapped for similar appointments is dauntingly small. In one industry typically dominated by white leaders, professional sports, there is evidence to suggest that compared with whites, African American NFL coaches are less likely to be hired as head coaches (Wolfe, 2017) and more likely to be fired, even when they have a winning record (Berri, 2018). There may be reason to believe that the same is true for African American CEOs, but the sample is yet too small to make such suppositions. That said, when tapped to lead, the executives in our sample took up the mantle despite the risks. And most had meaningful tenures in their role.

One conclusion from this initial examination may be that African American executives see not just risk but also opportunity in crisis—opportunity for their companies and, as important, opportunity for themselves. Recognizing that C-suite appointments are, in fact, rare opportunities, they seize them even if the circumstances of the organizations they will lead are far from ideal. Further and comparative exploration of the propensity for personal risk, or perhaps exploration of the psychological characteristics of executives, is warranted. Are African Americans more willing or more comfortable with risk and ambiguity, the features that define glass cliff opportunities, than their white counterparts? Or do they score differently from whites on key personality dimensions such as openness (preference for novelty and variety) and neuroticism (ability to respond to stress or threatening situations) from the Big Five personality traits? Addressing these and related questions is beyond the scope of this chapter, but we believe it would be a worthwhile extension of the research.

Finally, the executives in our sample demonstrated organizational agility—thorough knowledge of the business and an ability to muster the resources required—which they sometimes tried to reinforce before stepping into a crisis leadership role. Resiliency was a common theme, evident both during their tenure and after it ended. Often, they leveraged the results of their turnaround—its success or failure—into a new opportunity. Ellison’s recent appointment to lead Lowe’s is noteworthy here. All these executives, it seemed, stepped onto the glass cliff of crisis leadership fully aware of how far there was to fall and with the strength to rebound. For those who seek or are pursuing a leadership career in the corporate world, we caution that one must be fully aware of the risks and opportunities such career trajectories can create. These roles are not for the faint of heart. Clearly, the more organizational and leadership experience one has, and the more diverse it is, the more prepared one will be to lead. This is particularly germane counsel given that those new to the middle-management ranks are demonstrating a desire for more authority and autonomy in their roles earlier in their career than has been true of previous generations of leaders. Failure to understand fully the scope of large and complex organizations before assuming significant positions of leadership may make one an undesirable leadership candidate and an unsuccessful CEO.

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Table of Contents for 17. The Glass Cliff: African American CEOs as Crisis Leaders

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17

The Glass Cliff