The “Cliff Edge” Projects
Imagine this scenario: You are sitting in a boardroom or on a high-stakes Teams call. The executive leadership team turns to you with a seemingly golden opportunity. There is a project, division, or portfolio that is currently failing, underperforming, or mired in controversy. They tell you that you are exactly the person to fix it. They praise your resilience, your unique perspective, and your unparalleled work ethic. They hand you the reins.
It feels like a breakthrough. But what if it is actually a trap?
During the research for our landmark 2026 report, The Cost of Black Excellence: Evidence from 1,039 Voices, one of the most chilling testimonies came from a self-employed business owner reflecting on her time in the corporate sector. She shared:
“I have seen employers bring in black women specifically to work on projects that seem impossible. I believe it’s called the ‘cliff edge’… which is like being set up to fail unless you work twice as hard as your counterparts.”
This is not an isolated incident or a paranoid perception. It is a documented organisational phenomenon where Black women and women of colour are disproportionately handed leadership roles or projects that are statistically destined to fail.
As a Wellbeing Strategist, a former Director of Building Surveying, and a trauma-informed somatic resilience coach, I have lived this reality and have coached countless women through the devastating aftermath. Today, we are going to explore the intersection of the “Glass Cliff,” the Excellence Tax, and the profound psychological and physical toll of being handed impossible tasks.
More importantly, I am going to teach you how to spot these setup projects, establish firm boundaries, and stop internalising organisational failures as your own personal shortcomings.
The Anatomy of the “Glass Cliff”
To understand what is happening to you, we must look at the research. In 2005, researchers Michelle Ryan and Alex Haslam at the University of Exeter coined the term “The Glass Cliff.” Following extensive studies of corporate performance, they discovered a distinct pattern: women and minoritised individuals are far more likely to be appointed to leadership positions or lead projects during periods of crisis or downturn, when the chance of failure is at its highest.
When things are stable and prosperous, white men are typically given the reins. But when a project is bleeding money, a client is ready to walk away, or a department’s culture is toxic beyond measure, the organisation suddenly looks for a “diverse” saviour.
As highlighted in the academic literature regarding Black and Minority Ethnic (BME) leaders, such as Wyatt and Silvester’s research on navigating the corporate labyrinth, Black professionals do not simply hit a glass ceiling; they are forced to navigate a labyrinth filled with trapdoors.
When we overlay the Glass Cliff with the findings from our 2026 Cost of Black Excellence report, a terrifying picture emerges. Our research revealed that 86% of Black professionals feel they must work harder than their white colleagues just to be seen as competent. We call this the Performance Burden.
When a Black professional is assigned to a cliff-edge project, she is not just facing a difficult task. She is battling an environment where any misstep will confirm the organisation’s unconscious bias. If she works 150% and pulls off a miracle, she merely meets baseline expectations. If the fundamentally flawed project fails, she becomes the scapegoat. The failure is attributed to her lack of capability, rather than the project’s inherent lack of resources, budget, or strategic support.
You are being asked to build a house on a crumbling foundation, and when the walls inevitably crack, you are blamed for the weather.
| Warning Sign | The Structural Reality |
|---|---|
| High Turnover | You are the 3rd “fixer” in 2 years; the issue is systemic, not personal. |
| Low Authority | You have the title but no budget/headcount. You are a “face,” not a leader. |
| “Unique Magic” | A trapdoor disguised as a compliment. They expect you to absorb toxicity. |
What the Cliff Edge Does to Your Body
As someone who spent over 12 years in business leadership within the high-pressure property and construction sectors, I know the Cliff Edge intimately. Before I burned out as a Director of Building Surveying, I was the “fixer.” I took on the most complex, under-resourced projects because I believed that if I could just turn them around, my excellence would finally be undeniable.
What I did not realise was that my body was keeping the score.
Taking on a Cliff Edge project forces you into chronic hyper-vigilance. Our research shows that 63% of Black professionals report severe or significant health impacts directly attributed to their work environments—ranging from sleep disturbances and tension headaches to severe anxiety, autoimmune flare-ups, and chronic pain.
When you are handed a project designed to fail, your nervous system interprets this as a profound threat to your safety and survival. The “Excellence Tax” activates your sympathetic nervous system (your fight-or-flight response). Because you cannot literally fight your board of directors or flee the boardroom, your body channels that survival energy into over-functioning.
Late nights spent refining strategies at 2:00 AM lead to chronic fatigue. This is often compounded by the need to code-switch and meticulously manage your tone, while simultaneously absorbing microaggressions that threaten to derail the project.
Dr. Arline Geronimus calls this “Weathering” the accelerated biological ageing and physiological deterioration that occurs when marginalised bodies are subjected to chronic, systemic stress.
