Glass Ceiling

The glass ceiling describes the invisible barrier that prevents women, people of color, and other underrepresented groups from advancing to senior leadership positions despite qualifications, performance, and expressed ambition equivalent to majority peers who progress unimpeded. It is a systemic phenomenon rather than an individual capability gap: the barrier operates through biased sponsorship patterns (senior leaders sponsor people who look like themselves), network access gaps (informal relationship-building that drives advancement happens in contexts where underrepresented professionals are excluded), and performance evaluation bias (equivalent performance is rated differently based on demographic characteristics). Addressing the glass ceiling requires intervening at the organizational system level — evaluation processes, sponsorship access, promotion criteria, and succession planning — rather than investing in programs that ask underrepresented employees to adapt their behavior to navigate a biased system.