Women’s leadership development in sport settings: factors influencing the transformational learning experience of female managers

PurposeThis study explores the positive and negative factors influencing transformational learning experiences of female leaders in women’s leadership development programmes in sports and examines the differences in learning/change factors cited by those who successfully addressed them and those who failed.Design/methodology/approachThe study adopted a qualitative research method, using phone interviews with women leaders in a sports setting.FindingsThe findings revealed that participants presented clear progress in terms of leadership skills, but they failed to report whether this progress can be achieved if the programme is running within a specific sports organisation, targeting a specific kind of sports leadership in the long term.Research limitations/implicationsThere were a number of limitations for this study, e.g. selection of participants, sample size, exploratory methodology, which affected generalising the findings to other sports organisations or other countries.Originality/valueThe study provides a starting point for the exploration of the effectiveness of women leadership development programmes and how designers can evaluate the outcome of such initiatives in the UK.