It took me burning out entirely and retreating to Jamaica for a year of recovery to realise that my perfectionism was not a character trait; it was a trauma response. As I sat by the water, studying somatic healing and organisational psychology, my nervous system slowly began to unspool. I realised that the exhaustion I felt wasn’t because I wasn’t smart or strong enough. It was because I had been carrying the weight of institutional failure on my own shoulders.
I had been trying to outwork a system that was designed to extract my labour while setting me up to fall.
How to Spot a Glass Cliff Project
The first step to protecting your peace and your career is learning to recognise the Cliff Edge before you step off it. These projects are rarely presented as poisoned chalices; they are usually packaged as “stretch assignments” or “high-visibility leadership opportunities.”
Here are the diagnostic warning signs you need to look out for:
1. The Project Has a History of Casualties
If you are the third or fourth person asked to lead this initiative in the past two years, pause. High turnover in a specific project or department is a glaring red flag indicating systemic issues that cannot be solved by sheer willpower.
2. High Visibility, Low Authority
Are you being given the title and the public responsibility, but none of the actual power? A classic Cliff Edge setup involves making a Black woman the “face” of a turnaround project whilst withholding the budget, headcount, or decision-making authority required to actually execute the strategy.
3. Ambiguous Metrics of Success
If the leadership team cannot clearly define what success looks like, or if the goalposts constantly shift depending on the day, you are on a Glass Cliff. Without quantifiable, agreed-upon metrics, you will never be able to prove that you succeeded, leaving you perpetually vulnerable to subjective criticism.
4. The “Unique Magic” Narrative
Be wary of language that borders on the “Strong Black Woman” trope. If leadership tells you they are giving you the project because of your “unique magic,” your “resilience,” or your ability to “handle difficult personalities,” they are subtly telling you that they know the environment is toxic and they expect you to absorb that toxicity without complaint.
How to Respond
So, what do you do when you spot the Cliff Edge? Do you simply refuse the work?
In a perfect world, yes. But in the real world, turning down a high-profile project can lead to being labelled “unambitious” or “not a team player” (another facet of the Excellence Tax). Instead of an outright refusal, you must lean into strategic negotiation and somatic boundary-setting.
Here is how you navigate the Cliff Edge without sacrificing your wellbeing:
Step 1: Ground Your Nervous System First
When you are offered the project, do not answer immediately. The pressure to please and prove your worth will tempt you to say “yes” on the spot. Notice what is happening in your body. Is your breathing shallow? Is your jaw clenched? Do you feel a knot of anxiety in your stomach?
Take a breath, feel your feet on the floor, and say: “Thank you for thinking of me for this. It sounds like a complex challenge. I am going to need 48 hours to review the current status of the project before I propose a roadmap.” This somatic pause prevents your trauma response from making career decisions for you.
Step 2: Audit the Foundation
Put on your surveyor’s hat. Before I ever agreed to fix a crumbling building, I had to survey the structural damage. Do the same with this project. Where is the budget? Who is actively working on this? Where did the previous leader face roadblocks? What are the immovable deadlines? Do not accept the project based on the promise of future resources; accept it only on the reality of current resources.
Step 3: Renegotiate the Metrics of Success
If you are going to take the project, you must define what success looks like in writing. If the project is fundamentally flawed, “success” might not be a total turnaround; success might simply be stopping the financial bleed, or auditing the failure to prevent it from happening again. Tie your performance review to these realistic, renegotiated metrics, not the impossible fantasies of the executive board.
Step 4: Stop Internalising Systemic Failure
This is the most crucial, and often the most difficult, step. In my coaching practice, I use Internal Family Systems (IFS) and somatic tracking to help women separate their core self-worth from their professional output.
You must recognise the “Manager” part of your psyche—the part that believes if you just work harder, you can control the outcome. You have to compassionately tell that part of yourself that systemic racism, organisational incompetence, and underfunded mandates are not your personal failures.
If a Cliff Edge project fails despite your strategic, boundary-driven leadership, it is not a reflection of your intellect, your excellence, or your worth. It is a reflection of a broken system.
Reclaiming Your Brilliance
As Black women, we are conditioned from birth to believe we must work twice as hard to get half as far. But as the brave business owner in our research stated, the “twice as hard” rhetoric is often weaponised to keep us endlessly labouring on the edge of the cliff.
It is time to step back from the edge.
Success is not about blindly enduring extraction. True success—the kind that allows you to heal, grow, and thrive in work and life—is about leveraging your actual brilliance in environments that resource you, respect you, and protect you.
You do not need to be the sacrificial fixer for toxic corporate cultures. You are allowed to protect your peace, draw a boundary, and demand that your excellence be met with equity.
If you recognise your own story in these findings, you are not alone. It is time to move from surviving to thriving.
I invite you to download the full 2026 Cost of Black Excellence Report to see the hard data behind your lived experience. If you are ready to heal from corporate burnout, regulate your nervous system, and step into your authentic power, join our supportive community at COBE Community.
Natasha Williams
