The Miami Marlins promoted O’Connor to president of business operations on Monday, Nov. 14, 2022 ... [+]
For the first time, a major sports team in the United States will have women running the entire organization's day-to-day operations. Caroline O'Connor was named president of baseball operations for the Miami Marlins yesterday, almost two years after Kim Ng became the team's general manager.
O’Connor takes the reins of a team struggling in attendance and revenue. Research suggests that O'Connor may be on a “glass cliff,” holding a precarious leadership position as a female trailblazer in a struggling organization.
She is the second woman to serve as president of a Major League Baseball (MLB) team—Seattle Mariners' Catie Griggs was the first. As president of operations, the team announced that O'Connor would oversee all of the club's business operations, including sales, partnerships, marketing, human resources and diversity, equity and inclusion, finance, legal, communications, community outreach, technology, security, ballpark facilities and special projects. Ng, the first female general manager in the MLB, will continue to run the baseball side of the organization.
Unlike Ng, who came from a baseball background, O'Connor worked in finance before joining the Marlins. Having served as a managing director at Morgan Stanley
O’Connor faces several challenges in her new role. According to several business metrics, the Marlins organization is lagging behind most other MLB teams. They ranked second to last in attendance for MLB in 2022, have the lowest valuation of any MLB team and rank 28th (out of 30 teams) in revenue.
Given the Marlins' business performance, O'Connor may find herself on a glass cliff. The glass cliff refers to the phenomenon where women are more likely to be chosen to lead an organization in crisis mode. For example, one study found that women were more likely to be promoted to board positions in companies with consistently poor performance in the preceding five months. It's referred to as a cliff because it's a particularly precarious and challenging position to lead an organization out of difficult times. Blame often falls on the leader if there is no swift turnaround.
Underperforming organizations select women for these glass cliff roles for several reasons. Appointing a woman to a position traditionally held by a man signals change, and that alone can be a plus when an organization is struggling. In addition, the more feminine characteristics typically associated with female managers, like behaving in an understanding, intuitive and creative manner, may be more desirable in crises. Nonetheless, these glass cliff positions come with a far greater chance of failure than leadership positions held in stable times.
Women in these roles, particularly in male-dominated environments, can also find their actions scrutinized and judged more harshly. In one study, after just one mistake on the job, women in male-dominated leadership jobs were viewed as less competent and less high-status than men in these jobs.
On the bright side, there are already signs that O’Connor is improving the situation at the Marlins and may not become a victim of the glass cliff. Despite the dismal attendance at LoanDepot Park, where the team plays, the numbers are up by 12% over 2019, the last year they permitted full-capacity seating for the whole season.
"We're pretty deep with the tee-ball and the youth baseball league, the activities that we do with the schools around the community. We were seeing a lot of young Marlins fans out in the community and at our games, and that's really exciting for us. We need to keep pushing on that and keep getting the larger community coming to our games as a regular event when they're thinking of what to do on their nights and weekend," O'Connor said in an MLB press release.
