‘Through the Glass Ceiling, over the Glass Cliff?’ Women Leaders in Bangladeshi Public Administration

Abstract

A number of women have reached top managerial positions in the public sector by breaking through the proverbial glass ceiling. However, there is limited research on what happens to these women once they reach higher leadership positions. Do they continue to face challenges despite their achievement? It is vigorously argued that women managers in upper-level government services tend to be evaluated less favorably than men, to receive less support from their peers, to be excluded from important networks, and to receive greater scrutiny and criticism even when performing exactly the same leadership roles as men. Women in leadership positions face an uphill battle with these challenges. And the challenges may set them up for failure, thus pushing them over the edge—a phenomenon called the ‘glass cliff’. This chapter analyzes the factors accounting for the successful advancement of women, how they shattered the glass ceiling, to enter the top level of civil services in Bangladesh, and what those factors may indicate about why women have not made more progress in the top posts. In this study, the glass cliff phenomenon is explained as another kind of glass ceiling that women face as they ascend to the highest structural levels in an organization. Once they crack the ceiling and fill senior positions, they are unable to exert authority in the same way as do men. The findings of this research indicate that dissatisfaction with intrinsic (e.g., involving policy-making, lack of empowerment, and inequality in the workplace) and extrinsic factors (e.g., work/life balance, ideological barriers, and subjective discrimination) leads to the glass cliff in the context of Bangladeshi public administration.