The Harvard Business Review recently revisited this phenomenon, where women are overrepresented in what they call "precarious leadership positions." That is, they're set up to fail by being given opportunities to lead only after a company is in so much trouble that it's too late to do anything except dismantle it.

So, your determination: golden opportunity, or glass cliff?"

The HBS piece Lisa is referencing, by Sylvia Anne Hewett, summarizes a piece of British research by MIchelle K  Ryan and summarized in a BBC piece, that makes the following points:

• Women promoted into top corporare positions--CEO, Chairman, etc--are more likely than their male counterparts to have moved into a more risky or precarious role.
  
• In a study of 100 companies during a period of overall stock-market decline those  who appointed women to their boards were more likely to have experienced consistently bad performance in the preceding five months than those who appointed men.
  
• Appointment of a woman director was not associated with a subsequent drop in company performance.
  
• Companies that appointed a woman actually experienced a marked increase in share price after the appointment.
• Poor company performance may lead to the appointment of women to positions of leadership, viz, the glass cliff.