Summary
In this bonus episode of the Best Fails podcast, host Alison Beckles sits down with occupational psychologist Christine Sutton to unpack failure, leadership, and the hidden pressures women face at the top.
The conversation exposed the systemic inequalities embedded in workplace culture and the very different way failure is experienced—and internalised—by women. Together, Alison and Christine explore the “glass cliff” phenomenon, where women are more likely to be handed high-risk leadership roles in times of crisis, only to shoulder disproportionate blame when things go wrong. They discuss the emotional toll this takes, its impact on career trajectories, and why psychological safety is not a “nice to have” but a leadership essential.
The episode closes with a call to action: the importance of reflection, strong support networks, and organisational responsibility in creating fairer, safer environments for women in leadership. Honest, insightful, and deeply relevant, this conversation challenges how we think about failure—and who is allowed to fail.
Takeaways
- Feedback must be framed constructively to avoid defensiveness
- Psychological safety is crucial for open conversations about failure.
- Psychological safety is essential for open feedback.
- Women often feel they must prove themselves more than men.
- The glass cliff phenomenon places women in risky leadership roles.
- Leadership roles for women are often seen as precarious rather than stable.
- Failure can have a more significant impact on women’s career progression than men’s.
- Women are often judged more harshly for taking risks compared to men.
- Women internalize failures more than men, affecting their confidence.
- Networking can be a barrier for women in leadership positions.
- Women often internalize blame for failures more than men.
- Systemic inequalities impact how failure is experienced.
- Reflection practices in teams can enhance learning and performance.
- Addressing root causes is key to organizational change.
Soundbites
- “Leaders are expected to kind of to know it all, to they’re almost placed on this pedestal, they can do no wrong.”
- “People learn, people innovate when it’s safe.”
- “Psychological safety is foundational.”
- “Women are more likely to be blamed than men.”
- “Women are judged more harshly for failures.”
- “You need to have people in your corner.”
- “We need to normalize learning from mistakes.”
- “If you see it, you can be it.”
- “Failure isn’t a personal flaw, it’s systemic.”
- “Women are judged more harshly for mistakes”
Christine’s Profile
Christine is a HCPC registered occupational psychologist and Chartered Fellow of the CIPD with over 20 years’ experience working across multiple industries. She began her career in the financial services sector, where she supported senior leaders across jurisdictions on employee development, leadership, and large-scale change initiatives. Since then, she has worked with organisations in diverse sectors to strengthen leadership capability, build effective teams, and support cultural transformation.
She is accredited in a wide range of psychometric tools and uses these in recruitment, leadership development, coaching, and team effectiveness programmes. Christine also delivers workshops and culture change initiatives, helping organisations to build trust, ownership, and accountability while aligning leadership behaviours with strategic goals.
Her areas of interest include leadership development, organisational culture, and building high-performance teams. She has a particular focus on how behaviours, culture, and diversity shape organisational effectiveness, and draws on research to inform inclusive and sustainable approaches to leadership and team development.
Christine’s Profile
Born and raised in Barbados, Gale Weithers has built a career grounded in resilience, creativity, and service.
Starting out in the field of Administration, she moved into Conference & Events Management, followed by a stint in Sales & Marketing before finally finding her true calling in Training and Development.
For more than 10 years, Gale has led customer service initiatives for well-known petroleum brands such as Shell, ExxonMobil and SOL across 23 countries. This experience afforded her the rare insight into how global brands navigate diverse service expectations while striving for excellence.
A Certified Instructional Designer & Virtual Trainer, Gale has also trained with the Disney Institute in Leadership, Employee Engagement, and Quality Service Standards. These credentials, combined with her global facilitation experience in training more than 65,000 people, enable her to design programs that are practical, engaging and results driven.
As the Founder and Lead Training Consultant of nVision Training Solutions, Gale is proud to partner with leaders genuinely interested in facilitating workshops built to empower teams, grow brands, and transform workplace cultures into environments where people thrive, customers feel valued, and service excellence becomes second nature.
This is why her passion lies in designing customized training programs that successfully blend Caribbean cultural insights with the development of positive service mindsets for individuals as well as leaders.
An international best-selling author and Barbadian Creative Writer Award winner, Gale is also the proud mother of one adult son, who is a qualified physiotherapist living his best life.
Contact Christine
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christinesuttonconsultant
Episode Links
YouTube: https://youtu.be/21grue82rzA
Spotify:
